My heart soars. “We're gonna have a good life, Hope. I promise.”
“I know,” she breathes.
I hold her closer as her breathing slows, and my own exhaustion pulls me under.
In four days, we start forever, but right now? Right now, we just hold each other and drift off to sleep.
The next morning, I wake up feeling almost human again. My stomach's settled, the nausea's gone, and Hope's curled against me, breathing soft and steady.
“Hey,” I murmur, brushing hair back from her face. “You alive?”
“Barely,” she groans, stretching. “I think we survived.”
“Thank fuck.” I press a kiss to her forehead. “Wedding's still on?”
“Wedding's still on.” She smiles up at me, and my chest does that thing it always does when she looks at me like that. Like I'm her entire world.
We start to get up when her phone rings on the nightstand. She reaches for it, frowning at the screen.
“It's the florist,” she says. “I should take this.”
“Go ahead. I'm gonna grab a shower.” I swing my legs out of bed, still a little shaky but functional. “Wash off the rest of the plague.”
She laughs, already answering the call. “Hello? Yes, this is Hope Webster.”
Soon to be Hope Stone.
I head into the bathroom, leaving the door cracked open out of habit. I turn on the shower and watch as steam starts to fill the space, when I hear Hope's voice rise from the bedroom.
“Don’t you dare say you can't.” I can’t hear anything for a few moments before Hope shrieks, “I ordered those flowers six weeks ago!”
I wait, one hand on the shower door. Of course, a few days before the wedding, we’d end up having vendor drama. Not surprising, given how close we are to the date.
Then I hear her say, calmly and clear as day, “Yep… I'm pregnant… Why else would I be getting married in a hurry?”
Time stops. My hand freezes on the glass, and my breath catches in my throat.
Pregnant??
That's why we’re getting married in a hurry.
Her voice drops lower after that. It’s muffled, and I can't make out anything else. Those words, those fucking words, echo in my head, louder than the running water, louder than my own heartbeat.
Pregnant.
I stand there, naked, steam curling around me, while my mind spirals out of control. Hope's pregnant. She's fucking pregnant, and she didn't tell me.
Is that why she said yes? Is that why she agreed to a fast wedding? A month-and-a-half engagement… everyone's been joking about it, but I thought it was because we knew we were soulmates. Because when you know, you know, like Hawk said.
What if it wasn't that at all? What if she's only marrying me because she has to?
My chest tightens, and it's not the good kind this time. It's the kind that makes it hard to breathe, the kind that feels like someone has their fist wrapped around my lungs, trying to squeeze the life out of me.
Did she trap me? Is this… Fuck, is this even real? All those moments. All those times she said she loved me. Was any of it real, or was she just... Doing what she had to do?
I think about last night. About her getting sick and how she ignored the stomach pain before we started fooling around. Was that morning sickness? Has she been hiding this the whole time?
My hands shake as I step into the shower, letting the hot water hit my skin. It doesn't help. Nothing helps.
