Forever With You

  Because as I stood there, stiff and awkward, my arms clamped to my sides, in Nick’s embrace, it was hard—­too hard—­to look at him objectively. To separate the situation we were in and how that made me feel toward Nick, and what had existed between us before I found out that I was pregnant.

  Realization was hard to swallow, but I forced myself to acknowledge what I felt every time someone mentioned his name—­that tightening in my chest and stomach, the unnerving and unfamiliar sense of anticipation that always accompanied how I felt. We were obviously very attracted to one another on a pure, visceral level, but I also remembered Nick’s words the night he’d came to apologize.

  He wished we were different.

  Did that mean he wished for something more? But he had wanted to try to be friends with me, something he’d apparently never done before. And how did I feel? Could I feel more for him?

  As his hand slowly moved up my spine in a smooth, comforting gesture, I felt my heart trip over itself in response. Yeah, I could . . . I could feel more.

  Maybe . . . maybe this was it. Maybe this attraction, the simmering chemistry, would transform into something far, far deeper. Maybe he was the . . . the one.

  Seconds ticked by and my muscles slowly loosened. Tentatively, I lifted my hands and placed them on his waist. The embrace wasn’t perfect, but as my cheek eased against his chest, I wasn’t sure if either of us were capable of perfect now or if it even mattered. We were virtual strangers, with our own issues and pasts, who believed we were being responsible, only to find out life had completely different plans that neither of us foresaw.

  And the hug might not seem like a big deal, but it was a start, a beginning of our linked futures.

  Chapter 14

  “I would like a rib-­eye, medium. . . .” My gaze flicked from the young waitress to the menu. Was I not supposed to eat possibly undercooked foods now that I was pregnant? I had no idea. I needed to Google this shit. Sighing, I closed the menu. Safety over taste. “I’ll go with medium well.”

  “Is that how you normally eat steak?” Nick asked as the waitress moved away.

  I shook my head. “I normally eat it like you do—­medium rare, but I’m not sure if I should be eating meat like that now.”

  Sitting across from me, he picked up his glass of water. “Maybe we need to get a manual or something.”

  “I think we do.” Grinning, I fiddled with the edge of the cloth that had been rolled around the silverware. “I’m sure there’s one out there.”

  After what wasn’t the most awkward hug in history, Nick had asked if I was hungry. Instead of explaining that I just ate, I decided to go with whatever he was suggesting, because we needed to talk. A half an hour later we ended up at the Outback not too far from Mona’s.

  “You said you have a doctor’s appointment, right?” he asked. “This week? I want to go with you.”

  For the hundredth time today, astonishment winged its way through me. I settled back against the booth. “You don’t have to—­”

  “I know I don’t have to.” Nick frowned, and damn, even with a pretty decent frown on his face, he still was strikingly handsome. “But I want to.”

  Something warmed in my chest, but I ignored it. “It’s just a general doctor. They’re just going to tell me I’m pregnant and that I’ll need to see an OB/GYN.”

  “Then why not go ahead and set that appointment up?” His gaze was steady, searching. “Why go to a general doc when you already know what they’re going to say?”

  Damn. He had a good point.

  “I have a good point, huh?”

  My eyes narrowed. “Can you read minds?”

  “No.” He laughed. “I’m just logical.”

  “Whatever,” I sighed. “Okay. I can make an OB/GYN appointment tomorrow. Well, hopefully find one.”

  He smiled briefly. “I can be available whenever. You let me know. I can drive you or meet you there.”

  “Okay.” Folding my arms over my stomach, I peeked up and found him watching me. “Are you . . . you going to tell your family?”

  The line of his jaw hardened. “No.”

  His response was so quick it was cutting. “Okay.”

  “Dammit.” He leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. “I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t have any immediate family—­not any that would care.”

  I tipped my head to the side. “What does that mean?”

  “A lot.” He rested his chin in his hand and his fingers obscured the well-­formed mouth. “I’m not close to my extended family. I don’t even know if they still live around here. Are you planning on telling Roxy?”

