“The last two months, I assumed it was my stress changing things,” she ended lamely.
“One thing at a time. Take the test.”
In a state of shock, Gray grabbed the test box and trudged to her bathroom. She read the instructions, peed on the stick,and then carefully placed it on the counter while she righted her clothes and washed her hands.
If she was pregnant, she clenched her eyes tight in denial, but if she were, the test advertised that it would tell you how many weeks along she was.
Let it be negative. Let it be Negative. Let it be negative.
Positive. “Fuck.” Very positive.
“Mom. Come here, please.”
She must have been waiting on the other side because the door opened before she finished asking.
“Oh fuck,” her mom whispered, as she looked at the test.
“Yeah. Pretty much. And look at the weeks. I’m practically halfway done. How could I not have known?” Gray wailed. Fat, ugly tears started to drip down her cheeks.
Her mom hugged her tight, letting Gray soak her shoulder, and grabbed several tissues from the box and gently placed them by her hand.
Gray pulled away and dried her face and blew her nose. She sat on the counter, still staring at the test in disbelief.
“It must have happened our first time. How in the hell am I this unlucky?”
“I have a feeling you’ll change your mind on that pretty quickly.” Her mom placed a hand over Gray’s mostly flat stomach. “You have a son or a daughter in there that’s going to think you are their sun, moon, and stars, and you’ll think the same of your child.”
That was sobering. Gray took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She could do this. She would do this. She had no choice.
“Now what? I’ve school, and if that test is accurate, this little one will come before I graduate.”
“That’s easy,” her mom waved off the worry. “You sit down with your instructors and explain the situation, and ask them ifthey would mind giving you the rest of the year’s big projects early, and then you work your butt off. You’ve done online school before, so if needs must, I imagine they will work with your new mommy schedule.”
“Oh, God. And Ciar?”
“That,” she hesitated, “is not so simple. I think you should fly to London instead of flying home tomorrow. Corner him until he tells you what in the hell is going on, and once he does, because that man loves you, you surprise him with the baby news.”
“That sounds terrifying.”
“It does, doesn’t it? Better you than me.”
“Asshole,” Gray laughed, tapping her foot against her mom’s thigh. “Dad and Lochlann?”
Her mom took both of her daughter’s hands. “We tell them now. Together. I won’t keep something like this from your father, and it would hurt Loch’s feelings terribly if he were left out of such a huge family event.
“Your dad will love you no differently than he does right now. Of that you can be assured. The hardest part will be convincing him not to go to London and strangle Ciar before you have a chance to speak to him.”
“I feel like I could vomit.”
“Come on then, better to get it over with, and then we can change your flight.”
It turned out to be an hour of torturous waiting. Her mom decided to hide all the car keys so the boys “can’t rush off like chickens with their heads cut off.” Then she decided to call in her dad’s best friend, Coll, his sister, Aunt Cat, and their son, and Lochlann’s best friend, Laith.
Her mom wouldn’t tell them why and made them promise that what they were about to find out couldn’t leave the house—Gray would want to tell her friends first. Her mom felt that Colland Laith would help keep their boys in line, and Catriona would bust her brother’s balls if he got unruly.
Now here they were, standing awkwardly around the kitchen’s massive island. The men were shifting restlessly, shrugging, and exchanging confused looks. The moment her Aunt Cat walked in, her eyes went to Gray’s middle, and a small smile played across her lips, quickly extinguished before anyone else could see.
Not much could get past Cat. She was Blair’s mother after all.
