Chapter Five
Brady
It felt good to have a day off from The Black Sheep. I hadn’t had one in a long time, but Jack insisted, and I wasn’t about to fight him on it. I’d taken the morning to get a lot of boring shit done (which I wouldn’t bore you with) and now I was ready to sit down and eat the sub I’d brought home—the highlight of my day. See, that was the thing about having the day off, I didn’t need to cook or pour drinks for anyone, so I very well wasn’t going to do it for myself.
I looked down at the sub. “It’s just you and me, old friend.” I shook my head. “And I’m talking to my food.” Delicious food, but that didn’t change the fact that it made it seem like I had a few loose screws.
I opened my mouth and was just about to take a bite when—
“You’re home.”
I pulled the sub away from my mouth and turned to face Allegra.
Her hair swished to the back of her as she closed the door and locked it. She let out a heavy sigh, and her eyes were closed when her back leaned against the door.
“Bad day?” I asked. Even with her face flushed like she’d been put through the wringer, she still looked like a goddamn goddess.
Her lips were painted some shade of light pink.
She was wearing a tight shirt that left little to the imagination. Seriously, I could see her tits straining against the fabric, and my willpower to look away was. . . just about zero.
Then those damn pink lips of hers puckered as she did those breathing exercises she’d told me about before. Yeah, she’d had a bad day. Her eyes fluttered open, and I saw that they were aglow with something unfamiliar, something I’d never seen in her before. Was it nerves? No, it couldn’t be. What could she be nervous about?
“Allegra, what’s wrong?”
Plastering a smile on, she meandered over to the kitchen. “Define wrong .” She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a water bottle. “I didn’t know you’d be home.”
I think we established I’m home.
I turned to face her, still looking down at my sub and contemplated whether I should ask her to elaborate on her shitty day. I wanted to know, don’t get me wrong. But my sub. . . it was looking like I was never going to get to enjoy this sub. Not that I would enjoy it now that I knew something was going on with Allegra. Fine, that does it. “I have the day off,” I answered. “Now what’s going on? Why are you home?”
I watched her throat bob as she swallowed. On a scale of one to ten, how weird would it be if I told you I wanted to lick the column of her neck right now, but only after nipping at the sensitive skin?
She placed her water on the counter and gave me a weary smile.
My body was practically humming. Not the time.
“I have something to tell you.”
“Okay,” I said, uncertain where this was going.
She pointed a finger in my direction. “That looks really good. Would you mind if I have a bite? I’m starving and really don’t want to make something for myself.”
I looked from my sub to her and then back again. My sub? She wanted my sub? “Um,” I said, my eyes still fleeting between both. “Sure.”
Walking to me, she exhaled. “Thank you. I love subs.”
You and me both. But I was never going to get to enjoy it, and someone should, right? “No problem.”
I handed it over, and she took it, her mouth coming around the sub as she took a bite. A big bite. I was torn. It was both hot and upsetting. Hot because, well, this was Allegra so everything she did was hot. Upsetting because it was my sub, my delicious sub that was made to perfection at the hands of the sandwich artist. It had applewood smoked bacon, crisp vegetables, and fresh baked bread. Don’t start drooling, this was my sub, all right?
I swallowed. “Allegra, what did you have to tell me?”
“Oh, right, that,” she replied in between bites. Then she stopped and angled her head. “Why do you always call me Allegra and not Allie? Most everyone calls me Allie.”
I narrowed my eyes as I regarded her closely. Is this what she wanted to talk about? “I don’t know. I like your name.”
“You don’t like Allie?” she asked, her brows coming together. “It was actually a nickname my sisters gave me. Then it kind of stuck.”
Shaking my head, I tried to dig myself out of the giant hole I’d just gotten myself into. “It’s not that. Allie’s a fine name. I don’t know. It just feels more natural for me to call you Allegra. Do you want me to stop?”
She sat down and took another bite.
Goodbye, Sub.
“No. Is it weird if I say I like it? I just wanted to know why you call me by my real name.”
Weirdest conversation of my life. And to think that was what I’d stopped eating my sub over. “No, not at all.” I stood up and accepted my fate of being back in the kitchen, preparing food. It wouldn’t be the same, but it’d have to do. “So what’s going on? Because something tells me this isn’t what you wanted to talk about. Unless it was. . .” I said, trying it from another angle, wondering if this time she’d spit it out—her words, not my sub, that’d just be a travesty.