  Knowing he’d changed the subject on purpose, I struggled to let it go. Things were very new to us and our steps were tentative. If he didn’t want to divulge that information right now, fine, but he would have to eventually. “I hadn’t thought about it. Were you?”

  “I was going to leave that up to you, but I don’t think it’s something I could keep secret from everyone,” he reasoned. “I’ll have to let Jax know if I need time off or something, but he’d keep it secret.”

  “He might tell Calla. I mean, they’re together and I’m sure they talk. Then if she knows, there’s a good chance she’ll let it slip.” I bit down on my lip. “We don’t have to tell them anything right now, though.”

  He nodded. “Nothing needs to be said at the moment, but what about your job? How do you think they’re going to handle it?”

  “Ugh.” I plopped my chin into my hands. “I don’t even want to think about it and I have no idea how they’ll respond. I guess I still have some time before I tell them.”

  Nick raised a dark brow. “I don’t think you want to drop a pregnancy bomb on them a few months before you’re due.”

  “I know, but I’m barely a month, so I have time.” I wrinkled my nose when he raised both brows. “And I really don’t need to tell them for a long time, right? It’s not like I’m delaying the inevitable.”

  “Huh.”

  My eyes narrowed again. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing.” There was a brief pause. “You’re not delaying the inevitable here. You don’t have to tell them yet. I mean, I think women wait for a while, but you just don’t strike me as the type who delays anything. You seem like you meet most things head on.”

  “Obviously you don’t know me well.” Immediately, I recognized the snottiness in my tone.

  Nick’s fingers lowered from his mouth, revealing a half smile. “That’s what we’re doing, aren’t we? Getting to know each other.”

  Kind of felt like we were just scraping at each other’s surface and not going any deeper. “We do need to.” I softened my tone.

  “Agreed.” Suddenly, he reached across the table with his long arm. His hand cupped my cheek, and I stilled, holding my breath as he swept his thumb along my chin. “You had a piece of lint there.”

  My pulse fluttered. “I did?”

  “Yeah.” His lashes lowered, shielding his eyes. “Not anymore.”

  “That’s good,” I whispered, the fluttering expanding. “Are you searching for more lint?”

  Nick chuckled deeply, and the sound elicited a fine shiver out of me. “Maybe.” His voice had changed, sluicing over my skin like warm water. “Lint are tricky little beasts. But I think I’d have to do a more thorough search.” His lips curled fully as he removed his hand. “Just to make sure you’re lint free in all the important areas.”

  I grinned. “You’re so helpful.”

  “That I am.” He tilted his head to the side and the low light glanced off his high cheekbones. “Anyway. We need to figure each other out. We are stuck with one another for like . . . well, forever now.”

  A wave of prickly heat washed over my skin, eroding the sensual warmth of his teasing. A bitter-­edged hurt I didn’t fully understand r
eplaced it, and my mouth immediately formed words. “I guess you need to start buying better condoms then, huh?”

  The grin twisted into something wry. “I guess you need to pay better attention to taking your pills, huh?”

  Touché.

  We both scored points there.

  “Look. We need to make this work.” He pressed back against the seat, his eyes chilly compared to earlier. “And pointing fingers at one another for this isn’t going to do us any favors. There’s a lot we need to figure out—­a lot of important things like child care, how we’re going to raise this kid—­the money it’s going to take. I’m not sure about the legalities involved in all of that, but we’re going to need to figure it out.”

  The prickly heat spread, and I wished I was outside, letting the cold wind chill my body and erase the sting. I felt myself nod, but I couldn’t get the word “stuck” out of my head. Being “stuck” with someone didn’t allude to anything deeper. What the hell was I thinking earlier, when Nick had hugged me? That we could somehow grow to really care for each other, maybe even . . . maybe even love one another in the way I’d always hoped I’d fall for someone?

  I was a fucking idiot.

