Page 141 of Strictly the Worst

“Thank you for celebrating it early with me.” I kiss her cheek and hug her again, then I pick up one bag while she picks up the other.

Jared is standing in the doorway. Linc is standing in the hallway, his arms crossed.

“Hey Dad,” Zoe says, handing him her bag.

“Hey Zo.”

She turns to Linc. “I guess I’ll see you after New Years.”

“Yeah, you will.” He hugs her and she hugs him back hard. “Have a good time. And if you need us, call.”

“I won’t.” She winks at him. “I don’t want to disturb your PDAs.”

“Tessa.” Jared nods at me.

“Hi. Merry Christmas,” I say to him.

“And to you.” He takes Zoe’s other bag from me. “You ready?” he asks Zoe. “We gotta get a head start on the traffic.”

“Yeah. I’m good.”

She blows me a kiss and the two of them head down the hallway to the elevators. I stand and watch until they step inside and then I gently close the door.

“You okay?” Linc asks, his eyes wary.

I take a deep breath. No parent likes spending Christmas Day without their kid. But it happens all over the world. “Yeah,” I say. “Do we need to go, too?”

“Another half an hour,” Linc tells me. “Come here.” He reaches for me, his fingers sliding between mine, then pulls me against his body. Cupping my face with his warm palms, his eyes catch mine.

“Next year you get her for the whole holiday,” he reminds me.

“She’ll be fifteen. And a bigger pain in the ass.”

He laughs. “I know you don’t mean it.”

No, I don’t. I ache for her.

But then I’ve been aching a lot this month. In all kinds of ways. “We should enjoy this,” I tell him. “This is our last Christmas just the two of us.”

“Until Zoe decides she has better things to do than spend time with us.” He grins.

“No.” I shake my head slowly. “We won’t be alone then, either.”

“Why not…” He slowly trails off as realization replaces the frown lines on his face. “What?” he asks, his eyes searching mine. “Are you?”

“Pregnant?” I whisper. “Yes.”

A huge grin pulls at his lips. “You’re kidding me.”

“No, I’m not.” We made the decision a few months ago to stop using birth control. Because yes, my doctor couldn’t find any fertility problems, but I’m still heading toward my late thirties. If we want a baby, we needed to do it soon.

“How long?” Linc asks, staring at my stomach like he can’t believe his baby is in there.

“Six weeks,” I tell him. “So we have a while to go.”

“When did you find out?”

“Yesterday.” I’d suspected for a few days, but with the holiday season and getting ready for us all to leave the city I’d finally gotten around to taking a test on Christmas Eve morning while I was cooking the ham. “I wanted to tell you when we were alone. I hope that’s okay.”

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