Chapter 18
GABI
I’m not quite sure what’s happening right now, but either my vibrator has found its way to my coffee table and has somehow turned itself on, or there’s an earthquake that’s only shaking my living room furniture.
I pop one eye open, not wanting to fully wake up from the much-needed nap that I took after work, to see my cell phone traveling across the table because it’s vibrating so much.
That makes much more sense than a traveling, self-powering, vibrator.
I pick it up—still groggy from the kind of nap that makes you think you’ve missed the school bus—to see a host of missed texts and calls.
Maddox
I’m here.
Gabi, everything okay? I’m here with the pizza.
Gabrielle. Answer your phone.
I’m calling. Pick up.
I see your car. Are you okay? Have you been kidnapped? Also, if this is the kidnappers, where have you taken my Gabrielle?
Gabi seriously, you have three seconds to answer your phone or I’m calling for a wellness check.
As he said he would, my phone starts buzzing in my hand with an incoming call from Maddox.
“Hey, sorry. I—”
“Oh my God you’re alive!” he screams out, and even though I’m in a second-floor apartment, I’m pretty sure I heard him in the parking lot. “Okay, come and let me in. I need to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. Come on up,” I say as I toss the throw blanket off me and slowly stand up from the couch, but almost fall back over because my body is so tired.
Shit, I thought the nap would help. I never sleep when I come home from the bakery.
There’s only a few hours of awake time for me that I can get things done around my apartment.
But today I was exhausted. I actually don’t remember the last time I wasn’t tired.
And I didn’t want to be tired for Maddox’s and my date tonight that’s consisting of pizza, puzzles, and another few episodes of the dragon show we started binging when I stayed at his house last weekend.
But judging by the way I’m wobbly when I walk, the fog that refuses to leave my brain, and feeling completely off kilter, date night might need to be rescheduled in favor of me getting a full ten hours of sleep.
Busy is the new normal of the bakery. I used to wake up at four in the morning, but now that’s my arrival time.
I’ve been staying later than normal to be able to prep everything I possibly can for the next day so I don’t have to come in at three.
I really need to hire a second baker, but for some reason, my belief that I can do it all myself is stopping me.
Which is why I’m running myself into the ground.
Between my now-booming business and starting whatever this is with Maddox, I don’t feel like I’ve stopped in days.
Apparently today is the day my body said “enough” and is forcing me to sleep.
When I open the door, I smile as my sleepy eyes take in Maddox. He’s holding a pizza and a Lego set in one hand and a twelve-pack of Coke Zero in the other.
“Thank God you’re alive.”
“You’re dramatic, you know that right?” I say as I take the pizza and Legos from him, moving in to kiss his cheek. “Come in. Sorry I didn’t pick up. I was taking a n—”
I’ve barely had the pizza in my hand for five seconds, but as soon as the aroma hits me, I nearly drop it.
“Gabi? Are you—”
I quickly nod, toss the pizza and Legos on the kitchen counter, before sprinting to the bathroom.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I kneel over the toilet, my stomach doing actual backflips, as I throw up…
nothing. Some water, but that’s it. This is the grossest feeling in the world, but I don’t think there’s anything in my body for me to throw up.
I had a bagel for breakfast at five this morning.
A salad with some chicken for lunch. But both of those meals were cut short due to baked goods needing finished or customers needing served.
Maybe it was bad chicken? Though, I feel like if it was, it wouldn’t have taken me this long to relieve it from my body. Or it would’ve come up now.
“Gabrielle? You okay?”
I shake my head as it rests on my elbow against the toilet. “I don’t think so.”
Normally I’d put on a “I’m fine” front—it was my default mode for so many years—but I don’t have the energy.
Maddox doesn’t say anything, but I do hear water running from the sink. My stomach starts to rumble again, but as I try to squirm to try and make myself comfortable, I feel something cold on the back of my neck.
“There we go,” Maddox whispers as he gathers my hair away. Wait… is he putting it into a ponytail? “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
I let out a sound that probably rivals a sex moan with how good the coolness feels against my skin combined with Maddox's gentle touch as his fingers stroke up and down my back. And for the first time since I came flying in here, my body starts to settle down.
