9. Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Lauren
“This never happened,” Aiden said, trailing kisses from my neck to my belly that had me arching beneath him. I gripped his hair as he continued down my stomach and — the alarm woke me. Again. Typically, I’m up and out of bed before it goes off, but without Wyatt, I no longer had time for the cat naps that accounted for half my sleep. I wanted to burrow under my comforter and not move all day. Maybe fall back into the dreams that had plagued me since St. John, because my subconscious had zero issues getting naked with Aiden over and over again.
I slapped the alarm off and dragged myself out of bed. By the time I shuffled through getting dressed, braided my hair, and scarfed down a granola bar, I had less than fifteen minutes to get everything ready before Karma opened at five. I’d be lucky if the coffee had finished brewing by the time the first customers arrived.
I flipped on the lights in the back room and stepped around the pile of boxes that had accumulated all week. Thank goodness it was Saturday. Cammie and Wyatt should arrive soon, and I’d be able to sort through the new inventory while they worked the front.
I quickly ground some of our signature roast and started brewing. Next, I scooped decaf beans into the grinder for those special souls who drank decaf first thing in the morning.
The rich smell of coffee filled the air. But something wasn’t right. It smelled burnt. I checked the brewer for any spills or smoke. Everything appeared to be working fine. The back door creaked open like a coffin in a horror movie and a moment later Cammie stepped out from the back.
“Morning,” she said brightly.
I opened my mouth to respond but the coffee smell became so overwhelming and awful, my stomach did an ominous flip. I ran past Cammie and into the customer bathroom, making it just in time.
“Oh no,” Cammie said, standing in the open doorway. “You must have caught that bug going around town.”
I flushed the toilet and nodded, suddenly dizzy from my dash to the bathroom and losing what little I’d eaten. “I think I’ll go upstairs for a while.”
“Don’t worry,” Cammie said, giving me a wide berth to pass her. “I’ll disinfect before we open.”
The coffee smell was even stronger now, and my stomach gave another quiver. I ran through the café, not realizing I’d held my breath until I gasped in a lungful of air on the staircase to my apartment.
I’d felt fine when I went downstairs. Tired but fine.
Dido growled at me from my grandfather’s chair when I collapsed on the sofa and rested my head on one of the brightly colored throw pillows. I did not have time for this. I needed to unpack inventory, finish reconciling the quarterly accounts, and work on the daunting list in my phone’s note app. There wasn’t much I could do lying on the couch, but I could check off a few things while my stomach settled.
Desdemona and Medusa pushed through the cat door. Desdemona hopped onto the couch arm, then meowed so Medusa would know where to jump. They laid down on either side of my head like two purring pillows.
I’d taken pictures of the gorgeous spring-themed cookies Rowan and Poppy sent over yesterday and took a couple minutes posting them to Karma’s social channels, tagging the Stevens sister’s Red Blossoms Bakery. Next, I opened my calendar app to see if I needed to cancel anything if my stomach didn’t cooperate. The day was pretty clear, but something niggled. I looked through my schedule leading up to the wedding next weekend and realized I hadn’t yet made an appointment for my next birth control shot. Since the end of the quarter was always busy, I typically scheduled it for midway through. I’d had to reschedule February’s shot because of an ice storm, so everything got shifted. Now was as good a time as any to use the online scheduling tool to set my second quarter shot, but I wasn’t sure when I’d gotten the last one.
I scrolled back to February and noted the appointment I’d missed. But as I flipped through the weeks after, panic built. I’d rescheduled the first quarter shot. Hadn’t I? By the time I’d arrived at the current week, my palms were sweating, and my stomach lurched again.
When I finished dry heaving into my kitchen sink, scaring all three cats from the apartment, I sank to the linoleum floor and leaned against the beat-up cabinet.
I’d missed a shot.
That’d never happened before. Whenever I’d had to cancel an appointment, my doctor’s office always contacted me to reschedule. I thought back to the past couple of months and the many calls and texts I’d missed from my suppliers and friends. I opened my text app, which had an embarrassing number of unread messages, and searched for my doctor. Three. I’d received three texts reminding me to make my appointment. One of which I even opened at the beginning of March.
Sex had been so far from my mind, I guess the reminder slipped through the cracks like so many other things I thought could wait. I hadn’t slept with anyone in almost a year before —
“Oh, shit.”
It happened so fast, we hadn’t stopped to grab a condom. At the time, I wasn’t worried because I was on birth control. Or supposed to be. My stomach gave another twist. I’d gotten sick. Twice. Once, for no other reason than the smell of coffee.
This can’t be happening.
Since starting the shot, my periods had been unpredictable, disappearing for months at a time. I had no way of knowing where I’d be on my cycle or if I was late.
I rose from the floor slowly, not wanting to set off another dizzy spell, and grabbed my purse and keys. I couldn’t wait another minute to find out if I’d brought back an unintentional souvenir from the Caribbean. Sneaking down the back stairs was easy, but when I opened the exit door, it let out a loud groan, and Cammie called my name.
