Free Beautiful Misery (The Beautiful Series) by Chandin Whitten

to feel forced.”
    “Shut up. Just shut up. I want to be her daddy.”
    This time I got a full blown smile when Cobie asked, “Did you just say her?”
    Laughing I said, “ Yep, I sure did.”
    Lifting her hands she wrapped them around my back. “This is crazy , but right now I feel like everything will be okay. In some weird way we will find our own and be a family.”
    Kissing her forehead I placed my hands on her waist. “We won’t be the normal Jones family but we will be us. I want to buy a house in Ohio for our family. A place our baby can call home. Our little girl, yes it will be a girl, will know that we love her. That’s all that matters. Fuck the rest of the world.”
    Resting my head on hers we both shut our eyes.
    “So I guess this means I won’t kick your ass?” Larkin asked. I could still here the anger and hurt in his voice. Cracking my eyes open I saw the forced half smile on his face.
    She and I broke apart. Both of us taking a few steps away from each other. Jenna was slowly walking down the hall keeping her eyes on Larkin who was still standing in the doorway.
    Cobie cleared her throat and fixed her brother with a pointed stare. “You can stop with the big brother shit. I told you I could handle this. I’m not your six year old little sister anymore. I’m having a baby, I’m growing up. You have to let me handle my life now.”
    Holy shit. Was that tears in Larkin Nayler’s eyes?
    Larkin furrowed his brows and said, “Cobie, I will always see you as my baby sister. I will always want to protect you.” Letting out a sigh he shut his eyes before continuing, “Cobie , you should know by now that I would kill to protect you. I wanted you to have every option in the world open to you. I didn’t want you to have to let go of your dreams because of some sillyass mistake.”
    Jenna was standing at Larkin’s side, her left hand resting on her swollen stomach, the light from my room reflecting off her diamond ring. The ring Larkin had given her to replace the one that I had at given her when I promised her my forever. And damn if it didn’t still hurt.
    Cobie took a deep, shaky breath. “I know you want to protect me and I’m glad. And when I was fourteen I needed your protection. But I’ve grown up.” She took a step closer to me, brushing my hand. “What Gage and I did, I could never call that a mistake because out of that we created our baby. I’m not giving up my dreams. Simply creating new ones. When you found out about Evie a few years ago, weren’t you the one that told me you would do anything, even give up football to be her father. But look, you didn’t have to give up your dream to be a daddy. You created a new dream that included your family. That’s what I will do.”
    “Do you think I would let her give up her dream just because I got her pregnant? That’s not who I am. I know she wants to be a doctor and I will make sure that happens. Even if that means I get up at three in the morning to feed our baby. I would do it. This situation isn’t ideal but its reality. It happened and now we deal with it and move on. We have our baby and raise her together, even if we aren’t together. This is Cobie and I and we got this shit under control.” Looking from face to face I stopped when my eyes landed on Cobie. “I won’t let you give up your dream. I can get a house in Ohio and we will raise our baby there so you can finish school. When I can’t be there I will make sure someone is always there to help.”
    “I swear man if you fuck up and hurt her or this baby not even Jenna can keep you safe. Hear me?” Larkin fixed his eyes on me.
    Giving him a hard nod I said, “Heard.”
    Now he is getting a little taste of what I went through three years ago.

    W alking up to house number four of the day, Cobie and I were both getting tired and irritated. Hopefully this one had the ‘IT’ factor.
    Outside it was nice. There was a long, gated drive surrounded by mature oak trees