18. Everett
I drink my tea out on the terrace, both hands around my mug, watching the river traffic push against the tide.
My flat is on the top floor of a converted warehouse. It’s exposed brick and old beams. I was worried when I bought it that the large open space wouldn’t retain enough heat over the damp London winter, but it’s always been cozy.
The terrace was the reason I bought it. On a clear day I can see the whole stacked skyline across the water. Today it’s gray. London does gray properly, and I’ve missed it. That sounds strange, but there’s something soft and muted about a cloudy London day.
The tea is peppermint, because my stomach is currently unreliable before noon. Coffee is out entirely. The smell of it drifting up from the café at street level nearly finished me this morning, which is a cruel trick to play on a man whose drink of choice is espresso combined with syrup.
Pumpkin spice isn’t a big London thing. There’s a café on the far side of the city that does a version that comes close, but an hour and a half of London commuting doesn’t make it worth it. The place on Fifth has a lot to answer for.
Priya sends me a short club summary every Friday.
Belanger has the room eating out of his hand.
None of it needs me, which is the point.
I probably don’t even need to read it. If there’s an emergency, she’d call me, but what kind of hockey emergency would need me to do something from here in a completely different country? The team is in capable hands.
I did the right thing, coming home. My work is here. My life is here. If you ask anyone in this city what the Barons are, they’ll think you’re talking about the aristocracy.
Which makes the subscription harder to explain.
It’s an American sports package meant for homesick expats, and it cost an indecent amount of money.
I paid a year up front without blinking.
There was a time in this city when my mother fed the meter in fifty-pence pieces and skipped dinner so I didn’t have to.
Wasting money is the entire point of having it.
I hate hockey. That hasn’t changed. And on game nights I’ve been sitting up into the small hours with the lights off watching the Barons. I haven’t missed a game yet.
Okay, I don’t watch the Barons. I watch him.
He plays angry now. Even I can see it, and the commentators certainly can; they love him for it.
They talk about his physical game while I sit alone in the dark of my own living room, an ocean away, wanting to bite him.
Then the final horn goes and I take myself to bed, disgusted, and the next game night I’m back on the sofa with the lights off.
The scent thing hasn’t faded yet either. I keep catching woodsmoke where it can’t possibly be. Two weeks ago I woke at three in the morning so certain he was in the flat that I got up and walked every room before my pulse let me lie down again.
I take another sip of peppermint tea. Over across the water, I watch a fishing boat idle its way down the Thames. The water is particularly brown and murky after the recent rain.
I’ve been putting this off, but I can’t put it off forever. I know what’s happening to me. I’ve had a few months to know. My body is changing and I’ve been trying to ignore it. My scent has changed. I’ve long since given up on belts.
This morning while I lay in bed, I felt a solid little kick in my belly, hard enough that I put my hand over the spot.
My mind keeps coming back to the test in my bathroom cabinet.
I bought it when I got back to London and instead of taking it right away, I hid it away behind the aspirin like a coward. That was months ago now.
If I pretend that nothing is happening for too much longer, I’m going to have to also pretend that I’m shopping for maternity clothes because “I’ve put on weight” and then that the squalling noise from the cot in my spare bedroom is—
Is what? Not even I am capable of leaning that far into denial.
Let’s get this over with. I need to start by taking the damn test. I finish the tea, go inside and rinse my mug.
My bathroom is the one room in the flat that doesn’t have a view, just a small window looking out onto a brick wall.
I get the pregnancy test from the cabinet and tip it out into my hand. Both the little plastic pen and a folded instruction sheet tip out.
The instruction sheet is in six languages but it’s not complicated.
I uncap, hover over the toilet and pee on the stick. I manage it with as much dignity as the process allows anyone, then set the stick on the edge of the sink.
I’m not going to sit here and wait. The thought is unbearable. Instead I put the timer on my phone and go back out onto the terrace, scrolling through the newsfeed on my phone to distract myself.
Three minutes goes by in an instant and also seems to take a lifetime.
I steel myself and go back inside. I pick up the stick and stare at it.
Two lines. Strong ones. No squinting required.
Yeah, I saw that coming.
I sit down on the edge of the tub with the stick in my hand. Pregnant. By Brody Callahan. My father spent my adolescence planning the best way to breed a hockey player out of me, and now the Bureau has finished the job for him. Somewhere, the old man is delighted.
I’m going to have to tell Callahan. I don’t want to but I know I don’t really have a choice.
I grew up with a father who couldn’t be bothered. It wouldn’t be fair to my child to think he has the same, without even giving Callahan a chance to be there.
If he doesn’t want it, he can say so himself. And if he does want to be involved, it’s safe to tell him.
I checked before I ever bought the test, which says something about the order of my priorities. In the States, an alpha has more rights to a child than the omega does.
If I went back, I’d be in trouble. Here I’m not.
None of that law crosses the Atlantic. British law doesn’t enforce prime matches. It has no Bureau. Omega rights are far stronger. As long as I stay in this country, this child goes nowhere I don’t agree to.
A phone call is out of the question. His voice will destroy my judgment at the best of times.
It’ll be an email. Not the best method of informing someone of impending parenthood but nothing about this situation is optimal.
I take the laptop to the kitchen counter and it takes me a few drafts to arrive at something I feel okay to send.
Callahan,
I need to let you know that I am pregnant.
I don’t require anything from you — no money, no involvement — and nothing changes with the club.
I’m telling you because you have the right to hear it from me and not from anyone else.
If you want to be involved, then let me know, but it is not necessary if you do not want to be.
I am happy to keep everything under the radar. Press and team do not need to know.
E.
I press send before I can redraft it, and then I sit very still at my own kitchen counter, one hand over my stomach, my heart going like I ran up all six flights.