Chapter 45
Chapter Forty Five
Erica
I wake up, and for one blissful second I don’t know where I am.
The sheets are soft. The mattress is too good. The room smells like Nico—clean soap and that faint warm cologne that clings to him even after he showers. My body feels heavy in the best way, like every muscle finally stopped bracing for impact.
I blink and stare up at the ceiling.
Twelve hours.
The number hits me as soon as I check my phone. I slept twelve hours straight. No waking up to check the time. No jolting awake, thinking I heard a monitor beep. No bolting upright with my heart hammering.
I shift and realize I’m alone.
The other side of the bed is cool. The covers are slightly rumpled where he was, but he’s not here. He doesn’t usually sleep that long. Neither do I, but I guess I was finally just ready for sleep.
A decadent smell wafts into the room, and my stomach growls.
Food.
Not the sterile hospital smell that has been living in my nose for days. Not antiseptic, coffee, and fear.
Actual food. Good food.
Something warm and savory drifts up from downstairs, rich enough that my stomach tugs painfully. Like my body just remembered it has needs.
I let out a breath and sit up, rubbing my face with both hands until my skin warms. My hair is everywhere. My mouth tastes like sleep. My eyes feel puffy, but not from crying. From rest.
That feels foreign.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, feet finding the floor, and I just… sit there for a second. Listening.
The house is quiet in that morning way. No alarms. No rushing. No voices through thin hospital walls.
Just the faint clink of something downstairs. A pan, maybe. A plate.
Nico.
My chest tightens with something soft and stupid.
I stand and detour to the bathroom because I’m not walking down there looking like this. I splash water on my face, brush my teeth, drag my fingers through my hair, and give up halfway through.
My eyes are clearer than they’ve been in days.
And then my brain tries to ruin it.
I walk back into the bedroom toward the dresser, already thinking about what I wore yesterday, what I have that isn’t wrinkled, and what I can borrow because I haven’t been home in days.
That’s when I see it: my purse hanging neatly by the dresser.
I stop so hard I feel it in my calves.
I didn’t put that there.
I know I didn’t. I remember dropping it. I remember the way my fingers barely worked when I came in. I remember collapsing into the shower and then the bed and then nothing.
My pulse kicks up, not from fear.
From realization.
Nico must have picked it up.
Nico must have—
My mouth goes dry.
I step closer like I’m approaching a live wire, and my fingers hover for a second before I flip the clasp open.
Please.
Please be there.
My hand dips inside and closes around the plastic.
I pull it out.
The pregnancy test.
Still there.
Still positive.
My stomach rolls, and I shove it back into the purse so fast the clasp clicks loudly in the quiet room.
I stand there, staring at the purse like it’s going to tell me whether he saw it.
Whether he knows.
Whether Bianca told him.
She wouldn’t.
Guilt hits me, sharp and ridiculous.
Because I know and he doesn’t. It’s his baby too, and he has the right to know.
I swallow hard and force myself to move.
I grab clothes from the dresser—not that I have much to pick from, just something soft and clean—and change quickly, my hands clumsy. I stop and stare at myself again, like I’m waiting for the panic to settle.
It doesn’t.
So I leave it in my chest and walk out anyway.
Then quickly walk back to grab the test and slip it into the pocket of my hoodie.
Then I walk out again. Down the stairs. Toward the smell of food.
Toward Nico.
Toward the fact that my purse was moved, my test is still there, and I have no idea what he knows.
I reach the bottom step and pause, fingers curling around the banister.
Then I make my feet move, because guilt doesn’t change anything.
And neither does hiding.
I follow the smell into the kitchen like it’s pulling me by the nose.
The house is bright in the morning. Sunlight on pale wood floors. The counters are clean, and Nico is at the stove in sweats and a dark T-shirt, broad shoulders filling the space as if he belongs in it.
Which he does.
He looks up the second I step in, like he felt me move through the house before I even hit the bottom stair.
His gaze lands on my face and holds there for a beat too long.
“Morning,” he says.
My throat tightens.
“Morning,” I manage.
