I think I’m pregnant.
I drive straight to Sara’s and my apartment. If I remember right, we already have a test there that I can take. This isn’t the first time one of us has been in this situation. I just hope it turns out the same as the other times. I run up the stairs and dash straight for the bathroom, but that door is locked. How is it locked? No one’s even living here.
“Just a minute,” a female voice calls from inside. The waterworks flow instantly at her voice. I can’t imagine a better time for Sara to be home. I need my best friend now more than ever.
She opens the door, smiling, and holds her arms out wide.
“Did you miss— Oh my gosh, what’s wrong?” Her smile drops and she pulls me in for a hug.
“I think I’m pregnant,” I blurt out, but you can hardly understand me over the sobs. If only it was that easy for me to tell Ethan.
“What? How? Who?” She fires the questions at me, but I don’t answer as I walk past her to the sink. I dig around in the medicine cabinet, looking for that stupid box.
“I thought we had a test in here,” I say, trying to pull myself together. She shuffles her feet, avoiding eye contact.
“I had to use it before I left.”
“What! Why didn’t you tell me?” What a pair we make. Wait no… scratch that. What an irresponsible pair we make.
“It doesn’t matter. It was a false alarm. We have more important things to worry about now.” She pulls me to my feet and we leave for the store.
Sara offers to act like it is her test and I let her. Real mature, Kelsey. I’m pretty sure the clerk knows the truth though, seeing as I am the one with bloodshot, tear-stained eyes. Sara looked calm as ever. When we get back to the apartment, I rush to the bathroom. I’m so happy Sara is here. She must have had some friend radar telling her that I needed her. It’s probably just stress, but once this is over, I’ll have to remember to ask her the real reason she’s back.
Chapter Twenty-two
Kelsey
Positive.
That can’t be right.
The purple box I dreaded buying for fear of the results is sitting on the white marble bathroom sink, and when I grab it to re-read the instructions I nearly crumple it into a ball with my grip.
“Minus, minus means not pregnant, plus sign minus means pregnant.” I repeat this to myself until it’s branded into my brain.
I hold the small stick in front of my face once again to see the results. I squint my eyes and pull it closer under the impression this will help me find an error. There is a plus sign and a minus sign. Shit. Pregnant. My heart leaps into my throat, the temperature in the room raises a hundred degrees, and I feel like I’m going to be sick.
I groan loudly, covering my face with my hands and sit on the edge of the tub, silently freaking out. I’m going to cry. Breathe, Kelsey, just breathe. Yep, there’s no holding the tears back. What am I going to do? This can’t be happening.
I can’t be pregnant. I’m only twenty-two. I don’t have a full-time job or insurance. I’m a bartender paying for college. I live in a small, two-bedroom apartment with my best friend because I can’t afford a place on my own. I can’t afford a baby. Clearly this test is a dud. I’d better take another to be sure.
“Kelsey? What’s taking so long?” Sara asks from the behind the bathroom door. “I’m ready to crack this bottle of wine open and celebrate the fact we have overactive imaginations!”
Her voice startles me into motion and I stand quickly to open the second test. We went to the store solely to buy pregnancy tests but ended up purchasing two bottles of Moscoto as well. We had high hopes this was just a really bad case of food poisoning.
“Oh, I uh...” Crap. Sara may be acting fully supportive now, but I know she will freak out as much as I am if tell her I am definitely pregnant – with her cousin’s baby, no less. I never answered her questions earlier, and she won’t waste time asking them again. She will drink both bottles right in front of me after I give her the answers.
I can’t think fast enough for an excuse. Wiping away the tears that managed to sneak out with the back of my hand, I turn the sink on, letting the water run on full blast to hide my sniffles. “I just turned some water on, hopefully that will give my body some encouragement,” I tell her, hoping she believes me.
“I told you to drink lots of water first! Did you listen to me? Noooo, you were too anxious to take the test.” She pauses and neither of us says anything. She must have grown tired of waiting because she tells me to yell if I need her before I hear the sound of her bare feet against the tile floor fade as she leaves.
The fact that I can’t even bring myself to tell my best friend that the first test is positive tells me that if the second one matches, I have a lot of growing up to do and I better do it fast.
How am I going to tell Ethan?
I turn the water off after I’ve taken care of business and set the stick on the counter as I wait for the longest three minutes of my life to pass.
Ethan
My father is riding my ass more and more lately. I avoid his calls and keep the ones we do have to a minimum, telling him only what he wants to hear, like all the other times. I can’t keep lying to him because he’s smart. I think he’s already on to me and I need to tell someone. I need someone to tell me how to fix this mess I’ve made. My left leg bounces uncontrollably as I drive to the gym.
“Can I ask you something?” Logan looks at me curiously.
“Sure,” I say, turning onto the gym’s road.
“Why do you want to buy a house here? You always hated this place.”
“Things change. People change. I have a reason to stay here now.”
“Yeah, but you started the paperwork on the house before you and Kelsey hooked up. What’s going on with you two? Because I’ll beat your ass if you hurt her,” he says in a firm voice. I like knowing that she has had someone in her life who looks out for her, but he doesn’t have to do that anymore. I’m not going anywhere, but if I want him to trust me, I need to tell him everything.
“Okay. So hear me out before you say anything and try to keep your fists out of my face until I’m done,” I say, pulling into the gym’s parking lot and turning off my truck.
“My dad wants to take the BA from Sara and her father.” Logan snaps his head at me. The look in his eye is a good warning for how I need to word the next part. “I thought I wanted to help, but not anymore.” His jaw twitches. “I didn’t mean for anything to happen with Kelsey, but it did, and she means more to me than what my father wants. I’ve been lying to him and pretending I’m helping him when I haven’t been doing anything more than what Sara asked of me. She is smart when it comes to that place, and I don’t believe anyone could run it better. But now my dad is on to me, and I have this bad feeling everything is about to blow up in my face.”
“Is that why you started things with Kelsey? To get dirt on Sara for your father?” he asks. “Because if you’re still looking, you’re not going to find anything.”
“No. Everything that has happened between Kelsey and me has nothing to do with my father. And I want Sara and my uncle to keep the bar. Grandpa gave it to them for reason; my father doesn’t deserve it. I just … Kelsey doesn’t know any of this and I don’t know how to tell her.”
“Well, you better tell Kelsey soon because if she finds out what you’re up to from anyone else, she won’t see things clearly and she won’t be as calm as I am. Now if you’re done being a girl and causing a whole lot of drama in my life, let’s go kick some ass on the court. Oh, and grow a fucking pair. Tell your dad to go to hell,” he says, getting out and slamming the door shut.