  Nick and I had sex. Now we were dealing with the consequences. Emotions weren’t involved in this. Nope. Not at all.

  He looked away, a muscle ticking along his jaw. The food arrived, but my stomach had soured.

  Well, that new beginning didn’t feel too shiny now.

  The stack of fresh binders wobbled in my arms as I navigated the cubicles Monday afternoon. The revamped HR manual had been completed, but now they needed new binders, because of reasons. The plastic, chemical scent turned my sensitive stomach and I was half tempted to throw them into the stockroom, but once again, there were reasons why that wouldn’t be acceptable behavior.

  I stacked them on the center shelf, spines facing out, and then smoothed down the front of my blouse. A different scent overpowered the chemical one, something too musky. Turning around, I almost threw myself on the floor and started flailing like a two-­year-­old.

  Rick stood in the doorway, his flushed face and beady eyes a very unwelcome sight. He was the source of the newest stomach-­turning aroma. Some days it smelled like he bathed in cologne. He smirked.

  I sighed.

  Today was not a good day.

  My shitastic mood kicked off in the morning when I tried to slip on this extremely cute pin-­striped pencil skirt. I’d gotten it up my thighs and over my hips but when I tried to zip it up, it cut into my stomach and stretched the seams.

  Then, after experiencing the very first pregnancy-­related clothing failure first thing in the morning, my stomach was not a happy camper the entire rainy commute to work. Not having had the foresight to check on what pregnant folk could use to deal with nausea, I just had to suffer until I got home. My paranoia would not allow me to Google that info while I was at work.

  Since my stomach felt like it was just bubbling with bile, I couldn’t eat much for lunch, which made me hangry—­hungry and angry at the same time. But that wasn’t the main source of discontent during lunch. I’d hidden in my car and started calling OB/GYNs, and dear God in heaven, was everyone in the county pregnant and in need of a baby doctor? I had to make six different calls to find a doctor who could see me by the second week of November.

  The second week of November!

  Holy crap, by my calculations, I’d be around eight weeks pregnant by then. Eight weeks! That was two months and some spare change. What in the hell was I supposed to do between now and then?

  There were a lot of things I could screw up in two and half months.

  But I made the appointment, and then, even though the dinner with Nick last night had gone downhill as quickly as a zombie apocalypse would, I texted him the date and time I’d scheduled my first appointment.

  No response.

  Not a damn thing.

  Oh, he wanted to be involved and we needed to be in this together because we were stuck together, but that text message was three hours ago, and he still hadn’t responded? We were getting off to a great start.

  Granted, for all I knew, something could be going on, but my shitty day was just shitacular and logic wouldn’t do anything but make me angrier.

  And now I had Rick staring at me like the dickhead he was.

  I stalked toward the door, planning to punch him in the balls if he didn’t move out of the way or brushed against me again, but as I neared him, he stepped to the side. Rick said nothing as I all but stomped past him, out the door, holding my breath so I didn’t choke on the cologne. He just stood there, like a creep, staring at me.

  Creeper-­mc-­asshole.

  I’d neared my desk when Marcus’s door flew open, rattling the edges. My eyes widened as I jerked to a stop. Andrew Lima raced out of the office, hauling butt to the main doors. Marcus was right behind him. Andrew’s daughter—­the quiet Jillian, darted out next.

  “What happened?” I asked, my hand fluttering to my stomach for some unknown reason.

  As I jerked my hand away, the gesture went unnoticed. Jillian’s face was leeched of all blood as she hurried past me. “It’s Brock,” she said, her dark eyes shiny with tears. “He’s been hurt.”

  Chapter 15

  Hardly anyone spoke of anything else the rest of the day at work. Everyone was blown away by what had happened in one of the training rings down below. From what I could gather from the guys milling in and out of the office, Brock had been training one of the newer fighters, a young guy who had a world of potential in the mixed martial-­arts arena.

