“Nina.” Megan steps up to me. She isn’t a serious person, but the look she gives me fills me with worry, and my gut twists. “Babe, it doesn’t look like bloat. I’m not being mean. When are you due on?”
Panic fills me as I run my hand over my stomach, trying to think.
Fuck, when am I due on?
“I can’t think.”
“Don’t panic,” Lucy coos, jumping up from the bed and coming to me.
“Do you track your periods?” Scarlet asks.
“Yes, always.” I run my hand through my hair and notice I’m shaking.
I’m on the pill. This is ridiculous. I’ve not been dancing, and they are working me up over nothing. I’ve been in a bikini the whole holiday, if it were anything other than bloat they would have noticed before. I would have noticed.
“Where is your phone?” Lucy starts moving around the room in search of it.
I rack my brain, thinking back to the last time I had a period.
And then it comes to me. “The day I crashed Mase’s car. I came on that night. He almost called an ambulance.”
“When was that?” Megan snaps.
I stare at her. “I don’t know.” Fuck! “I can’t think.”
Lucy takes my hand, her face panicked. “Nina, are you pregnant?”
34
Nina
“Keep your fucking voice down!”I hiss, moving to the double doors and pulling them closed. I do not need the boys hearing this. “Scarlet, when was the accident?”
“Must have been a good couple months ago? I think,” she tells me, and my body heats instantly, a cold sweat breaking out across my skin.
“Fucking hell.” Lucy fans her face, her eyes wild.
“Calm down. I’m not fucking pregnant.” My eyes flick between them all, my stomach in knots. “Cocktails. I need a cocktail. You’re all a bunch of drama queens.”
I move to the bathroom and close the door. Needing the space from them. I’m not easily influenced, but the way the girls were looking at me has panic clawing its way up my chest.
I look in the mirror and eye the slight swell that sits below my belly button.
Lowering my hand, I stretch the skin, noticing how the bulge only protrudes farther.
I’m due on. I know I am. And I always bloat. That with the bread we had last night and all the alcohol, it’s given me bad bloat.
The door knocks open against my back, and I move to let the girls in. None of them say a word, and their silence pisses me off more than their probing.
Lucy pulls back my hair and starts braiding it while Megan drops sandals at my feet. Scarlet follows their lead, blotting at my cheeks before covering my face with a ton of makeup.
I hadn’t realised I was crying.
* * *
Mase
Nina has beenquiet all night, and I don’t know why. I just know something is wrong.
