“We hadn’t gotten to that point,” I admitted. And I wasn’t sure if we ever would have. I’d known Michael wouldn’t take the suggestion that he needed to have his sperm count checked very gracefully, and so I’d been too nervous to bring it up. “Anyway, it was just one dicey condom one time. I can’t be pregnant. No way.”
“Yes way. Oui way. Ja way.” She pushed the box of tests into my hands. “We need to know if you’ve got a joey in the pouch so we can make plans.”
I stared down at the box. It was a giant multipack that had expired last year. “Plans,” I said.
“Yeah, baby girl. Plans.” She wrapped her hands around mine, all thin gold rings and almond-shaped nails. Even for a day at home getting herIV infusion, even in leggings and no makeup, she looked perfectly put together. “And youdohave options, Winnie. This doesn’t have to be the beginning or the end of anything. If you don’t want to stop your career before it’s gotten started, if you don’t want to have a baby with a pizza parlor magnate who talked trash about you, then you don’t have to. I’ll help.”
I met her soft silver gaze and felt my chin dimple.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
She squeezed my hands and gave me a banner-in-Target-worthy Addison Hayes smile. “I’m in this with you. Whateveryou need, we’ll figure out. One shitty condom doesn’t have to be your destiny, Winnie Baker.”
I looked back down at the box, not even sure what I was feeling. Dread? Guilt?
... hope?
“And if Iwantto have a baby?” I whispered. “Even single? Even when I’m trying to launch a new career? Even if Kallum is a gaping dickhole?”
“Then I will be your baby’s godmother and give them their first-ever stiff-brimmed hat and be their Cool Aunt Uber when they drink too many White Claws at the beach. You won’t have to do this alone, Winnie Baker. Forget Kallum and your awful parents, you’ve got me.” She tossed her hair with a sniff. “I mean, what baby wouldn’t want to be raised by us anyway?”
I smiled—a smile that was dangerously close to watery. “Addy...”
“Shut up and go pee on a stick already.”
And so I did.
And when the little digital readout saidPREGNANT—and the digital readout of the second test saidPREGNANT—and then when the unexpired tests we InstacartedalsosaidPREGNANT,PREGNANT,PREGNANT, Addison held me in her arms while I cried into her inhumanly nice-smelling hair and leaked snot all over her eight-hundred-dollar flannel shirt that looked like it was from a thrift store.
“It’s okay,” she crooned as I let myself feel every single ribbon of terror and hope and excitement. “Aunt Addy is here. Aunt Addy is here.”
And even though this was unplanned, was horrible timing, was nothing like I ever pictured around having a baby, I couldn’t help but feel something almost like happiness. Like joy.
Sometimes the things we wanted most came when we least expected them, when we weren’t prepared for them, when we thought we didn’t want them anymore. And maybe this shitty condomwasdestiny, because now this baby was getting a mother who knew herself, who knew how to get through hard times without crumpling into a ball like a used Taco Bell wrapper. Now this baby was getting an Aunt Addy and a father who wasn’t Michael Bacher and a childhood free of words likepurityandstumbling blockandshame.
We were in it together, this little bean inside my tummy and I, and even if I couldn’t find acting work after this, even if Steph fired me for being unhirably pregnant, even if I had to live in Addison’s pool house forever, it was going to be okay,wewere going to be okay.
For the first time in a long time, I knew I had the power to make it so.
Chapter Nineteen
Kallum
“Kallum?” Nolan called through the closed door of his guest bedroom in the perfect little Los Feliz house he and Bee shared. “Isn’t your call time in, like, three hours? Shouldn’t you take a shower?”
“Showers are for happy people,” I told him as I pulled the covers over my head.
“Uhhh... I like to think showers are for just... people. And the people who have to live with them.”
“Offer him leftover waffles,” Bee whispered.
“He’s not a stray cat we’re trying to trap,” Nolan said to her.
“I’m not hungry,” I called back gruffly.
Without warning, the door swung open and Nolan stoodthere, dressed in clean clothes, rubbing his happiness in my face, with Bee on her tiptoes peering over his shoulder.
“You literally haven’t left this room since you got here two days ago,” Nolan said. “And you even called in sick to your preproduction meeting forShark Tank.”
