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My apartment has been lonely right from the start, but now that the four of them have been inside it, I feel their absence even more.

I can still feel Hutch’s arm around me, and Christian’s hand on my arm.

I’m so pitiful.

After eating a piece of toast with peanut butter, I take off my makeup, brush my teeth, and lie down in my bed, already dreading the alarm I set for the morning.

In the fuzzy moments that lie between consciousness and sleep, a thought occurs to me that makes me sit upright, suddenly wide awake again: Before they found out I was pregnant, the men were looking for me at Club Red.

They didn’t know I was pregnant until they got there. So why did they go?

Is it possible they were having regrets about the breakup?

I wish this would have occurred to me when they were here, so I could have asked them.

Despite how exhausted I am, there’s no way I’ll be able to fall asleep with this on my mind. Before I can overthink it, I reach for my phone, find the group that includes all four of them, and send off a message. “Why did you go to Club Red last night?”

Hutch said to contact them anytime; I hope he meant it.

An answer comes in less than ten seconds.

“We wanted to see you,” Mace says.

“Why?”

Hutch: “We were worried about you.”

“And we missed you,” Christian adds.

Hope inflates my chest, making me feel lighter than I’ve felt in days.

They missed me.

Then I start to question it. Missed me as in they regret breaking up with me, or missed me like a habit, and worried about me out of friendly concern?

“You missed me?” I type.

“Are you at your apartment?” Hutch asks. When I tell him I am, he says, “We’re coming over.”

TATTOO 4

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ROSE

I’m not sure whether to change out of my pajamas and into regular clothes, and I’m still going back and forth about the decision when there’s a knock at my door, making me jump.

They must have broken speed records getting here.

Even though they’ve seen me naked, I never slept over, and they’ve never seen me in my pajamas, especially not the pink short set I’m wearing that has a cartoon cup of coffee and a donut on the shirt and says “We belong together.”

When I answer the door, they don’t seem to notice my clothing or my clean-scrubbed face. Hutch is at the head of the group, and he pulls me into his arms immediately, but I don’t get to stay there long, because Mace wants a turn, then Christian, and finally, Zipper.

“We made a mistake,” Christian says.

“The biggest mistake of our lives,” Mace adds.

“You did?” I briefly wonder if I’m still in bed, and this is all a dream.