I need to take a test.
I slip out of the bedroom and head upstairs, moving quietly through the still-sleeping clubhouse.
My bare feet are silent on the stairs, my breathing carefully controlled.
The main bathroom on the second floor is communal—used byhoras, old ladies, visitors.
The kind of place where certain supplies accumulate over time.
The cabinet under the sink is a mess of half-empty bottles and forgotten toiletries.
I dig through it, pushing aside expired sunscreen and dried-up nail polish, a tangle of hair ties and a rusty razor.
My fingers close around a familiar box shoved all the way in the back.
Pregnancy test. Single use.
The expiration date on the side reads eight months ago.
Shit.
But expired tests can still work, right?
They just might be less accurate.
A positive might be a false positive.
A negative might be a false negative.
The chemicals degrade over time, making the results unreliable.
Or they might be perfectly accurate.
Only one way to find out.
I lock the bathroom door and sit down on the toilet with shaking hands.
The instructions are simple—pee on the stick, wait three minutes.
I've never actually taken one of these before.
Never had reason to.
In all my years of dating, of relationships that fizzled and hookups that went nowhere, I've never once had a pregnancy scare.
Leave it to RJ Malone to change that.
The three minutes feel like three hours.
I set the test face-down on the counter and wash my hands, avoiding looking at it.
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat, can hear the blood rushing in my ears.
This is ridiculous.
I'm a grown woman.
I'm twenty-six years old.