I thought of pretending I hadn’t heard her, but I didn’t want her to worry that someone had gotten in from the street. “It’s me,” I said.
“Where are you going?” she asked, pushing through the door from the café.
“I just need to get some things to, um, settle my stomach.”
Cammie frowned. “I can run out and get whatever you need as soon as the morning rush ends, and Wyatt gets here. You shouldn’t be out and about spreading germs.”
“Actually, I don’t think I’m sick.”
“Sure sounded like it to me.”
“I mean, I’m sick. But I think it’s something I ate. Or drank. I probably had too much wine last night with Rowan. I’m going to grab some rose bay willow.”
“Is that a tree?”
“It’s an herbal remedy.”
Cammie held up her hands. “I can’t keep up with your woo woo ways. If you think you can get to the store and back without hurting yourself or sickening someone else, I’ll leave you to it.”
Which was exactly what I figured she’d say. “I’ll be back in less than an hour. The health food store is in Jericho.” Not that it was open this early.
“Whatever works for you,” Cammie said, shaking her head. “I’m happy to grab you some soda and saltines from the grocery store later. Just text me what you want.”
“Thanks, Cam,” I said, pushing out the door, which screeched like a pissed-off banshee.
Because I knew everyone who worked at the grocery store, pharmacy, or anywhere else that would sell a pregnancy test, I headed out of Peace Falls. I may have bought condoms from Mr. Wilson a time or two at the town’s pharmacy, but no way in hell was I buying a pregnancy test from the man.
Climbing into my somewhat-trusty beater, I asked the universe to please get me to Jericho and back without breaking down. Karma was on my side, and I pulled into a 24-hour pharmacy fifteen minutes later and headed straight for the family planning aisle. The young woman at the register glanced at me when she rang up the pregnancy test, but since I didn’t know her, I pretended buying a pregnancy test before six in the morning was no big deal. Or tried to.
“There’s a bathroom in the back, if you need it,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said, touched by her kindness. My eyes stung. For goodness’ sake, she’d offered me a toilet, not a kidney. I turned and pointed to the back of the store. “Where?”
“Right corner, by the adult diapers. It’s just through the door.”
I headed in that direction and pushed through an unmarked door next to the Depends. The bathroom sat on the other side of a narrow hallway. I went in and locked the door behind me, thankful I had the entire room to myself.
My hands shook as I tore open the cardboard box and peeled the plastic from both tests. I’d gone with the idiot-proof version. This was not the time to decipher how many lines meant what, and I wanted both tests to confirm whatever answer the other gave.
As I hovered over the surprisingly pristine toilet, I contemplated whether I should call Rowan. This felt like the kind of thing best friends helped each other through. And wasn’t I always getting on her for introverting when she should lean on others, namely me?
I decided best friend or not, Rowan didn’t need to hear me pee. When I finished, I placed both tests on the back of the toilet and washed my hands. After setting a timer on my phone, I paced with it, watching the seconds tick down.
No sense telling Rowan about a false alarm. She’d want to know who I’d been sleeping with, and despite all odds, neither Rowan nor Poppy suspected anything had happened between Aiden and me, other than drinking too much whiskey before lunch.
Definitely no need to call Rowan because the test would be negative. The shot had lingering levels of protection. I’d only had sex once. I imagined both tests flashing “Negative” and sent it into the universe.
I paced the closet-sized room until the timer went off. When I picked up both sticks and read the results, I had to lean against the wall to keep from falling on my ass.
Pregnant.
Both tests had the same result. But they could be from a faulty batch. I tossed them both in the trash and hurried back to the family planning aisle, where I grabbed one of every type of test.
This time Melissa—I took the time to read her name tag—rang me up, then handed me a bottled water from the refrigerated case by the register. “You might need this.”
She was right. My bladder felt completely empty. I unscrewed the cap and chugged the full bottle. My stomach did not approve. Thankfully, I made it outside before I watered the bushes by the front door.
“You can return those tests, if you want,” Melissa said, handing me a paper towel.
I wiped the tears from my eyes, then my mouth. “Maybe,” I said, my voice shaking.
“You can exchange them for some ginger tea. That really helped me.”
I nodded. “OK.”
I followed Melissa back inside the store where she gathered tea and a box of Pedialyte frozen popsicles. “Make sure you stay hydrated. Would you like to keep one test? You could take it tomorrow morning. Just to be sure.”
I nodded again, my throat too tight to speak. After she’d completed the transaction, she gave me a small smile, and I burst into tears.
“Are you a hugger?” she asked.
I nodded, and she walked around the counter and wrapped me in a tight hug. It’s the kind of thing I would have done, and had done, whenever I’d crossed paths with a stranger who clearly needed some support.
“Thank you,” I said, taking a step back and grabbing my bag from the counter, “for being so kind.”
She shrugged. “What goes around comes around, right?”
I nodded, but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of anything I’d ever done bad enough to deserve being knocked up by Aiden O’Malley.