Josh

Life is full of challenges. Mine are varied and multiplied. First, there’s the fact that I’m in a wheelchair. Second, it’s my own fault I’m in the chair. And third is a drunk girl on a grand piano. Dancing. Well, it’s more like wiggling than dancing, with lots of hip shaking and waving arms. It’s hot as hell and I’ve never seen anything I want to sit and stare at more. Only thing is…she won’t come down.

“Star!” I hiss at her.

She ignores me and spins in a circle, her four-inch heels scratching the surface of the piano. Her sisters, Finch and Lark, are begging her to come down. I don’t know what I can do from my seated position. If I was…well…the way I was before, I’d grab her and carry her out of there. But I’m kind of not able to do that.

“Star!” I whisper fiercely.

The customers at Reeds, the restaurant owned by former pro football player Sam Reed, are watching her. Some with interest. Some with lustful intent, because she’s fucking beautiful with her face flushed and her dark hair streaming down her back. Some are looking at her with disdain. Some with pity. It’s the pity that makes me look to her sisters. I need to get her down.

“You might want to go and get some help,” her sister Fin says quietly to me.

I nod and roll myself into the kitchen. Sam, the owner of the restaurant, is bent over a plate full of food, making it perfect.

“Um, Sam…”

Sam looks up.

“We have a little problem out here.” A beautiful problem. But still a problem.

“What is it?”

“Um…one of Peck’s sisters is dancing on the piano.” I scratch the end of my nose, because I don’t like the way he’s suddenly staring at me.

Peck, Sam’s wife, waddles her very pregnant self into the dining room, so I follow her, and she stops at the foot of the piano. “What’s wrong with her?” she asks.

Fin shrugs. “We don’t know. She showed up like this.”

“Where’s Wren?” Peck wants to know. I know Wren is Star’s sister. Her actual biological sister, not adopted sisters like the other three of the members of Fallen from Zero.

Fin shrugs again. “No one has been able to find Wren.”

Sam walks up beside Peck. “What the fuck…?”

“Get her down, Sam,” Peck begs, tugging on his sleeve.

He motions Star forward. “Hey, Star,” he says gently. “I have something I need to show you.”

“If it’s your dick,” she replies, “the answer is no, thank you.”

I bite the inside of my lip to keep from laughing. Sam’s face turns red and he heaves a sigh.

Suddenly, he swipes an arm through the air and grabs her leg. She flounders, and in my mind’s eye I can see her falling head first into a potted plant. But at the last moment, he adjusts her body so that she falls across his shoulder.

He hitches her fine ass higher and walks to the door. I scramble to wheel myself over to the table where I know Star’s purse is sitting and I grab it, stuff it into my lap, and follow them out the front door.

“Um, Sam…” Peck mutters. She stops and looks down toward her shoes. I seriously doubt she can even see her shoes, but still. There’s a puddle of water at her feet on the sidewalk and she’s clutching her huge belly. Seriously, she looks like she has a basketball under her shirt.

Sam struggles to put Star in a cab and hands some bills to the driver. “Do you want to go with her?” he asks Peck. Apparently he hasn’t noticed the fact that Peck’s about to have a baby on the sidewalk.

“I don’t think I can,” she mutters.

Sam looks down at her feet and his mouth falls open. “Oh, shit. It’s time?” he cries. He’s frantic all of a sudden, swinging his hand around and swiping his hair back from his forehead like he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“Go get one of my sisters to go with her.” Peck shoves him toward the restaurant. “And hurry.”

Sam disappears inside.

Star stumbles out of the cab when she realizes what’s going on. The cab takes off, leaving us all on the sidewalk.

“Well, shit,” I mutter.

“I got her,” Peck says. But then she doubles over as pain wracks her body.

“Oh, fuck!” Star cries. “You’re having a fucking baby!” She cups her hands around her mouth. “I’m going to be the best aunt ever!” she yells. The sound echoes in the nearby alley.

Star starts to jump up and down, and for a second, I just enjoy the sight of her boobs bouncing, because she’s got an amazing rack, but then her ankle gives out.

“I think I just hurt myself,” she says, and her eyes well up with tears. “I think I need to sit down.”

Then she plops that beautiful ass of hers right down in my lap. I lift her up a little so I can get her purse out from under her, since I’m still holding on to it.

“You’re a lump, aren’t you?” I mutter.

“Are you calling me fat?” Her voice rises to a decibel that probably has every dog in the area on alert.

I try to bite back my smile, but it’s really hard. “Only in the best possible way.”

Sam and the oldest Reed brother, Paul, come outside, and Sam’s still frantic. Thank God he has Paul with him now, because I have my hands and my lap full of Star.

They argue for a minute about what they’re going to do with her.