“Because you just got sick from the smell of bacon, and Kaia...” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t say the words out loud.
Harlow’s hand flew to her stomach. “I don’t…” She was shaking her head, thinking, her forehead creased with concentration. “I’ve never really tracked it. I’m not regular, I never have been, so I just kind of... don’t pay attention.”
“Ballpark it for me.”
“I don’t know. A month ago? Maybe longer? I really don’t… I can’t remember…”
She looked at me, and I looked at her, and the bathroom suddenly felt a hundred times smaller.
Fuck.
CHAPTER 35
HARLOW
Standing in the bathroom,I stared down at the unopened package. Two tests. Two little sticks that could change everything. Two pink lines or one. Yes or no. Pregnant or not pregnant.
My entire future, reduced to a science experiment in a bathroom.
Could I really be pregnant?
The thought kept circling my brain. I always wanted to be a mom. Ever since I was little, playing house with my dolls, imagining a future filled with tiny humans who had my eyes and someone else’s smile.
But not like this. Not now.
I was twenty years old, and I hadn’t finished college. I didn’t have a career or a house or any of the things I always imagined having before bringing a life into the world. I had a boyfriend of... what, a few months, and a family that didn’t even know we were together.
This was not the plan.
Then again, nothing about Owen and me had ever been part of the plan.
My mind drifted to him, to the way he looked at me when he asked about my period. The fear I expected to see hadn’t been there. Or if it was, he’d hidden it well. He was calm.
I wished I could borrow some of that steadiness right now.
The bathroom door creaked open behind me.
I didn’t turn around, but I felt the warmth of him. My gaze lifted to the mirror, finding his reflection behind mine.
Owen’s smile was soft as he stepped closer and wrapped his arms around me from behind. His chin rested on my shoulder, and we both stared at our reflection. The two of us, tangled together, facing something neither of us had planned for.
“Hey,” he murmured against my ear.
“Hey.”
“Whatever happens,” he said, “we’re in this together. Okay?”
I searched his face in the mirror, looking for cracks in that calm exterior.
I didn’t find any.
“You’re not scared,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You don’t look scared.”
“I’m terrified.” His arms tightened around me. “But not of this. Not of us.”