He turns the burner down and sets the spatula aside, movements efficient without being rushed. He looks… normal. If you ignore the faint scar on his cheek. If you ignore the fact that I have a positive pregnancy test in my pocket, and my heart is thundering.
“You slept,” he says.
I swallow.
“Twelve hours,” I say, almost sheepishly.
His mouth twitches.
“You needed it,” he replies.
The simplicity of that makes my eyes burn.
He takes a plate from the counter and sets it on the island. Eggs. Toast. Potatoes. Nothing fancy. Just perfect.
“Sit,” he says.
I slide onto a stool at the counter.
He sets a glass of water in front of me, then the plate.
“Eat,” he says.
My stomach turns, and for a second I don’t know if it’s hunger or nausea or nerves.
“I’m not hungry,” I say automatically.
He leans his hip against the counter across from me, arms folding loosely, and just looks at me.
“Okay,” he says.
That single word knocks me off balance harder than an argument would have.
Okay?
No push?
No correction?
My fingers curl around the edge of the plate.
I take a small bite anyway, mostly to stop myself from talking.
The food is good. Of course it is. Nico doesn’t do anything halfway.
He watches me eat.
My pocket feels heavy.
I force myself to breathe through my nose. To chew. To swallow.
To act like my insides aren’t screaming.
Nico turns to the coffee machine and does something with it. The sound of it is normal. Grounding. He pours something into a mug, then sets it aside like he’s not even drinking it yet.
Like he’s keeping his hands busy, too.
I can’t stand it.
The quiet.
The normal.
The fact that my purse was hanging neatly by the dresser as if someone deliberately put it there.
Like someone may have looked inside it.
My fork taps the plate once. Too loudly.
Nico’s eyes flick to my hand.
Then back to my face.
“What,” he says, like he’s not asking a question. Like he’s naming a fact.
I swallow hard.
“Accident,” I say.
His brow lifts a fraction, and I hate that my body reacts to that like it’s a physical touch. Like my pulse is trained to answer him.
He doesn’t call me on it.
He just steps closer to the island, close enough that his presence affects my ability to breathe properly.
“You got a text while you were sleeping,” he says. “From the nurse.”
My head snaps up.
“What?” I say, too fast.
“It came in while you were out,” he adds. “I only checked in case there was something wrong.”
“What did it say?” I ask, fumbling for the phone.
“Just that he ran a low fever, but it’s down. He’s sleeping, and they’ll call if anything changes.”
Relief hits so hard it makes me sway on the stool.
I close my eyes for a second and breathe.
“Okay,” I whisper.
When I open them again, Nico is watching me intently.
He reaches out, not touching me, but resting his hand on the counter near my plate.
“Eat,” he says again, quieter.
I laugh weakly. “I knew you couldn’t help yourself.”
I take another bite.
The plastic stick in my pocket feels like a lead weight.
My hand twitches like I’m going to reach for it.
I don’t.
I look up at Nico instead, because if I’m going to do this, I have to do it while he’s looking at me. While I’m not hiding.
“Nico,” I say.
He stills.
“Yeah,” he answers immediately.
My heart bangs once.
Twice.
The words stack up behind my teeth.
I’m pregnant. I’m scared.
I don’t know what you’ll do. I don’t know what I’ll do.
But I don’t say any of it. Because my mouth is dry and my hands are cold, and I can hear my own pulse.
So I grab the only safe piece of truth I can hold without breaking.
“I need to go back to the hospital,” I say.
Nico nods once.
“Okay,” he replies.
Then, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world:
“We’ll go.”
I blink.
“We?” I repeat.
His eyes don’t move.
“We,” he says again.
My throat tightens.
“You don’t have to—” I start.
He cuts it off with a look that isn’t harsh, but it is final.
“You’re not doing this alone,” he says.
My breath catches.
I stare at him for a beat too long, then nod once.
“Okay,” I whisper.
He reaches for the plate and nudges it an inch closer to me.
“Two more bites,” he says.
It should annoy me.
It doesn’t.
I take the bites.
And all the while, my pocket burns like a secret that’s about to become a life.
Because for a moment there, it felt like he was talking about me not having to do something else alone.