8. Jessica
JESSICA
Three months later…
The nausea starts on a Tuesday.
Three months in, and I've memorized the shape of Jordan's mornings—alarm at six sharp, protein shake blended with ice that sounds like a jet engine tearing through the quiet, the rhythmic scrape of his razor against stubble while I burrow deeper into sheets that smell like cedar and clean sweat and him.
Tuesday morning, I wake to the blender's familiar roar and my stomach lurches so violently I taste acid before my eyes even open. I barely make it to the bathroom, knees hitting tile, hair falling forward as I heave over the porcelain.
Nothing comes up but bile and the protein bar I ate at midnight.
Jordan finds me there—forehead pressed to the cool rim, breathing through my mouth, counting the tiles on the floor because focusing on anything else makes the room spin. Six white tiles. One cracked grout line. The bathroom mat is bunched against the wall where I kicked it.
"How long?" His voice cuts through the haze, low and sharp.
I don't lift my head. "Just now."
"Before this."
The question lands like a hand on my shoulder—steady, unavoidable. I close my eyes, press my cheek harder against the porcelain. It's cold enough to sting. "Three days. Maybe four."
The silence stretches. Then he's crouching beside me, and his palm settles flat between my shoulder blades, warm and grounding through the thin cotton of my sleep shirt. "We're seeing Chen."
"I probably just ate something?—"
"We're seeing Chen." Not a suggestion. Not a question. Decided.
Dr. Chen's office smells like hand sanitizer and the faint chemical sweetness of the cleaning solution they use on exam tables. I sit on the crinkly paper while Jordan stands against the wall, arms crossed, watching Chen the way he watches game footage—absorbing every detail, calculating outcomes.
Chen presses two fingers to the inside of my wrist, eyes on her watch. "Any other symptoms besides nausea?"
"Tired. My chest hurts a little, but that's probably just?—"
"The galactorrhea." Chen nods, writing something on her tablet. "You're still on the cabergoline?"
"Yes."
"Any missed doses?"
"No."
Chen sets the tablet down, meets my eyes with the calm directness I remember from the first appointment. "I'd like to run a pregnancy test."
The air in the room changes. Not heavier—sharper. Like someone just opened a window in winter.
Jordan hasn't moved. When I glance at him, his face is unreadable, but his hands are fists.
The bathroom is smaller than the exam room, the walls close enough that I could touch both sides if I stretched.
Fluorescent light hums overhead, the kind that makes everyone look half-dead.
White tile, cold under my feet. A single paper towel dispenser mounted beside the mirror that squeaks when I pull, the sound too loud in the silence.
My fingers are trembling. I press them flat against the porcelain edge, trying to stop the shake.
My reflection stares back at me—hair pulled into a messy knot, Jordan's hoodie drowning my frame, sleeves hanging past my fingertips. Dark circles under my eyes that weren't there a week ago. I look like I haven't slept in days. I look young. I look scared.
Pregnant.
I'm twenty-one. Unemployed. Living in a penthouse that isn't mine with a man who's technically my stepfather, though we both pretend that particular fact doesn't exist.
My bank account still has the zero it hit five months ago—I haven't added a cent because I haven't earned a cent. I haven't spoken to my mother since she called Jordan to clean up her mess, and I don't plan to.
And I might be pregnant.
The terror hits first—immediate, visceral, ice water flooding my veins and spreading outward until my fingers go numb. My pulse hammers against my throat, too fast, too hard. I can feel my heartbeat in my ears, in my wrists, in the hollows behind my knees. My chest tightens. The bathroom shrinks.
But underneath it, so quiet I almost miss it, something else flickers.
Warmth.
The terror in my chest braids tighter with the warmth, both pulling in opposite directions until I can't tell which one's winning. My ribs feel too small. The air in the room tastes metallic, like I've been running too hard, like my body knows something my brain hasn't caught up to yet.
I get back just as Dr. Chen hands me the lab results.
"Congratulations. You're pregnant."
The word pregnant echoes in my skull, too big for the space it occupies, bouncing off bone until it's the only sound left. My hands find the edge of the exam table, gripping hard enough that the paper crinkles and tears under my nails.
The textured vinyl edge digs into my palms—real, solid, something to hold onto while the room tilts sideways.
I look at Jordan.
He's staring at me like I just handed him something he's been searching for his entire life. Like I've given him the Stanley Cup and a winning lottery ticket and the answer to every question he's ever asked, all at once.