Her shoulders slumped, and she licked her lips. She looked more relaxed and for that I was glad. Maybe it was because she’d polished off my sub. She reached for my drink next and, after a few sips, swallowed.
Clearly answering me wasn’t high on her list of priorities, so I moved on, taking a knife from the block and cutting into the head of lettuce we had in the fridge. I looked up from what I was doing and watched her set the drink down.
She looked me square in the eye. “About that. . . yeah, I’m pregnant.”
“What?” Son of a bitch. The knife slipped and I nearly chopped off a finger. Who said that to a person when they had a knife in their hand? One that was dangerously close to fingers. With no warning at all. “You’re pregnant?”
“Mmhmm,” Allegra answered coolly as I put the knife down and stared at her, waiting. Why the hell was she so calm about this? Wasn’t this something women usually freaked out about, especially when they weren’t married or. . . or dating. Because I knew with one hundred percent certainty that she wasn’t dating anyone. Not when she came to me not long ago looking for me to fuck her.
“Why are you telling me ?” I practically shouted. What were the odds that she was just sharing this information? I prayed that was what this was. Nothing more than her wanting to share the news that she was going to be carrying and growing a baby inside of her for the next nine months. It certainly couldn’t be because—
“It’s yours.”
And in that moment, in that very moment, I finally understood what people meant when they said their life flashed before their eyes. Yeah, that happened before my vision blurred and my stomach churned over half a dozen times.
Maybe I hadn’t heard her right. Yeah, that was it. I could feel the blood pumping in my ears and suddenly felt the urge to wipe my sweaty palms on the dish towel. I braced my palms on the counter and squared my shoulders. That was all this was—a case of me not hearing her correctly. She hadn’t said it was mine. She had said something else. What that could have been, I wasn’t quite sure, but just go with it, okay? Because I was freaking out over here.
But I was bullshitting myself, wasn’t I?
Allegra had said it was mine.
Allegra was pregnant, and the baby was mine.
Inside Allegra’s stomach was a baby, and it was ours. Mine and Allegra’s.
Either I was swaying, or the walls were moving. I gripped the corners of the counter and tried to slow down the spinning.
Then it dawned on me, she wasn’t for real. The corner of my lips curled upward, and I couldn’t help it, I laughed. Outwardly laughed. “I never knew you to be a kidder.” I shook my head. “But I have to say, you’re a pretty damn good one because I thought you were seri—”
“Brady, I am serious. I’m pregnant and the baby is yours.” Her eyes shone with something else now—anger.
Allegra was serious, and she was. . . she was. . . pregnant.
With my baby.
* * *
Allegra
My cheeks burned. Actually burned. Didn’t he know I’d already had my freak-out? I didn’t need this right now.
Brady’s eyes grew wide, and his jaw twitched. “How—” He rubbed a hand over his face before leaning forward and gripping the counter with his hands until his knuckles turned white.
Yeah, I knew the reaction well.
“How could this have happened?” he finally ground out.
I crossed my arms and flashed him an are-you-serious look. “Skipped sex ed?”
“Smartass,” he remarked, harrumphing.
The sound sent a chill running down my spine, and I immediately brought my knees together. The effect this man had on me was borderline outrageous. He got me pregnant and I still wanted him, still wanted to grant him access to my flower field.
“Well?” Brady pushed, his brows raised as he waited for me to answer. As though I would have some grand explanation for the whole thing. I didn’t, by the way.
Unfazed by his meltdown, I walked to the couch and crossed my legs, staring into his brown eyes. “You can really only blame yourself.”
“Me?” His typical deep voice was more high-pitched with that one. He must’ve shocked himself because he cleared his throat. His lips formed a thin line. “How do you figure?”
I shrugged. “Easy. Rough sex can cause condoms to break.” Facts, by the way—I looked it up.
“You should have thought about that when you insisted I go deeper and harder.” He grinned, looking so smug, so cocky. “I believe those were your exact words.”
“We both benefited from that, don’t you think?” I spat back at him, remembering that night. Then I shifted in my seat. “Plus, these things happen all the time, right?”
