Page 103 of Devilish Ink

I held up my empty ring finger. “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

“Oh, we’re already way ahead of ourselves.” Aurnia waved the positive pregnancy test.

We all laughed again and I tried to hold onto that feeling.

Things were only going to get harder from there. I’d thrown a wrench into a gear that was already a mess.

Later, I promised to call if I needed anything at all.

They shouted congratulations in the stairwell and I could even hear their happy shouts out on the sidewalk.

I tried not to feel like it was all a charade I was going through. I tried to convince myself that this could all be real: a safe, cherished, supported family.

But I needed Liam to be there, to smile with me, to hold me in his tight embrace to truly believe.

I know he said he wanted a baby for us.

But since he’d confronted Rian, he’d been…distant. He seemed so removed, so unsettled. His hopelessness rocked me. I was used to him being the rock.

The thirty minutes it took for him to drive back from the garage were filled with anxious pacing, constant hand wringing, and flinches at every creak and moan outside the apartment.

When he unlocked the door to my apartment—he had a second key cut for himself when he repaired my door—and stepped inside, his eyes searching for me, I saw my future.

I saw him bending over a crib, huffing on his hands to warm them before lifting our child to his broad chest. I saw him pressing a kiss to my forehead, the smell of engine grease mixed with the last bit of shampoo he used that morning. I saw us tiredand bleary-eyed in the middle of the night, but together as we cooed and hushed the baby back to sleep.

I saw it all.

But Liam just saw my tears.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, fear obvious in his voice as he rushed to me.

His hands were all over me. Checking me for wounds or broken bones. I shook my head, muttered something incoherent as emotion constricted my throat.

“What happened? Ry, what happened?” Liam asked as I took his hand in mine and pulled him toward the bathroom.

“It’s okay,” was all I managed to tell him in the dark, narrow hallway. “It’s all okay.”

Liam’s eyes were wide and darting in the bathroom mirror when I switched on the light. My happy laughter only made him more confused as I wiped at my wet cheeks.

“Look,” I said, but when I went to show him the pregnancy test I found it missing from where I’d left it on the counter.

Liam closed the cracked open window as I checked the small trash can on the side of the sink. Nothing but our balled-up tissues and some cotton balls darkened with mascara.

“Why is it freezing in here?” Liam asked. “Ry, baby, aren’t you cold?”

I lifted the trash can. Searched around it. Ducked behind the toilet to see if it had fallen behind there somehow.

“I’m not cold at all,” I told Liam distractedly as I spun around in the tight space. “I’m… I’m…”

It had been right here. Where the fuck did it go?

Liam’s hands cupped my face and held me still. I pulled at his wrists to continue searching, but he resisted.

“Ry,” he said, his voice stern, still struggling to hold onto his composure, “you texted me that you needed me right away. What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find it.”

I looked to the window Liam had shut. Had I opened it? Had one of the girls? But if the wind had moved it, it would surely just be in the bowl of the sink…

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