Beautifully Knight (Jordan Knight Fanfic, Liadan #5)

Ducks and Demos

-MARIA-

"Okay, sis, so I just got off the house phone with the shop and Jeremiah is on the way because DJ left for the day, but he's probably going to walk through the door any second now so I can get him to come to help you."

I sighed as I stared inside the hood of my MINI Cooper while my sister's voice echoed through Facetime.

Like everything else about my horrible day so far, running out of gas apparently wasn't enough of a punishment for me. My car's battery had also decided to die suddenly in the midst of me sobbing in the driver's seat. I tried to calmly tell myself that it was just because the car was old—it was my very first vehicle and I hardly drove it anymore. It just sat in the garage for sentimental purposes and memories more than anything nowadays. My daily vehicle was my Range Rover so it was bound to happen that I'd have car trouble, but that didn't make me feel better.

My head hurt and my throat ached and all I wanted to do was go home, but I couldn't.

I let out a shaky breath and turned to see Natalie peering at me while she smoothed one hand over the cute floral nightgown she wore and the other held a curling iron up to her head, "No, no, don't do that. Don't mention any of this to DJ. I don't want to ruin your date night."

"Date night?" She chuckled and shook her head as she released the curl and grabbed another section of hair to make another. "I'm in PJs, Maria. I'm just trying out a hairstyle so I can take selfies for Danielle's lookbook because she's not feeling the greatest and I wanted to help out."

"What's wrong with Dani?"

Natalie bit her lip, "Promise not to say a word to anybody?"

"Of course, I promise. She's another sister," I nodded.

"Yeah," Natalie agreed. "Well, she's a couple of months late."

I gasped and my eyes widened, "She and Simon are expecting?"

"I don't know. She hasn't taken a test yet or anything and he doesn't even know that she's late, but that's what she thinks. She just feels like things are up in the air because he hasn't proposed yet and she's stressing a lot over it which is why I told her it's possible it's nothing."

"It's possible, but that was my tell-tell when I was first expecting."

"Really?" Natalie asked and I nodded.

"Yeah, plus I just felt off. I was crying all the time and overly sensitive and I felt like I had a horrible case of allergies."

"Aw," Natalie softened. "I don't know what's wrong with me then because DJ guessed I was pregnant before I knew. Like he bought a test and brought it home before I ever missed all because I texted him for a chocolate bar from the vending machine at his shop."

"That sounds like DJ," I chuckled.

"I pretty much took the test as a joke because I was certain there was no way we were pregnant already, but voila it came back positive."

"And now we've got my newest nephew," I smiled.

"Yeah," she giggled. "So I don't know, my heart is really going out for Dani, but the thing is I know that Simon's trying to propose because Logan told me, but it's a surprise and I have to keep my mouth shut. It's so hard."

"The surprise will be worth it."

"I hope so, I hope she doesn't think he's just asking because she's pregnant though. I kind of want her to know he was already planning it, you know?"

"Yeah, but they've been together forever. I don't see them ever splitting honestly."

"Like you and Tony?" Natalie smiled and I bit my lip.