Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sara
“I should’ve just told him,” I mutter again, sinking into the couch until I feel buried beneath my own mistakes.
Laura doesn’t look up from her laptop. “Told him when, exactly? Before or after he disappeared into his office like a brooding vampire CEO?”
I groan and cover my face with the nearest throw pillow. “This is such a mess. I had a whole plan. Sort of. A loose outline. Okay, fine, it was just ‘catch him in the hallway and blurt it out,’ but still. Now he’s actively avoiding me like I’m a walking HR violation.”
“Maybe he’s just busy?”
I peel the pillow away to glare at her. “He’s been busy for two weeks straight. The man used to find excuses to ‘accidentally’ bump into me during coffee breaks. Now he’s basically a ghost with a calendar.”
“Okay, yeah. He’s pulling back.” Laura sighs, closing her laptop. “You think he suspects something?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, I’ve definitely caught him looking, but every time I get close enough to say anything, he practically moonwalks away.”
“Men are cowards,” she mutters.
“I’m a coward,” I counter.
“You’re growing an actual human. You get a pass.”
I glance down at my stomach. Still flat ish, but my jeans are starting to rebel. “I don’t even look pregnant. I just look like I had a large bagel.”
Laura grins. “A bagel with a secret.”
I snort. Then sigh. Then hug a cushion to my chest because it’s that or cry into my popcorn again.
“It’s just… how am I supposed to tell him if he won’t even look me in the eye?” I mumble. “I can’t send a Slack message like, ‘Hey, FYI, remember that time we defiled a coat room? Or perhaps it was the elevator… Surprise baby!’”
Laura cackles. “I mean, you could. Very on brand.”
“I already wrote it in the Notes app, like, four times,” I admit. “But it always sounds too casual or too dramatic or too much like a cry for help.”
“Maybe because it is a cry for help.”
I groan and bury my face in the cushion. “And to make it worse, I keep having dreams about him. Like, emotional ones. One of them involved pancakes and a stroller and him wearing a soft sweater. A sweater, Laura.”
“That is disturbing.”
“Right? Like my subconscious is trying to trick me into believing he’s some cozy dad type when in reality he’s more ‘emotionally constipated Bond villain.’”
“Hot, though,” she adds.
“Ugh,” I grumble. “I know.”
After Laura leaves for work, and Meatball starts aggressively snoring on my feet, I try to unwind. I fail spectacularly.
My boobs hurt. My stomach’s bloated. My brain’s running on a loop of What If and Don’t Panic and Maybe Just Move to Canada.
I’m halfway through drafting another mental monologue about letting it go, really letting it go this time, when my phone buzzes.
I glance over, assuming it’s Laura sending me another TikTok of a raccoon making pancakes or something equally chaotic.
It’s not.
Unknown Number: Green really is your color.
I freeze.
No name. No emoji. No punctuation.
Just those five words.
I stare at them as if they might spontaneously clarify themselves.
Green.
The green dress.
From the gala.
From that night.
My stomach flips, and not in the morning sickness way.
Is it him?
It has to be him. Right?
Unless it’s not…
Unless it’s someone else. Someone who saw us. Someone who knows.
I reread the message three more times, willing it to come with a follow-up. A name. A punctuation mark. A damn carrier pigeon with context.
Nothing.
I chuck my phone onto the couch, betrayed by it.
Which is apparently the exact moment Meatball chooses to launch into full-blown Gremlin Mode.
Without warning, he rockets off the armchair, muscles coiled and eyes blazing. He barrels across the apartment, a storm of cream-colored fury and betrayal, then crashes into my shins, stumbling awkwardly to the floor.
“Ah! What the hell, Meatball?”
He lets out a sharp, indignant honk-snort, then collapses onto his side as if his entire world just shattered.
I look down at him, chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. “You good, buddy? Or pissed I threw the phone instead of a snack?”
He rolls onto his back and starts dramatically air pedaling his legs, letting out the kind of wheezy, high-pitched whine normally reserved for haunted toys and ghosts with asthma.
“Oh my god,” I mutter, crouching beside him. “Are you… sulking? Are you seriously staging a protest over… what? My vibe?”
He kicks one paw against my leg and lets out a long, guttural groan like an emotional accordion falling down a flight of stairs.
“Okay, chill, tiny Daniel Day Lewis. I moved your toy basket one time, and suddenly you’re an art house film about grief.”
Meatball grunts, then pulls himself upright, every movement heavy with stubborn resolve. He snorts loudly, full of judgment, and jumps onto the couch, curling up on his throw pillow with all the flair of a tiny drama king. Once settled, he slaps a paw down on my phone, as if staking his claim.
I blink. “Seriously? Now you’re guarding it?”
He meets my gaze, unblinking, ears at full disappointed-parent tilt.
“Wow,” I say. “Mystery texts and a canine coup. I’m so glad I got pregnant at the exact same time my emotional support animal decided to become a sentient ball of petty.”
He lets out another nasal groan, louder this time, more Shakespeare in the Park, and slowly turns his back to me, nose in the air.
Classic Meatball. Zero empathy. Maximum performance art.
I sigh and sink back into the couch, pressing both hands to my stomach.
Is it him?
It has to be. Who else would remember the green dress?
But if it is Nick… why now? Why this? Why send a cryptic compliment that’s pulled from the shadows of a black and white French detective film?
And if it’s not him…
Then someone saw us. Someone knows. And I don’t know which possibility makes my stomach lurch more. Nick playing games, or someone else playing spy.
The second one comes not long after.
Unknown Number: You think Nick is different with you?
I go completely still.
That one hits differently—a cold finger dragging slowly down my spine.
This can’t be Nick, which means…
My stomach drops, fast and hard, because this?
I feel like I’m being watched.
I sit up straight, dislodging Meatball, who groans in protest and flops dramatically across my thigh, a fuzzy weighted blanket of judgment.
But I barely register it. My heart’s hammering. My palms are sweaty. My brain is busy drawing connections in Sharpie.
Rebecca.
She’s the first person who pops into my mind.
The look she gave me at the gala, the tight smile, the venom behind her words. That vibe wasn’t just ex-girlfriend jealousy. That was warpaint.
And now? This? These messages? It could be her brand of psychological warfare. Elegant. Ice cold. Sprinkled with just enough truth to get under your skin and fester.
I wouldn’t put it past her to have spies in every corner of Manhattan. Or at least an intern or two on her personal payroll. Hell, she probably Venmos bartenders for intel.
I don’t know how the wealthy live…
My finger hovers over the screen.
Block.
I do it before I can spiral further.
No response. No drama. No letting her know she got to me.
Just a digital door slammed shut. I tell myself that’s the end of it.
That it’ll stop now.
That Rebecca just needed to mark her territory and move on.
I can’t focus on her. Not now. Not when things with Nick are already spiraling toward emotional chaos. I’m unraveling completely, and he’s become a cold, impenetrable wall.
What I really need to do, besides deep breathing into a couch pillow and stress-eating pickles at 11 a.m., is figure out what’s going on with Nick.
Because if he’s pulling away because he suspects something…
If he knows and he’s just too terrified to say it…
Or worse, if he doesn’t know and still wants distance between us anyway…
Then I’m not just scared. I’m screwed.
Meatball lets out a soft, grumbly sigh and licks my elbow, trying to comfort me and insult me at the same time.
“Same, buddy,” I whisper. “Same.”
I rest a hand on my stomach. On the small, stubborn life I haven’t told him about. Not because I don’t want to…
But because I don’t know what will happen if I do.