I peer at my reflection. My eyes are puffy, my lips are swollen, and my cheeks are blotchy.
“A mess?”
Mom chuckles. “Look deeper. You wouldn’t be a mess if you didn’t care, right?”
“I guess.” I turn the mirror over and put it down on the table. There’s no easy way to say this, so I just come straight out with it. “I’m pregnant. With twins.”
Mom sits back in her seat. She looks deflated for a whole second before she sits forward again. “And either twin could be the father.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And have you told them?”
“Uh-huh.” This time it ends on a down-note.
“Let me guess. They think you’re scamming them.” My mom can be brutal when she wants to be.
“It’s complicated.”
She smiles. “Oh, sweetie, it isn’t as complicated as you think it is. Tell them how you feel.”
I shake my head. That’s an emphatic no.
“What’s the alternative?” she asks.
“I do this on my own.”
“Is that what you really want, Rem? I’m not saying you can’t do it alone. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. But trust me, denying your true feelings will catch up with you in the end.”
Now, she’s speaking from personal experience.
“I don’t know what my true feelings are though.”
“You will when you speak to them, Remy. Trust me.”
I think about the conversation I ran away from, and my stomach churns. Whatever my mom says, it isn’t that simple. Sure, I’m attracted to both twins, but how do I know if that’s something more than desire?
“What if…” I don’t fully understand what Bash was accusing me of, but I do know that he didn’t believe me. And Cash might’ve been on my side earlier, but his twin will convince him otherwise. “What if they don’t feel the same way?”
“Then it’s their loss, sweetie, and we’ll get through this without them.”
Walking back to the residence halls feels different. Maybe I’m different. Or maybe the goose bumps on my arms and shoulders have something to do with the fact that I know Bastien Murray has been having me followed.
I’ve always felt comfortable in New York City. Sure, I’ve read the horror stories about women getting brutally attacked on the streets, but nothing has ever happened to make me feel unsafe. It’s kinda twisted that I’m glancing over my shoulder now that I know I’m being followed by a member of the Murrays’ security team. They wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me, right?
Or is this maternal instinct kicking in? I’m a lioness protecting her unborn cubs now.
Still, I call Ariel from my cell, for extra protection.
“Where have you been?” Her voice at the other end of the call makes me smile. “I was about to call nine-one-one and report that you’d been abducted by a hot casino owner.”
“Are you sitting down?”
There’s a pause, then, “I am now. I’m sitting on your bed because mine is covered in laundry that I don’t have the bandwidth to sort out yet.”
I smile. Ariel is the messiest person I know, and I love that she makes me feel like I could pass an inspection by our residence halls supervisor.
“Rem, the suspense is killing me. Did Bastien Murray go down on one knee and propose to you when he found out that you’re having his baby?”
