Chapter 70 Evelyn
SEVENTY
EVELYN
Alfredo weaved through my legs as I heaved my breakfast into the toilet. “For fuck’s sake!” I grumbled. I rinsed out my mouth and sent Badger a text, asking for her to bring me some soup and saltines. She called me seconds later, talking a mile a minute.
“Do you think it’s the flu?” Badger asked over the phone. We were on number five of questions to determine why I was sick.
I rested my head on the backrest of the sofa and placed my cell phone on my chest with Badger on speaker. “No. I don’t have a fever or anything.”
I had no energy. In fact, I had been feeling run down for over a week.
Badger went silent on the other end of the phone. I pulled the phone back from my ear and looked at the screen to make sure she was still on the line. “Badge?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I need to ask you something, but you have to promise not to freak out.”
I rolled my eyes. “We both know you are going to ask regardless.” I laughed at my joke.
“That’s beside the point.”
“Badge, just ask! Sheesh!”
“Is there any chance you’re pregnant?”
I scoffed and let out a laugh. “Pfft! Please! No way!” But even as I said it, doubt tickled my brain. My heart pounded as I opened the period-tracking app on my phone. “Shit.” I swore under my breath, too softly for Badger to hear. I was nine days late.
Badger let out a curse under her breath before saying, “I’m going to take your silence as my answer. One piss test, coming up!”
I paced my living room until she arrived twenty minutes later with three different brands of pregnancy tests, saltines, and chicken noodle soup.
Grabbing the tests, I walked into my bathroom, did my business, and set a timer. I sat on the toilet and ran my fingers through my hair. The three minutes it took for the tests to give an answer felt like an eternity. But when my alarm chimed, suddenly I didn’t want to look.
The three tests in front of me all said the same thing. Positive. I felt the blood drain from my face. No, no, no! This couldn’t be happening!
Badger knocked on the door. “Evie! Open up!”
When I didn’t respond, she tested the knob to find it unlocked and let herself in. I braced myself on the bathroom counter attempting to take deep breaths. My vision began to tunnel as my breaths came in short heaves. I was going to pass out.
Badger peered over my shoulder before letting out a whistle and quickly getting into Elite Squad mode by helping me sit down and instructing me to put my head between my knees.
She rubbed her hand in soothing circles on my back as I followed her instructions. But all the deep breathing in the word couldn’t change my new reality. I was pregnant with Kade’s baby! Kade, the head of the Italian Mafia, and the man I wanted to forget!
After what felt like forever, I got off the floor of the bathroom and sat on my couch where Badger wrapped her arms around me once more.
Her touch was warm and welcoming. Something my mom would have done.
The thought made tears fill my eyes. She should be here.
She should be here for when her first grandchild was born.
Instead, those moments had been taken away from me by a selfish, vengeful bastard.
Badger began running her fingers through my hair as I rested my head on her lap. “You know you need to tell him, right?”
“I know,” I whispered.
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
“More than you could ever know.”
We spent the rest of the day sitting on the couch and eating snacks while reruns of Grey’s Anatomy played on the TV. The girl time was everything I needed and that Badger was there for me meant more than she could ever know.
Telling Kade turned out to be a lot harder than I had anticipated. Mainly because I hadn’t seen him. When I got to RSS the next day, I headed toward his office, but was stopped by his assistant who let me know that Kade was offsite working on a project with Machine.
When I got back to the Hive, I noticed a bouquet of… marshmallows? Yes, definitely marshmallows. Lennie, Ollie, and even Jax, had goofy smiles on their faces.
I gave them a knowing look. They always loved to tease me about my love for marshmallows. Between the intricate bundles of the sugary treat, there were fake yellow roses to complete the look.
“On a scale of one to ten, how excited are you to eat all of that?” Lennie teased.
“We all took bets on how long it will take you to eat the entire thing,” Jax informed me.
“Who is it from?” Ollie asked, handing me the already open card.
I raised an eyebrow and looked at her. She gave me a sheepish smile before cowering to her desk. I opened the gold envelope.
The way to my woman’s heart isn’t flowers, it’s marshmallows in the shape of flowers. Love, K.
My stomach flipped at the gesture, or more likely from morning sickness. I didn’t want to call or text Kade in case he was in the middle of something important. I knew I was delaying the inevitable, however, I wasn’t ready to make this baby thing real just yet.
When I looked up from the envelope, I swore I could see the heart-eyed emoticon in both Ollie and Lennie’s faces. I rolled my eyes. “You know exactly who it’s from,” I teased.
Once I was settled at my desk, I proceeded to finish my marshmallow bouquet in twenty-five minutes flat, making Ollie the winner of the bet.
For the next two days when I came into the office, I had a new gift, but no Kade. The second gift was a pair of Snoozie slippers that had a cartoon version of Alfredo on them.
The third gift was a monstrous black Yeti cup with the phrase Less talkie while I drink my coffee, Thanks a latte on it. I almost choked on my coffee from laughing at it.
But Kade still didn’t know I was pregnant. And I had to tell him. I finally decided it was time to stop with my procrastinating bullshit and text him.
Me:
Are you home?