Page 137 of Dating the Defensive Back

“Did you ever take the test?” she asks softly.

I press my lips together and shake my head.

“You got your period?”

I shake my head again.

“Do you want to?”

“In my heart, I know it’s negative. But, yeah, I guess I should.” I glance toward the bathroom, and it feels like the clock of doom is ticking.

“I’m right here, okay?”

I nod. “Okay.”

I head to the bathroom, read through the directions, and take the test, and then I call her in.

“Is it done already?” she asks.

I shake my head. “No, but I need moral support while I wait.”

“I set a timer and walked away,” she admits.

“Well, I’m planning to stare at it until I have an answer.”

She giggles, and that’s always been the difference between us. She has patience. I do not.

I don’t want to wait for Grayson to figure out that we belong together.

But maybe I need to take a page from Kelly’s book and give him the time and space he needs to work through this.

I watch the control line as it turns a pale pink.

I wait to see if another line appears. It doesn’t.

“Yours was really obvious, right?” I ask.

She nods. “I mean…I waited the full three minutes, but yeah. Two pink lines.”

“How long has it been?”

“You didn’t look at the clock?” she asks.

“No! I was too busy peeing on a stick!”

She giggles even though it’s not very funny. “No idea. Thirty seconds, maybe? A minute?”

I blow out a breath. “Fine. Can you set a timer for two more minutes?”

“Of course I can.” She pulls her phone out of her pocket, and we watch the two minutes tick down. The pale pink of the control line deepens a little darker, but no second line appears.

The timer ticks down to zero, and her phone quacks.

“Seriously? A duck?” I ask.

“I use the timer a lot in my classroom, and the kids respond to the quack.”

“You’re a quack,” I say, and we both giggle.

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