Bullshit! All the advances modern medicine had made, there should have been a way to predict what happened. There should have been a way to stop it from happening.
And stop it from happening again.
“Morgan, we’ll call the doctor and make an appointment.”
I nodded, not really listening. Not really comprehending what this all meant. I was pregnant with my husband’s baby. A husband who didn’t want me. A husband who, if I told him, would want the baby.
He’d take me back if he knew.
“Shar!Where are you?”
Devlyn stepped outside the room to intercept Gator. Their mumbled voices hung on the edge of my consciousness like the teacher in theCharlie Browncartoons I watched as a child.
The bathroom door opened, and before I knew it, I was lifted into the arms of my best friend’s husband. “Don’t worry,Chérie, we’ve got you.”
Gator laid me on the bed, and Devlyn crawled in beside me. She wrapped her arms around me, and that was when I gave in to everything I’d been trying not to feel since my husband came back from the dead.
I sobbed while my friend held onto me. Holding me together as I voiced my fears. Fears about the pregnancy and losing another child. Fears about my husband wanting me out of obligation. The fear of getting everything I ever wanted, but losing myself in the process.
Because the truth was, if I told Jude about the baby and he wanted me back so he could be in his baby’s life, I would go. And I wouldn’t think twice about it.
“I can’t tell him,” I whispered.
“Morgan, I love you, but I’m going to tell you the same thing you told me. Pull your big girl panties up and get your shit together.”
“I didn’t say that to you,” I grumbled.
“You absolutely did. Then you had the audacity to tell me Jon Snow wasn’t coming to rescue me. I mean, fuck, who says that shit to their best friend?”
I couldn’t help the chuckle that slipped out. Devlyn always knew what I needed. I might be freaking out and terrified for what was coming, but she knew how to snap me out of my pity party.
“Playtime is over, Morg. Time to be responsible.”
“I believe I said time togrow upand be responsible,” I corrected.
Devlyn shrugged. “You’ve always been grown up.” I eyed her with a cautious look. “More grown up than me.” She smiled.
“How did this happen?”
It was a hypothetical question. I didn’t expect an answer. Not one that had me rolling away from my best friend with a groan and plugging my ears.
“Well, when two people love each other, there are ways to show that love. Disgusting, dirty, degrading ways...”
I threw my pillow at her just before we heard a knock on the door.
“Shar?”
“Come in, Gator,” I called out before Devlyn could tell him to go away.
The door opened, and there was Gator, holding one of the babies. With Juju behind him, holding the other two.
I held out my hands. “Gimme.”
Gator laid his daughter in my arms and handed me a bottle. He took another baby from Juju, handing her over to Devlyn, who quickly pulled her shirt up to feed her daughter. The third baby, he helped settle onto the other breast.
“How do you do this?” I asked, feeding the baby in my arms.
“We alternate,” Dev explained. “Two babies nurse while one gets the bottle, and we make sure that none of them get a bottle twice in a row.”
