The Blake London I knew did not dance. That was far too, I don’t know,livelyfor him.
“I did, actually.”
She sounded overjoyed about that fact.
“I love that,” I said honestly, grabbing a cup from my cupboard and filling it up in the sink. “You know, he seemed so happy at the engagement party.”
“Yeah.” The wistfulness in her voice made my chest ache. It was inexplicable, and I tried to wash it away with a gulp of water. “We both are.”
“I’m so glad.”
They were honest words, but they came out a touch despondent, and Delaney homed in on it immediately.
“How are you?” she asked.
Shit.
The question took me so off guard that all I could do was blink and stare at my empty kitchen—at the half-dead plants I always forgot to water on the windowsill and the dirty dishes from my untouched breakfast in the sink below it. A long moment went by before I came back to life again.
“Oh, me?” I shook myself out of it. “I’m good. Fine. Great.”
Jesus Christ, I was a mess.
“Are you…sure?”
“Yeah, you know.” I shrugged, even though she couldn’t see me. “Just some…” I clutched my stomach. “Funky health stuff.”
Funky.
Thatwas how I decided to describe the possibility that I was pregnant with my ex-boyfriend’s baby? Asfunky?
“Okay.” Delaney hesitated and then cleared her throat. “You know, Iama doctor. If there’s anything you, you know, wanted to talk about.”
Right.Right, right, right. Probably shouldn’t have mentionedanything about my health when I was talking to a literal cardiologist.
“Oh, I don’t want to be one of those people,” I said, waving away her kind offer. “Someone who befriends a doctor just so they can send them unsolicited questions about their health after experiencing the onset of, like, the common fucking cold.”
I forced a laugh, and Delaney chuckled.
“Well, it’s not unsolicited,” she reasoned. “I am quite literally soliciting my services as a health professional to you. Although I suppose you do have Natalie for that.”
“Yeah, but?—”
I swallowed my words.
I wasn’t ready to go to Natalie with this. First of all, the court date for her custody trial was next week, and she had more than enough on her plate at the moment. Second of all, it was possible that I’dneverbe ready to go to Natalie with this. Because there was no world in which I would tell Natalie something that I expected her to keep a secret from the rest of her siblings—from Sully. That wouldn’t be fair to put her in that position.
And I didn’t know…I just didn’t know about Sully yet. I didn’t know what was happening—hadn’t wrapped my head around it.
I’d spent the last couple of weeks doing everything I could tonotthink about Sully or the things we had done in that hotel room. And now, come to find out, that it might be very possible that I’d never go another daywithoutthinking about Sully. And that night. And the consequences of it, which were?—
Oh my God.
My breathing quickened, and I realized that I was gripping the edge of the countertop, digging my nails into the laminate.
It wasn’t that I was scared of the idea of a child. OfSully’schild. Because God, while my thoughts about children and pregnancy were complicated, there was no one on this Earth whose child I would want to have other than his. Which was…wild to admit. But true. Undeniably true.
No, it wasn’t necessarily the end result that I was scared of.
