Chapter 7 – Molly
I wasn’t sure when it really hit me that I was pregnant. Maybe it was after the fifth or sixth positive test. Or maybe it was when I laid all eight of them out in front of Ellie and Cassie and watched their faces change.
Up until then, I could convince myself my eyes were playing tricks on me, that I was overthinking it. But my eyes tricking Ellie and Cassie too? Not possible.
“Who’s the father?” Ellie asked.
Just like I’d promised Liam the night everything happened, I hadn’t told anyone, not even my best friends.
I didn’t want to betray the promise I’d made to him.
But there was no hiding it anymore. The choice we’d made that night had consequences, and those consequences were about to become very public.
“Liam,” I said, my hands still shaking.
“Liam Carson?” Cassie asked. “As in Jace’s best friend, Liam Carson?”
As if there were any confusion about which Liam I meant.
“We used protection. I don’t know how this happened,” I said, dragging my hands down my face. Maybe I’d wake up soon and this would all be some insane dream. Maybe I'd just eaten too much chocolate before bed again.
Nausea hit me without warning, sending me barreling down the hallway toward the bathroom. I barely made it to the toilet before my body flushed hot, sweat breaking out along my skin. It was as if the universe were saying, No, Molly. This isn’t a dream. This is real.
After a few minutes of pulling myself back together, I sauntered back into the living room. The concern on Ellie and Cassie’s faces hadn’t faded a bit.
“What can we do to help?” Cassie asked, sliding closer to me on the couch.
“Please don’t tell my brothers. Not yet,” I begged. “I need to tell Liam first—to figure out what the hell we’re going to do—before I say anything to them.”
Liam had made me promise not to tell anyone about that night. He didn’t want my brothers finding out. But eventually, there would be no hiding it.
“I think you need to call Liam,” Ellie said gently.
“I’m scared of what he’ll say,” I admitted, staring down at my hands. “What if he doesn’t want a family? What if he gets mad?”
Cassie squeezed my knee. “If I know Liam, he would never do that to you, Molly. He’s a good guy. He’ll do the right thing.”
I had no reason to believe Liam would leave me to handle all of this on my own, but I also had no reason to believe he wouldn’t. All I could do was hope Cassie was right about him. And there was only one way to find out.
“I guess I’ll call him and tell him what’s going on.”
“Do you want us to leave or stay?” Ellie asked.
“You guys can go. I’m going to ask him to come over so we can talk in person. If he shows up and we’re all here, he’ll probably be even more overwhelmed than he’s about to be.”
Cassie and Ellie left after swearing—again—that they wouldn’t tell my brothers anything. Not yet. Colt and Jace would flip when they found out I was pregnant. They’d lose their minds when they found out who the father was.
My brothers wouldn’t care if I had a baby without being married. Colt and Ellie had done the same thing. But this was different.
This was having a baby with one of their best friends.
The same guy they’d made promise to never touch me.
And he had. Way more than an innocent kiss.
I picked up my phone, my hands refusing to stop shaking, and dialed Liam’s number three times before remembering the right sequence. My brain was worried about much bigger things than his damn telephone number.
He answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Liam?”
“Yes.”
“I’m pregnant.”
So much for easing into the big news. Nope. I just laid it all out on the table in the first sentence. Ready or not, Liam—your life has changed forever.
At first, he didn’t respond, but I could hear him breathing through the phone.
“Are you still there?” I asked weakly.
“Uh, yeah,” he said after another couple of seconds.
“Can you come over so we can talk?” I wasn’t sure what to do, and talking it out seemed like the right thing.
“Where are you?”
“My house.”
“I’ll be there in ten,” Liam said before ending the call.
Perfect. I had ten minutes to get everything I wanted to say organized in my head—the same head that felt like an atomic bomb had gone off inside it.
What would I say?
What would I ask?
Hey Liam… so we had sex, and somehow, even though we were super responsible adults, I still ended up pregnant. Wanna raise a baby with me even though we’re practically strangers and have never even been on a date?
As time ticked by, I stayed frozen on the couch, rehearsing how I wanted the conversation to go, over and over again, in my mind.
Rehearsal slowly turned into reasoning, and I tried to convince myself that Liam would do the right thing.
Cassie spoke so highly of him—there was no way he’d leave me to raise this baby on my own.
I was just getting in my head, like I always did.
The hard knock on my front door made me jump.
The fastest ten minutes of my life.
I opened the door, not surprised by who stood on the other side.
Liam marched past me, and his cologne wrapped around me, dragging me straight back to that night.
For a moment, he just stared at me. Said nothing. Somehow making the situation even more uncomfortable than it already was. The tension in the room was so thick you could’ve cut it with the dullest knife imaginable.
“I don’t know what to say,” I finally blurted. “I missed my period, so I took a pregnancy test, fully expecting it to be negative. I thought maybe it was just hormones or something. But eight tests later, every single one was positive. Digital ones. Regular ones. All positive.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “And you’re sure the baby is mine?”
His question caught me off guard and stung me straight to the core. I wanted to yell at him for even asking, but that wouldn’t help the situation.
“Yes, Liam. It’s yours,” I said, my voice tightening. “You’re the only person I’ve slept with in over a year. I don’t just go around town sleeping with everyone, you know.”
He didn’t respond.
“I’m as scared as you are,” I added softly, trying to salvage the moment. “But we can figure this out together. I’ll call my doctor in the morning and find out what the next steps are. I’m not exactly sure how all of this works. Ellie tried to explain it, but—”
“Ellie knows?” he cut in, his eyes widening.
“Ellie and Cassie both know. They were here when I took the tests. But I made them swear not to tell anyone.”
“Jace is going to kill me,” Liam muttered, pacing back and forth now.
“No he’s not,” I said, reaching for his arm, trying to stop him from spiraling.
He jerked away, taking a step back.
The rejection surprised me. The last time I’d seen Liam, we’d been connected on a level I couldn’t explain. And now, standing in my living room, it felt like we were strangers. Not two people who’d created a life together—just strangers sharing the same air.
“How did this even happen? We used protection.”
“The condom must have broken. That’s the only explanation I can think of.”
His pacing picked up speed.
“I can’t do this,” Liam said, running both hands through his hair, panic etched into every movement. “I’m sorry, Molly. I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready to be a dad.”
Before I could even respond, he was moving toward the door.
He yanked it open before I could say another word. The door slammed shut behind him, the sound echoing through the house as I watched him through the window—practically running to his truck, climbing in, and peeling out of my driveway.
Just like that, he was gone. My worst nightmare had become my reality.