Page 40 of Wild For You
Caleb’s birthday had been a little over two months ago, and I’d gone to Vegas with him and a few of his friends. We’d been careful, but even condoms weren’t 100 percent, and we’d been so drunk there was a chance one had broken, and we wouldn’t have known.
“Damn,” I said, as I decided I needed to bite the bullet and pee on the stick.
Tearing open the foil wrapper, I glanced around the bathroom with wide eyes, expecting someone to walk in and start shouting at me.
The queasiness I felt this morning increased tenfold as I followed the directions and set the timer on my phone, the test resting on the back of the toilet.
It was the longest three minutes of my life, and I refused to take a sneak peek. Instead, I scrolled through social media, and despite my best efforts to avoid him without actually blocking him, Caleb’s photo popped up on my feed. His arm was wrapped around a bikini-clad model as they walked down a beach with a glowing sunset in the background. But it wasn’t just the new girlfriend who surprised me, since it wasn’t the one he was cheating on when he was with me, it was the caption.
Not only our smiles are sparkling.
It was the corniest thing I’d ever read, but even that didn’t distract from the sizeable rock on her ring finger.
Scrolling to learn more, I nearly dropped my phone to the floor as the timer went off with a loud buzzing sound.
“Oh fuck,” I mumbled, now afraid to look at the results.
It was going to be negative. It had to be.
But as I shuffled closer to the test, it was clear as day.
Pregnant with a capital P. And the baby daddy was engaged to another woman after only three weeks.
Whatever food I had left in my system chose that moment to reappear as I clutched the test in one hand and my phone in the other. Thankfully, my hair was already pulled back into a messy bun at the top of my head.
I felt like I was sinking into an abyss of darkness. It had taken all my strength to put on this happy façade I showed the world. Through most people’s eyes, I was a young woman with the world at her feet. But in reality, I was barely hanging on. No job. No boyfriend. No parents. Unless you considered my mooch of a mother as one. I felt more like the parent in our relationship.
Still in shock, I walked out of the bathroom like a zombie. The entire house could have been on fire, and I wouldn’t have noticed.
Making a pit stop in the kitchen, I downed a glass of water. I wanted something stronger, but that was clearly out of the question.
Tucking the positive test into the pocket of my shorts, I started to leave the kitchen, then thought better of it and grabbed a sleeve of crackers. Munching on the buttery goodness, I made my way outside and took a seat on one of the steps, watching Andrew throw the ball. He kept a crutch tucked under his arm on the same side as his injured leg.
It was nice to take my mind off of… everything. The monotonous back and forth of the ball was enough to calm my nerves. For as long as they threw the ball, it was clear neither Andrew nor Roman noticed I had come outside.
For a moment, I wished I had my basket of fabrics I left back at my apartment. Over the years, I’d taken up the old-lady hobby of quilting. I wasn’t very good at it, but I enjoyed using my hands for something other than massaging muscles.
Quilting was something I fell into by accident. When I was sitting in the hospital, before watching my dad take his last breaths after the car accident, a nice woman stepped into the room and laid a handmade quilt over my body while I slept in the tiny chair in the corner.
To this day, I kept the quilt in a fireproof safe on one of the shelves in my closet. It was one of the most special things ever given to me.
I hated thinking about leaving Ashfield, but I was excited about getting back to my things, even though I hadn’t missedmy stuff even once since I’d been staying with Andrew. If I ever needed anything, Andrew made sure I had a way to get it.
My heart fluttered, thinking about the shirtless man standing at the other end of the yard. I didn’t want to be attracted to him. I didn’t want to like him. But my heart and brain didn’t care. I was invested.
Stupidly invested.
And I’d noticed over the last couple of days that he’d been coming around to my presence. He wasn’t as grumpy, wasn’t as brusque, wasn’t asAndrewas he was when we first met.
They tossed the ball for another five minutes, and I focused on Roman mostly, loving how much his little face lit up every time he caught the ball Andrew threw. I couldn’t fight back the smile as I watched the two of them together.
Stomach growling, I finished my crackers and went back inside to find another snack that wouldn’t upset my stomach.
I was ignoring the fact that I had about a hundred things to do, now that the test had thrown my future into a whirlwind.
Just as I shoved a second slice of Swiss cheese into my mouth, Andrew limped inside the house. Sometimes I wished I had the power to freeze time, because with the light sheen of sweat coating his body, I wouldn’t mind looking at it every day.
“What are you up to over there?” he asked.
