Page 89 of Ghosted By Texas

“I’m pregnant,” Jordan whispered, though she might as well have shouted those words for the impact they made.

It felt like my heart took a nose-dive right out of my chest and hit the fucking floor only to bounce away and shatter somewhere just out of reach. Those two words shouldn’t have packed that much punch, but I knew in an instant that they did.

It was over.

Becs might have eventually come around and accepted Jordan in my life as a friend, though that train of thought had been a moot point after the display Jordan just put on for her. There was no way in hell that Becs would stick around while I had to coparent with Jordan, especially after the lies she’d spewed tonight.

I knew just as surely that Jordan wouldn’t tolerate Becs being around to play mommy to a kid we had together. She was already beyond territorial over me and even my fucking house apparently. I knew Jordan had been loud on purpose earlier. She was trying to prove a point to Becs, just in case she was listening and God, I really hoped like hell that I’d been wrong about Jordan seeing Becs on the landing, standing there to witness her lies.

Jordan hated my house. She hated the wood and stone construction and preferred the clean lines and smooth features of modern architecture instead. The closest she had come to helping pick anything out for my house was when I invited my sisters and mom to help me go get curtains and blinds for the windows because I didn’t know jack shit about shopping for things like that. Victoria had dragged Jordan along too, but my friend refused to help unless I bought a different house – one that she helped me choose instead. We all thought she had been joking that day. Suddenly, I didn’t think that was the case.

The way Jordan twisted the truth to make it sound like we’d planned the house together, cast doubt on everything that happened in our past too. I knew who had been telling the truth about what happened before. Becs had been right all along, about my friend manipulating all the relationships I tried to have, to ensure their failure. Unfortunately, it didn’t fucking matter anymore. Jordan just said the two fucking words that would change everything. Now, I had to figure out how to tell Becs that we were over.

“How exactly are you pregnant? I thought you said you had birth control covered?”

Stupidly, there had been a time or two, a couple months before Becs came back into my life, where Jordan and I hadn’t been as careful as we should have. Both times, Jordan had hopped on my dick too quickly for me to stop her long enough to put on a condom.

She’d giggled and said, “I have birth control covered, but the damage is already done. You can pull out, if that will make you feel better.”

Stupid me, thinking with my stupid dick, and wanting to know what sex felt like without a condom for once in my twenty-eight years, had reluctantly agreed to continue with the condomless sex. I’d also pulled out before climaxing, but apparently that hadn’t worked out so well.

Jordan shrugged. “Nothing is totally effective. I guess we got our miracle shot, and I’m taking it, no matter what you say, Austin. I’m having this baby and I won’t allow my baby to be around your fucking whore.”

And there it was, the ultimatum I knew would come. I could have my kid with Jordan, or I could have Becs, but not both. I would choose Becs over any other human in the world, with one exception, and this was it.

This was my kid, and I would never do that to a child of mine. They were supposed to come first. That was something both of my parents had drilled into our heads, right along with being responsible about sex. Becs would never let me choose her over my child anyway. Then there was the part where she wouldn’t be able to be in my life and watch as I had a baby with Jordan. I think it would kill her. It was fucking making me sicker than hell as I tried to comprehend everything.

That was when I knew what I had to do. I would have to make Becs hate me. It was the only way to give her the clean break she would need to move on from the fucking misery I always brought into her life.

“Austin?” Someone questioned from above me, which was how I realized I’d fallen to the floor at some point. My ass was on the hardwood and my face was buried in my knees. How had I fucked my life up this bad? Becs words came back to haunt me. She’d warned me that I’d fall right back in with Jordan when she was gone, the last time we were together. She told me something about not learning an important lesson since I didn’t understand the lengths Jordan would go to keep me.

I glared up at the woman who I thought had been my best friend all these years. She had done this on purpose. Her eyes were wide, shocked by my reaction to her news, obviously. I don’t know what the fuck she expected.

“Austin, are you okay? I know it’s a shock, but we’ll work through it. We were destined to be together anyway, so this just speeds up the inevitable.”

There it was.

Becs had been right all along. Jordan was obsessed with the thought that we were meant to marry one day because her mother had drilled the idea into her head when we were kids. I couldn’t even fault her for it. That was an expectation that should have never been placed on her shoulders. Did my mother hope for a union between me and her best friend’s daughter? Yes. Did she ever force the idea down my throat? No. She told me her greatest happiness would be to see me find a life partner like she found in my father, no matter who it turned out to be.

I found that connection with Becs. Now, I was stuck with Jordan because I couldn’t keep both the woman I loved and the baby that was on the way. My baby with the wrong woman.

“I need you to leave,” I told Jordan who immediately puffed up, ready for a fight. “I need you to leave so I can break the news to Becs.”

“I don’t want her to know about the baby yet. She’ll make our child into some awful monster who is coming between you two, and I won’t allow our baby to be a pawn for her to use against you.”

That wasn’t true. If I knew Becs at all, she would sacrifice our relationship immediately for the sake of my child. That was the kind of woman she was. That’s why I had always pictured her as the mother of my children. I’d never even imagined having a kid with Jordan, and it made me sick all over again to think that it was about to become my reality.

“I’m not going to tell her about the fucking baby, but I do need to let her go, and you will not be here for that.”

“Fine.” Jordan glanced down at the phone she pulled from her pocket. “It’s quarter after four now. I’ll be back by eight, so we can have breakfast and talk over where we go from here. Maybe it’s time to sell your monstrosity of a house and think about getting something we both like,” she demanded.

“Funny, I thought you helped me pick everything about this house out. Isn’t that what you yelled, so that my girlfriend would think I built this house for our life together?” Her cheeks turned bright red with embarrassment at being called out for the games she tried to play.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Honestly, Aus, the hormones are doing my head in. I can’t think straight,” she whined and even that felt fake, but what the fuck did I know about pregnant women and hormones? Jordan’s sweet, apologetic tone disappeared almost immediately as she started speaking again, and I swear it was like witnessing her turn into someone else before my very eyes.

“Make sure you do it right this time, because I meant what I said, that woman will not be involved with my baby. If she stays around, I’ll run, and you’ll never get to see your child, and neither will your family.”

Jordan really went there while I was still stuck on whether it was truly pregnancy hormones making her crazy or if I’d missed that she had been all along. All I knew was that she was about to cost me my happiness and hurt the one woman I loved more than anyone on the fucking planet.

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