Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 81333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“And he wore a condom!”
“Maybe it had a rip?”
“Can I sue them for that?”
“No,” she giggles.
Taking one deep, heavy breath that feels like my last as a free, sane woman, I jab the stick between my legs and do my business. With each tinkle, I squeeze my eyes harder, like each second of urine stream is another step closer to a life I don’t want. That I can’t imagine. That I hope beyond all hope isn’t really happening to me.
Branch’s handsome face flickers through my mind, and for some unknown reason, I want to kiss him as hard as I want to deck him right in his nine-inch cock.
I clean up, lay the stick on a hand towel, and open the door. Poppy is leaning against the wall.
“Come watch with me. It’ll be like the solar eclipse,” I tell her. “This will happen once in a lifetime. After this experience, I never want to have a baby.”
“I think the eclipse happens more than once,” she points out. “And it looks like this won’t have to happen again because . . . you’re pregnant, Layla.”
The end of that is a whisper, but that’s not why I don’t hear it. I don’t hear the words because I can see it on her face—the way her eyes grow, the corners of her lips softening, the ever-so-slight drop in her shoulders.
“Pop . . .” I fall against the wall, my knees threatening to betray my weight. They shake like I’m ready to come, wobble like I’ve just run five miles which I’ve never done, but this is what I think would happen if I did.
I can barely stand. I can’t think. I can barely even see straight as Poppy lays a hand on my shoulder. Her lips move but I don’t hear her. I’m lost in the last words she said to me.
Focusing on her face is harder than it should be and I pick the little freckle just under her left eye and try to see its shape and color. It’s a blur. Everything is a blur.
A hand goes to my stomach. I try to imagine what’s happening beneath my skin.
I’m pregnant.
I jerk my hand away. Looking at Poppy’s face, I feel the tears before I even realize they’re falling.
“I can’t be pregnant,” I whisper, not even sounding like my voice.
“I’m only asking this because I’m your friend, okay? It’s Branch’s baby, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“There are absolutely no other options. You didn’t sleep with Callum and not tell me or drink some wine and just fool around with your neighbor?”
“No. I haven’t slept with Callum in, what, four months? Branch is the absolute only person.”
She nods, obviously coming to terms with the situation too. “How do you want to proceed? I’ll do whatever you say.”
“Rewind to that weekend and don’t let me go to Linton.”
She grins. “I can’t do that.”
“You said you’d do anything,” I sniffle. “What am I going to do?”
My back drags down the wall until I’m sitting on the cool bathroom floor. Poppy plops down beside me sitting crisscross-applesauce and waiting for me to guide the conversation.
“I don’t even know him,” I lament. “How can I be having a baby by a man I barely even know?”
The tears fall harder, the salty streaks reaching my lips and dripping onto the floor.
“It’s going to be all right, Layla.”
“I know it’s going to be all right. I don’t have a choice but for it to be anything but all right,” I say, taking the piece of toilet tissue she hands me. “But . . .”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“I’m the girl I never wanted to be,” I say. “Single. Pregnant. Unprepared. So fucking unprepared.”
My head falls into my hands, my stomach churning. Just a few days ago—hell, a few hours ago—my biggest problem was Callum texting me. That seems so much more manageable now.
“You aren’t any kind of girl unless you’re talking about a fun, sexy, best person kind of girl,” she says, scooting closer and pulling me into a hug. The contact does it. The river breaks and I sob on her shoulder.
After a long while, when I’m cried out for the time being, she finally pulls away. I mop up my face with the tissue.
“You don’t have to make any decisions now,” she soothes.
“That’s good because I don’t have any idea where to start trying to unravel this fucking mess.”
“Do you want to tell Finn?”
“Uh, no. Let’s not tell Finn. I’d rather him not get involved and kill us all.”
Staring at the wall, I feel completely detached from my body. It’s almost as if I’ve been usurped in a coup and now I wait to see where I’ve been banished.
I drag in a breath, my body shaking as it settles. “This is going to be okay,” I tell myself. “This is going to be okay.”