Page 47 of End Game
“Very funny. No. Sheisa quack. She didn’tsayquack. Ugh,” I groan. “Don’t distract me.”
“Fine. What did she say?”
“She had the audacity to say I’m pregnant, Pop. Can you believe that shit?”
The line goes quiet. My exuberant, chatty friend doesn’t say a word.
“Poppy?”
“Are you?”
“No, I’m not pregnant!” A flock of birds launch into a tree above me and I look around to see a group of people staring at me. Rolling my eyes, I storm by them too. “No, I’m not,” I say, quieter this time. “Why do I keep explaining this to everyone? You have to have sperm to have a baby.”
“Have you slept with anyone?”
“No. Not since Branch.”
“Layla . . .”
A full-on shiver that starts at my shoulders and rolls through my body like a Garth Brooks song hits me hard. I stand at the corner of Plane and Veroca and stare off into space.
“Did he use a condom?” she asks.
“Yeah. He did,” I say, shaking out of my trance. “So explain thatandI’m on the pill.”
“Weirder things have happened.”
“To weird people, maybe. I’m not a weird person.”
“You were sick before the cabin, weren’t you? Were you taking antibiotics?”
I try to swallow, but my throat constricts at the same time. Bent over, halfway choking and the other half gagging, I nearly drop my phone as I try not to die.
“Layla! Layla, are you okay?”
“Yes,” I say past the burn. “Give me a second.” It takes longer than a second to get myself upright and fully oxygenated. “I’m here,” I croak.
“Dude, you scared me.”
“Don’t make this about you,” I laugh, my voice still hoarse from the coughing fit. Once my laughter has faded and the line is quiet again, I feel the heavy burden of being alone. Despite the sea of people racing by me on the corner of this street in downtown Chicago, I’malone. “I can’t be pregnant, can I?”
“I don’t know. I tell you what—let me wrap up a project I have open. It might take an hour. Then I’ll meet you at your apartment. I’ll bring chocolate and tissues and a pregnancy test, then a bottle of champagne for after when it’s false.”
Despite my need to vomit all over the sidewalk, I smile. “Thanks, Poppy.”
“You’re welcome.”
CHAPTER 14
LAYLA
Lifting a spoon of vanilla icing to my mouth, I watch Poppy enter the kitchen. Her phone is to her ear, a plastic grocery bag in one of her hands. She looks at me with brows tugged together, her lips forming a sympathetic curve.
“I’m at Layla’s,” she says into the phone. “Oh, no. We’re just doing girl stuff.”
She sits the bag on the counter and drops her keys next to it. “Layla, Finn and Branch say hello.”
“Fuck him,” I groan.