“Thank you.” I mumble, slowly turning my head so I can see him as he sits on top of my bathtub. “You don’t have to stay. I’m sorry my stomach ruined date night.”
He gives me the kindest, softest smile. “Absolutely not. I have nowhere to be other than right here.”
His words send me back to our fateful night in Vegas.
It’s not the exact thing he said, but the feeling of comfort is.
Maybe even more so now that we’re more than friends.
Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about this man, is that he’s going to show you in every way he can that he’s there for you in any situation.
Take what he’s been doing at the bakery.
At this point I actually do need to put him on the payroll.
He's been there almost every day since his post went viral, checking to see if he can help.
Last week he learned how to ring customers out.
The day before that he put his muscles to work and put away the delivery shipment of dry goods I got.
That was a view I didn’t mind looking at.
Then there was yesterday when I walked into the kitchen to see him washing dishes—and not because I asked him to.
I told him I didn’t need any help, but he saw the stack of dishes in the sink and did them.
I told him I could handle it, which led to him pulling me in, kissing me senseless, before smacking my ass to get me out of the kitchen.
I liked that a whole lot, too.
That wasn’t even the best part. When I went back to check on him an hour later, he had his ear buds in, singing a song at the top of his lungs that was popular when I was in college but he was in middle school.
His hips were moving to the beat as he sang the song as loud as possible. It was adorable.
He’s too adorable.
And I’m royally fucked if I think for one second that I’m not falling hard for him.
I mean, he checks in every morning to see if I need breakfast. Before we got together, he would always text me goodnight. Now my goodnights are soft kisses on my forehead before he pulls me into him because even though my alarm goes off at an ungodly time, he insists on staying over every night.
And now here he is, taking care of me when I'm sick. Which he doesn’t have to do.
Most men would’ve heard my gags and hurling and made a beeline out the front door.
I know the man I used to be married to would have—and did one time.
I believe once when I was sick his line was “I’m around sick people all day. I don’t need to come home to it.”
Yet here Maddox is, rubbing my back to make sure I'm okay. Applying another cold compress on my skin. He thought enough to put my hair in a ponytail so it didn’t get in my face.
It’s at this moment that any qualms I had about his age, or if I was ready to do this, are out of my mind. Because I don’t care if he’s twenty-four or eighty-four, he’s treating me better than I ever thought possible. And that means more to me than any number.
"What can I get you?" he asks. “Water? Ginger ale? Crackers?”
“Those sound great and horrible at the same time,” I say, finally able to sit up and move myself against the wall because I might be upright, but I don't know if I can balance by myself. “I don't know what's wrong with me but I feel like absolute death.”
"Did you eat something weird?" he asks. "Running a fever? The flu?"
I shrug. “I didn't eat much today and I feel like if it was that, it would’ve hit me earlier. I don't have a fever or have any other flu-y symptoms. I'm so tired and also I feel like if I move one inch the nausea is just gonna come rushing back.”
I let my head hit the wall behind me, which is the first time I take in Maddox. He looks so concerned for me. But in a matter of ten seconds his face goes from worried, to me thinking that I’m so far gone that an actual light bulb went off next to his head.
"What is it?" I ask.
He swallows a lump in his throat like he's nervous. “I know this is a very personal question, and you don’t have to answer it, but hear me out. When did you last have your period?”
Oh he’s got to be kidding…
“Maddox. I know we forgot to use one the other night. But it doesn’t happen that quickly.”
“I know that,” he says, though by his tone of voice, I’m honestly not sure. “I’m just saying that we’ve had sex more than once.”
Okay, now he’s truly ridiculous. “Maddox…”
“Gabrielle…”
Shit. He’s not joking. There’s no dimple with his smile. There’s no twinkle in his eyes. He actually thinks I’m pregnant.
“I know it’s crazy,” he continues. “All I’m saying is that it’s been a little over a month since Vegas. And the symptoms you're having heavily rival what my sister looked and went through when she found out she was pregnant.”
