"And I shouldn't have."
"Why did you break up with him?"
She blushed, shaking her head. "Reasons."
"Such as?"
"Such as go pee on that stick, Rune. Dalton telling me he loved me after two months and making me freak out like a crazy person isn't going to distract me from the reality that you are, in all likelihood, pregnant."
I stared at her. "That's why?"
“Yes, okay? And he was…he was serious. He really did love me, or thought he did, and I just couldn't handle that. He was sweet, cute, and unexpectedly well-endowed for a guy who was a buck-forty soaking weight at six feet tall. But I didn't love him. I honestly don't know if I'm even capable of being in love, at this point."
"Linz—"
She shot to her feet, grabbed my wrists, and physically hauled me to my feet, shoving me toward my bedroom and the en suite bathroom. "Go take the test, Rune."
"I don't want to," I said, resisting her pushing. "I'm scared."
She kept pushing until we reached the bathroom, turned me so my ass faced the toilet, yanked my towel off, and physically forced me to sit down on the toilet. Then, diabolically, she turned on the faucet.
It worked. Urine squirted out of me, and she uncapped the test and handed it to me. "Do it, Rune. No excuses."
I peed on the stick, re-capped it, set it on the sink, finished, wiped, washed my hands, and then wandered in a daze to the living room. Lindsey followed me, test in one hand, her phone in the other; she had a timer set, counting down the minutes and seconds until I found out whether I'd fucked up my life.
We sat on the couch with the test on the coffee table in front of us, her phone beside it, silently counting down to doomsday.
We didn't have to wait the full 2 minutes—the word PREGNANT emblazoned itself in the window almost immediately.
I lurched to my feet and threw the thing across the condo; it clattered against a cabinet in the kitchen and then to the floor. "No! God, no. No, no, no." I collapsed to my butt on the floor, sobbing. "What do I do, Linz?" I asked in a ragged whisper.
"Well, you call your parents, and you call Duncan." She paused, shook her hands. "Wait, scratch that. First, you call in to work. Second, you and I go to your parents' house and tell them in person. And then you call Duncan."
"Mom's got a lecture today, and Dad has classes. They're not home."
Lindsey sank to her butt beside me, blonde razor bob swinging, blue eyes sympathetic and full of love. "I'm sorry I was so harsh, Rune. That's what I came to say. I don't take back what I said, because it was true and I still feel that way. But I was harsh in the way I said it, and I apologize."
I sagged against her, and her arms went around me. "You’re right, it was harsh, but I forgive you. And you were right." I sniffled tears. "I don't know how to do this, Linz."
"I've got you, babe. You and me, ride or die. Let me make you some tea and we'll come up with a plan, okay?"
"I hate tea."
“I know."
Thirty minutes later, I'd taken two more tests, each of which only confirmed my terrifying new reality:
I was pregnant.
Chapter Thirteen
Duncan
I set the till drawer back down on the desk, only just barely stopping myself from throwing it through the fucking wall. I'd counted it four times and came up with four different numbers.
Elias came in as I sat down and scraped my hands through my hair with a series of vicious curses. "You good, boss?" he asked, tossing the liquor inventory checklist onto the desk.
"No. This fucking drawer won't balance. I've counted it four times and I've gotten four different numbers."