“Not to me.” He crossed his arms and stood back, leaning against the stove. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have little kiddos running around.”
Well, planned or not, it happened and no amount of discussing it was going to change the facts. I was pregnant. Brady was the father. He was my roommate. We were not destined to be together. It was unfortunate, really, what with him being some of the best sex I’d ever had in all my years.
Finally, trying to put him out of his misery, I said, “You don’t have to be part of this baby’s life if you don’t want to.”
“What gives you the impression that I wouldn’t want to? I’m not going to abandon them. I wouldn’t do that to my kid. Frankly, you should know me well enough to know that I’m not that guy.”
“I’m just trying to give you an out.” A way to not be tied to me forever.
“Well, don’t.”
“You mean to tell me you’re ready to be a father?” And wanted to stick by me for the next eighteen years? Seemed unlikely. To share an apartment together, sure, but to be together in any real way. . . sharing a child. It felt far-fetched.
“That’s neither here nor there. You’re pregnant, end of story.”
“So what exactly are we supposed to do? Play house? Pretend like we’re not just roommates?” I couldn’t have this man start confusing me, confusing our situation.
“Shit, Allegra. Could you stop asking me questions?” Then he turned the tables on me. “I mean, what do you want? I doubt when you came to my pub that night you wanted to get pregnant.”
Exhaling deeply, I looked him in the eyes. “True, but I’m going to be their home for the next nine months, so I better get on board, right? Because then the real commitment starts. I’m going to be a mom. What I want will matter less and less.” I shrugged casually because, the truth was, the mourning process had already happened for me—my life was going to change, period. “I might as well get used to it.”
He walked over to me. “Wrong. What you want is the most important thing. At least, to me it is.”
I cleared my throat and stood. I needed space, air. I needed to walk around. This was getting weird for me. “Thank you. So I guess we’ll just figure this out as we’re going.”
“No other way to do it. Now what’s next?” he asked, following me as I walked from the living room.
“I have my first prenatal appointment scheduled—”
“I’ll be there.”
I turned around and eyed him seriously. “You don’t even know when it is.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m telling you, Allegra, I want to be part of all of it. I’m not missing out on a second of this.”
“Okayyy. I guess it’ll be nice to have a pregnancy buddy.” A pregnancy buddy? I didn’t know why I’d just said that. Brady wasn’t a pregnancy buddy. He was Mr. Sperm Shooter Extraordinaire and the baby daddy. Never mind, I knew why I’d said that—I needed to keep the lines clear.
But if Brady’s odd expression was any indication, he didn’t get why I’d said it but also didn’t seem inclined to ask. “So what do you need from me? Name it and it’s yours.”
I needed to lighten the mood, shift things so we were back on normal ground, ground I understood. “Oooh! If you could carry the baby instead, that would be great,” I joked.
Chuckling, he returned, “Sorry, Allegra. I can’t accommodate you on that one. Anything else?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Can I tell my brother?”
“Of course.”
“Okay,” he said, looking unsure, as if he didn’t believe it’d be so easy. “I just thought you’d want to wait because you’re superstitious.”
It was interesting because people had typically made me out to be weird for believing the things I did. Never Brady, though. There wasn’t even a hint of judgment in his voice. Probably because he was just stating facts, not because he actually cared. I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. “It’s okay. My sisters already know. They found my pregnancy test at Maria’s.”
He angled his head, as if trying to get a read on me. “You’re not nervous that they know? I heard there’s something about not telling people until so many weeks.”
My eyebrows formed a V. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Around,” he countered. And persisted in asking, “Well?”
“No, I’m not nervous. My psychic confirmed the baby will be healthy.” Oh, why did I go and say that? I wanted to slap myself upside my head. Now he’d know I had a psychic. More different Allegra . Maybe he’d move past that if I continued talking. So I did—“I’m not worried, Brady. My doctor isn’t even worried, which is why they wouldn’t see me yet. It’s all good. It’s sweet that you’re concerned, but there’s no need to be. You don’t have to worry about me.”
And why would he? I was a one-night stand and now just the mother of his child. Besides that, we were nothing to one another. It wasn’t like he had feelings for me. Not romantic ones, anyway.
Exhaling, he ran a hand through his brown hair. “Okay.”