  No one quite knew exactly how the injury happened, but it sounded like Brock was showing the younger man grappling moves. Something had gone wrong, and Brock was flat on his back, clutching at his chest. He’d said that he felt a pop in his chest, and while I didn’t know much about MMA-­related injuries, that didn’t sound good.

  And it hadn’t been.

  By the time we were starting to close down the office, Marcus returned and the news was grim. Brock had suffered a pectoralis major tendon rupture—­a tear in the interior muscle that surrounded the chest wall. The tear was so severe that the muscle had been separated from the bone and he was rushed into surgery to repair it. In a handful of seconds Brock “the Beast” Mitchell had suffered what some feared would be a career ending injury.

  Horrified, I hadn’t known what to say. I didn’t know Brock that well, but it was depressing to hear that his entire future could’ve shifted irrevocably. The malaise lingered well past the time I’d gone home and changed into a pair of warm and comfy sweats. Roxy stopped by for a little bit, and I told her about Brock. She was as saddened as everyone else.

  When she left to head up to Reece’s, I chatted with Yasmine on Skype for a ­couple of minutes about nothing in particular before she leaned toward her computer screen, her brown eyes filled with concern.

  “How are you really doing, Steph?” she asked, her voice sounding distant over the Skype connection.

  I clutched the throw pillow close to my chest as I eyed her back. “I’m doing good. Like I’ve said.”

  Her head tilted to one side. “You look really tired, though.”

  Geez. My lips pursed. “Do I look like a hot mess or something?”

  “Kind of,” she replied.

  “Thanks.”

  A wide smile broke out, raising her dark cheeks. “I don’t mean anything by it. You just look tired.”

  I’m pregnant formed on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t get those two words out. I had no idea what Yasmine would think. I doubted it would be the typical squeals of excitement that had gone down when Roxy heard Avery was pregnant. It would probably be a lot of “holy craps” and the like. A weird heaviness settled on my chest. I quickly changed the subject, asking about Atlanta.

  Once I was off the call w
ith her, I grabbed a snack and then plopped down on the couch, munching on Cheez-­Its as I fell down the rabbit hole known as Buzzfeed.

  A few minutes after nine, my phone dinged. My hand froze halfway to my mouth and an orange square fell, plopping off my chest as my gaze swung to where my phone rested on the arm of the couch.

  It was from Nick.

  Ok. I can be there.

  That was it? Nearly nine hours later and that was his response? My hand tightened around the phone. I wanted to text him back and demand why it had taken him so long to respond, but that wasn’t me. Or at least that had never been me before, but now was it?

  I picked the Cheez-­It up off my boob and popped it in my mouth, chewing the poor thing like I was a wolverine with a bone. All I wanted to do was plant my face in a pillow and scream.

  Scream so many F-­words that ears all around the condo blistered.

  And that was a wee bit dramatic.

  What was wrong with me? Hormones? Didn’t women get kind of emotional when they were pregnant? That sounded like as good an excuse as any, but did it happen this quickly?

  Tuesday and Wednesday were overcast and dreary, matching my mood and those at Lima Academy. Brock had made it out of surgery and he’d have to be in an arm sling for at least six weeks. It was too soon to tell if he’d heal completely and could return, or the outcome would be what everyone feared.

  I hadn’t seen Andrew or his daughter since Monday, but I imagined both were distraught, for very different reasons. Brock was essential to Lima’s success, but I couldn’t forget the way Jillian had looked at him. Even though she was leaving, she clearly was very much in love with Brock.

  Nick had texted me back on Tuesday, sometime during the afternoon, and I hadn’t responded, because . . . well, I didn’t have a good reason. A huge part of me knew I was being childish and that, honestly, this was the time for me to act mature, but I couldn’t rattle up enough energy to care.

  When I got home Wednesday, I immediately pulled on flannel pajama bottoms and a loose sweater and then chatted with my mom. She was happy that I had told Nick, and while she tried to keep her cool on the phone, I could tell she was thrilled that in about eight months she was going to be a grandmother.