Page 104 of Best Man
Niko
Niko couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. He cocked his head at Paulina. “You’rewhat?”
“Pregnant,” she said again.
“Because of just now?” he asked, glancing down at his cock, still hard and buried inside her. Of course it was a ridiculously stupid question—he instantly regretted asking it—but hell, it was the first thought to enter his mind. Because he didn’twantto think that she’d lied to him about being on birth control back at the wedding.
“No, Sasha, it must’ve happened at the wedding. I’m six weeks pregnant. I just found out this morning.”
Oh no.
How can this be?
The blood drained from his head with a whoosh, making him dizzy. And it drained elsewhere, too—his penis, fully erect just a moment ago, quickly deflated inside her. She noticed. Panic filled her eyes, and lines of worry creased her forehead. She desperately reached for his hand. “Sasha, tell me what you’re thinking.”
What was he thinking? Everything. Nothing. It was hard to say; it was like seeing his life flash before his eyes. Not because he thought his life wasovernow, per se—but it was definitely going to change in myriad ways, andhowit was going to change made up the majority of the thoughts sprinting through his spinning mind.
More important than the fact that she was pregnant, however, was the question ofhowshe became pregnant. She’d hadn’t liedto him about being on the pill, had she? If she did, his heart would simply be broken—the trust would be gone. He didn’t want to think bad things about her—because he truly loved her! But …howcould she be pregnant? He’d trusted her when she’d said she was on the pill! Had he really fallen for that same trick that had claimed so many naive athletes? The one that was such a cliché, it was practically an urban legend in hockey locker rooms?
“Sasha,pleasetell me what you’re thinking,” she said, interrupting his downward spiral of negative thoughts.
“I don’t understand,” he murmured at last. “You said you were on the pill.”
“I was, Sasha. Iswearto you, I was,” she said desperately. “I was taking my pills every day, right up until this morning, when I took a test and found out.”
“Then how could this happen?” he asked, hoping to be convinced.
With a sigh, she began to tell him her theory: the morning of the wedding, she woke up late and skipped breakfast. She took her birth control pills along with her daily vitamin—
“You took pills with no food in your stomach?” he interrupted. “Don’t you know you can’t do that? You’ll get sick.”
“Which is exactly what happened,” she said. “I’ve always taken my pills after breakfast, so I never knew I’d get sick until it happened.”
She continued with her story: the vitamin had made her sick. She threw up, emptying her stomach and losing her birth control pill in the process. When they hooked up later, they had sex without a condom, and he came inside her twice. This morning, she had a bout of morning sickness, and Piper wisely suggested she take a pregnancy test. They went to the doctor immediately after and the pregnancy was confirmed.
“So you got pregnant because you missedonepill?” Niko asked incredulously.
“I don’t know for sure, but that’s the only explanation Piper and I could come up with that made any sense,” she said with a shrug. “I know it sounds crazy, but what else could it be? When I went to the doctor this morning, I asked her what she thought, and she agreed it was a possibility. Keep in mind that even if you’re taking the pill perfectly, there’s still a one percent chance you can get pregnant. So missinga pill would only increase that tiny chance, like the doctor told me.”
Paulina went on to confess that, having no idea she was carrying, she’d been taking her birth control pills every morning for the past six weeks. She began a downward spiral of negativity of her own, fretting about the damage she might have done.
“Sasha, I’msoscared I might have hurt our baby.”
Our baby,Niko thought, those words echoing in his mind. It was starting to become real. She was going to have a baby, and it wastheirs.
With that realization out of the way, he suddenly shared her concern.
“Well, what did the doctor say about it?” he asked, not noticing the way his warm and gentle hand instinctively found its way to her belly.
“The doctor’s not worried about it—she says it happens with unplanned pregnancies all the time. The important thing is to just stop taking the pills moving forward. Which I have, starting today.”
“Oh,” Niko said, relieved. “Sounds like it’s not a problem, then.”
“I know, but until I’m a hundred percentsureeverything is fine, I’m going to worry because …”
Niko listened attentively as Paulina detailed her maternal anxieties. He snuggled up with her and held her tight, shushing her when appropriate, like she wenttoofar off the rail with her worries.
“The doctor isn’t worried, so you shouldn’t be, either,” he reasoned calmly.
