Chapter Seventeen
Penn
I was late to work for the first time since I started here and consequently was behind on everything.
I just couldn’t get my butt up and out of bed this morning and gave up even trying.
I wasn’t sick, or else I’d have stayed home, but I also wasn’t quite myself.
I felt weird, and weird wasn’t on the approved list of reasons not to come in to work.
And really, I wanted to be here. I only wished I felt like myself.
Today, I was shelving books, and I was taking forever. I half expected one of my coworkers to come over and make sure I hadn’t fallen asleep in the stacks. Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded if I had. I was that tired. But I kept treading along, one book after another.
When I first got this job, I did take a long time shelving books, not knowing exactly how the stacks were arranged and being curious about what people checked out.
I spent more time looking at the books and scanning shelves than I did actually putting them in their places.
But that wasn’t the case now. It was just pick them up, put them where they belonged, pick another one up, put it in, one after another.
I rolled the cart back and filled it from the return bin after scanning everything back in.
I organized the books by section to expedite the process and noticed there were a lot of pregnancy books.
Like, an unusually large amount. Somebody either was newly pregnant and wanted to learn everything, or there was a school project involved because this wasn’t typical light reading.
As I pushed the cart toward their home on the shelves, it hit me.
I was pregnant.
I didn’t know what snapped it all into place.
I’d seen pregnant people in the library that day.
I’d watched a movie last night where a pregnant omega was kidnapped and saved at the last minute by a superhero.
It wasn’t that this was the first encounter I had with pregnancy in recent times, but it was the first time I thought, Huh.
That explains it. That explained being tired, not liking my favorite cheese anymore, and being moody.
I was pregnant. Or, at least, I was 99 percent sure I was. I wouldn’t know until I took a test.
I ran out on my lunch break and grabbed a test from the convenience store.
I wasn’t sure it was the most reliable place to buy one.
For all I knew, it had been sitting there for a decade.
But it was the only place I had time to get to, and it would have to do.
When I got back, I beelined into the bathroom, peed on the stick, and waited in the stall for the results.
They said not to watch the test, to put it down and set a timer.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. I watched as one line appeared, and then…
nothing. A few minutes later, still nothing.
I wasn’t pregnant, after all. I tossed the test and cried. I didn’t realize how much I wanted this until I didn’t have it.
When I went home that night, I was still upset.
I had just officially started living with Freid and Ty at Freid’s house.
We hadn’t moved everything over yet or anything formal like that, but we’d moved a lot in.
Here was where we were every morning and every night.
We just hadn’t figured out the logistics of everything else yet.
I was sitting at the table when they came home, first Ty then Freid only a few minutes later.
“Are you okay?” Ty murmured, kissing the top of my head.
“Yes and no,” I said. “I want to talk to you about something.”
“You were right, Freid.” Ty looked like his face was going to explode, he was so happy.
“I knew it. I thought I scented it this morning.” Freid’s smile was just as wide.
“Please explain what you guys are talking about,” I said.
“You’re pregnant, right?” Freid asked.
I dropped my head down and squeezed my eyes tight. “I thought I was, but I took a test, and it says I’m not. And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. My heart broke when that test was negative. Maybe…can we, I don’t know, try a little harder?”
Ty picked me up out of that chair like I weighed nothing and carried me over to the couch, draping my legs over Freid’s lap as I settled into both their arms.
“I don’t think we can try any harder,” Ty said, rubbing his cheek against mine. “It’s not like we keep our hands to ourselves.”
“I think the test was wrong,” Freid said. “We bought another you can try. I scent it. The change is subtle, but you’re pregnant.”
I shook my head back and forth. “I don’t think I could do another test.”
“It was hard. I know that,” he said, kissing my cheek. “But this time will be different. You won’t be watching alone. We’ll be with you.”
I agreed and took the test, this time setting it down like I was supposed to, and both of them held my hands as we waited. It was the longest three minutes ever. But when the timer went off, we all looked at it together. There wasn’t only one line like before. There were two.
“I’m pregnant.” This time, my tears were not of despair. They were tears of joy.
“Yes.” Freid wrapped his arm around both of us. “You’re pregnant. We’re going to be dads.”
We were going to be dads.