“Did Raphe gallantly lend you his shirt?”
Elbows on the table, she dropped her chin to her hands and shook her head, wobbling her hands under her chin. “He wasn’t wearing an undershirt.”
Evan didn’t comment, but quietly studied her.
The timer buzzed.
She couldn’t move. Her legs filled with sand where her bones were supposed to be. Her throat filled with sawdust and her tongue slackened. Swallowing was impossible.
Wordlessly, Evan walked into the bathroom and returned seconds later with the thing. He slowed his pace as he neared and dropped to the seat opposite her at the dining table. With a long, miserable inhale, and exhale, and inhale again, he slid the stupid piece of plastic across the table. “I’m sorry, Zoe.”
Two menacing blue lines mocked her. She subtly pulled out her phone and did a quick google. “Statistics have always hated me. Did you know condoms fail to prevent pregnancy, like, thirteen percent of the time? And even with perfectly perfect use, they fail three percent?” Her eyes burned as a flood of clear lava pumped out of her tear ducts. And her lip quivered. Had her lip everquivered?
“Hey, hey, it’s going to be okay,” Evan crooned. He scooted his chair around and wrapped his arms around her. “At least it wasn’t some flyby you’d never met. You’re practically related.”
She fired a glare at him.
“By marriage,” he corrected, poorly hiding his laugh.
“He’s worse than a flyby. He’s the least accessible guy I’ve slept with… ever. I’m still trying to figure out things with Raphe, again, but now? He’s going to flip. This was not my plan.”
“I know. I’m so sorry. What do you want to do? Not that you’ve had time to think about it.”
Head heavy, she nodded weakly, salty crap beading in the corners of her eyes. She bit her lips together and nodded. “I want it. Not ready for it, but that’s what Mom always joked, these things don’t always happen at the right time. But, fucking hell, yes, I want it. Mom would be over the moon right now.”
Evan nodded slowly with her, and she knew he was picturing the same bliss that girly-girl Brenda Halseth would be dancing with right now.
After a slow, controlled exhale, she whispered, “Not the right guy and I don’t want to do this alone, but I have a good job, and I have you and Pops and Finn and Haley, and… oh my god I have Patricia now. At least college tuition shouldn’t be a problem, or that’s what Finn said she told him anyway. Not that they needed to worry about that, but I’m not that flush… know what? I’m going to pull it back to the moment. What the freaking hell?”
He snorted a laugh and patted her on the shoulder. “Whether Ryder’s on board or not, that woman is fierce, and she’s already working on being super grandma for Finn and Haley’s little guy, and he’s not even born yet.”
Both of their eyes widened.
“Look, Zoe, you don’t need to justify yourself. Whatever you want to do, the rest of us are here for you. No matter what, okay?”
She nodded, lip quivering again, for entirely different reasons this time.
“I’m super excited. I get to be an uncle twice over,” Evan said sweetly, one side of his mouth lifting into an arrogant grin.
“Alright. Now I have nine months to get used to this.” Zoe scrunched her hands in her hair and set her elbows on the table. “Ugh. What next. Um. Doctor’s appointment.”
“Tonight, ice cream. Tomorrow, you call the doctor. And then you can call Ryder and let him know, when you’re ready.”
She sat up and wiped the blurry liquid that accumulated in her eyelashes, exhaling into a wet smile. “You can have the ice cream. I want popcorn. Buckets of it. And Keanu Reeves.”
Evan laughed and popped up to get the popcorn going. “Point Break, Replacements, or John Wick? Please say Replacements.”
“Replacements. I need sappy football right now.”
Blackandgrayfuzzinesstaunted her, whooshing and crackling sounds as the gooey wand invaded her. Evan, Finn, and Haley had all offered to come for support, but she wanted to do this one alone.
Pops… fuck, she couldn’t tell him yet. That was going to be worse than telling Raphe. After Finn had been a surprise to upend their parents’ lives, how could she have made the same mistake they did?
Eyes blurring over, she swallowed the lump that swelled in her throat.
Zoe went completely silent when her uterus came into view, and her nurse midwife left her to her thoughts as she worked. But Zoe could hear her thinking. Measuring. Calculating.
A small printer buzzed out a long pile of glossy black and whites of a peanut with its alien blobhead. Fuck. At least she had a legit reason to call in sick today, but she hated being away again.