“How do you know that?”
“She found out when I was home from college,” he says. “And what you’re feeling like, that was her. For weeks. Random nausea. Extremely exhausted. Then boom. Eight-ish months later, I became Uncle Maddox.”
While I'm sure the sight of Uncle Maddox playing with his niece is cute as hell, I can't let my mind go there, because I have to quash this idea he’s having. Because the man is out of his mind.
I’m not pregnant. I can’t be.
“While I can see why you’d think that, I'm not pregnant,” I say definitively. “We used a condom.”
“I know, but it says on the package that they aren’t a hundred-percent effective. Didn’t you see that on that one show? Plus, if anybody's sperm could break free it would be mine.”
I fully roll my eyes, because everything out of his mouth right now is utter insanity.
“Super sperm? You’re telling me you think your sperm can beat the odds?”
“I’ve been beating the odds my entire life. Wouldn’t shock me.”
I can’t with this man. Or this conversation. “Maddox, thank you for the WebMD suggestion, but you don’t have super sperm and I am not pregnant. My period…”
I trail off, because I have to think back from the last time I had it.
Shit. It was before Vegas. I remember being excited that I didn’t have to pack tampons.
Oh fuck… I missed my period.
I. Missed. My. Fucking. Period.
My eyes double in size and I’m pretty sure I don’t blink for the next five minutes.
Am I breathing? Not sure. How did I not realize it?
I mean, I guess it makes sense with the insanity of the bakery and my newfound relationship with Maddox.
I’ve been exhausted, but I’ve been putting in crazy hours.
Never would I have thought for a second it was anything else. Except…
“You’re late, aren’t you?”
“I am,” I whisper, not wanting to truly say it out loud. I do manage to push myself up from the wall, but I’m a little off-kilter from my episode. I start to stumble, but Maddox is immediately next to me to catch me, his hands really the only thing holding me up at this point.
“I got you,” he says. “And I’m going to be here. For everything.”
I shake my head, because he needs to take about forty-two steps back. “Maddox, you're sweet, and I understand where you could think this, and why the evidence is pointing that way, but I'm not pregnant. It’s just… well it can’t be.”
He gives me a look that we both know that “can’t” might not be the best word right now.
“Can I suggest something that I think will make most of us feel better?”
“And that would be?”
“Take a pregnancy test,” he says.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” he says, taking each of my hands in his. “Think of it as you doing it to prove me wrong. I know you love doing that.”
Only Maddox Gallagher could make me laugh in this truly terrifying moment. Because how the hell is it even a remote possibility that I could be pregnant.
We used protection. Sure, the sex was intense, but I think I would’ve noticed if it fell off or was busted in some way. Right? No way Maddox has fucking turbo sperm.
Also, how in the actual hell could it happen that the one time—the one time—I’m a little reckless and try to do something to make me feel good, that something like this could happen.
But damn it did feel good. Up until this moment, I’ve had zero regrets about my night with Maddox. It’s led me here, and I’m truly happy. Except now that I’m wondering if I brought home a souvenir I didn’t know I purchased, was being reckless worth it?
“Hey,” he says. “Talk to me.”
I shake my head, because I don’t even know the first thing to say, so I quickly revert back to our prior conversation. “You’re right. I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t know.”
And then when I do know—and if it’s positive—my brain is going to be going in a million different directions.
Like how I always wanted a family, but that was before. How having a baby wasn’t even on my radar. How the life I just got back is about to be upended. How Maddox and I are so new, what is going to happen to us if we’re now about to be parents.
“Okay. I’ll be right back.”
Maddox’s sudden movements snap me back to reality.
“Where are you going?”
“To get you a pregnancy test,” he says. “I already had plans to go get you ginger ale and crackers and anything else that you personally want to help your stomach, so now while I’m out, I’ll pick up a pregnancy test.”
Is this man for real? Also, how the hell is he not freaking out by this?
“Seriously? You’re going to go and buy a pregnancy test?”
“Of course. You go lay down. I’ll be back before you know it. Don’t worry about a thing. I have everything under control.”