Not shock. Not panic. Not the controlled mask slipping to reveal fear underneath.
Joy.
Raw, unfiltered, flooding his face so fast he doesn't have time to hide it. It lights him up from the inside—I can see it in the way his shoulders drop, the way his chest expands on an inhale that sounds like relief, the way his entire body shifts toward me like gravity just changed direction.
His mouth curves—not the half-smile he gives reporters, not the smirk he wears when he's about to win an argument. A real smile, the kind that reaches his eyes and makes the gray look almost silver. The kind I've only seen a handful of times, in the dark, when he thinks I'm asleep.
"Why else do you think I finish inside you every time?" His voice is low, rough, vibrating through the small space between us. Meant only for me even though Chen's three feet away. "I wanted this, baby girl. I've wanted this."
The words detonate in my chest. A concussive blast that leaves ringing silence in its wake.
Every night for three months. Every time he pulled me under him, held my hips, buried himself deep and came with my name on his lips—he was choosing this. He wasn't careless. He wasn't reckless. He wasn't swept up in the moment, losing control the way I thought we both were.
He was hoping.
The terror doesn't vanish. It's still there, sharp and cold and real, digging into my lungs like broken glass.
But the warmth explodes underneath it, flooding every corner of my chest until I can't breathe around it.
Until the pressure behind my ribs feels like it's going to crack me open. My throat tightens. My eyes burn.
"You planned this?" My voice cracks halfway through, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. The sound is ugly, wet, too loud in the clinical quiet of the exam room.
Jordan's hands frame my face before I can flinch, before I can duck away from the intensity radiating off him like heat from asphalt in August. His palms are warm against my jaw, rough-skinned and careful, thumbs brushing the wet tracks I didn't realize were there.
His touch grounds me—steady, deliberate, real.
"Every single time."
His smile widens. He leans in, presses his forehead to mine, and the exam room shrinks until it's just this—his breath on my lips, his palms warm against my jaw, the knowledge that we made something together and he wanted it.
"We're having a baby." He says it like a vow.
The laugh that bursts out of me is half-hysterical, all joy. "We're so fucked."
"Probably."
"I don't have a job. Or health insurance. Or?—"
"You have me."
"Jordan—"
"You have me." His thumbs trace the line of my cheekbones, wiping away fresh tears I can't stop. "And you're having my baby. That's all that matters."
I kiss him. Or he kisses me. I don't know who moves first, just that his mouth is on mine and the taste of salt mixes with the sweetness of relief and terror and something so enormous I don't have a name for it yet.
When we break apart, Dr. Chen's standing near the door, giving us space I didn't notice her making.
Outside, the air tastes like spring—cold and clean, the last bite of winter losing its grip. Jordan's arm curves around my waist, his hand splayed across my stomach like he's already protecting what's inside.
We're halfway to the car when the world crashes in.
Two men rush from between parked cars—one with a camera, one with a microphone that catches the sun and glints like a knife.
"Jordan Scott!" The one with the mic shoves forward, too fast, too close. "Who's the girl?"
The cameraman circles, lens aimed at my face. The mic swings toward me, metal brushing my chin.
"How long have you two been together?"
"Were you at the hospital? Is she pregnant?"
"Jordan, does the team know?"
The questions pile on top of each other, sharp and invasive, each one a fist to the sternum. The camera's red light blinks three feet from my face. I stumble back, but the reporter's already there, stepping into my path.
His hand closes around my upper arm.
"Is this your flavor of the week?"
The grip isn't gentle. His fingers dig into muscle, holding me in place while the camera rolls and the mic hovers inches from my mouth.
Terror floods my throat. I just found out I'm pregnant—five minutes ago, I was crying in Jordan's arms, and now a stranger's touching me, demanding answers about my body, about the baby I barely know exists.
Jordan moves.
One second he's beside me. The next, his hand is fisted in the reporter's jacket, yanking him off me hard enough that the man's feet leave the ground.
"Leave her alone."
The words come out low, controlled, but the fury underneath them vibrates through the air like a bass line. Jordan's six-six, two-twenty, and every inch of that weight is behind the grip pulling the reporter close enough to smell fear.
The cameraman keeps filming. The red light blinks.
The reporter's face goes pale, but he doesn't drop the mic. "Just doing my job, man?—"
"Your job doesn't involve putting your fucking hands on her."