Chapter 6
PANCAKES, POSITIVE TESTS, AND HAPPY TRAILS
LYDIA
EIGHT WEEKS PREGNANT
Getting a six foot three, two hundred and twenty pound man into bed on your own is hard work. Fletcher passed out on the drive home, and I practically had to drag him into the elevator and our apartment.
When he’s sprawled across his bed, I carefully take off his suit jacket and tie, and when I unbutton his crisp button-up, I expect to find an undershirt beneath it. Instead, I’m greeted by the bare expanse of his muscled chest.
I swallow thickly, ignoring the sudden swooping low in my belly. What’s with me? He’s just Fletcher. My best friend. I have never thought of him as anything else, so why are my eyes trailing down his stomach to the V-line of his hips and his happy trail? Oh god.
Heat burns in my veins, and I focus on the task at hand, rolling him so he’s out of his shirt, leaving him in just his pants. As I’m covering him with the blankets, he murmurs something that I don’t catch.
“What?” I push his mussed hair out of his face.
“Lydia,” he breathes, a small smile tugging on his lips.
I freeze. My heart thrums like a hummingbird in my chest in anticipation.
“What?” I ask again, hoping he says something else.
He doesn’t. Instead, he rolls onto his stomach, pulling the blankets over his head and diminishing any hope of ever finding out what he was about to say.
I plug in his phone and slide out of his room, still trying to catch my breath. Anyone else probably would have left him, but I can’t help it. I want him to sleep well.
With that taken care of, I shift gears. I have important things to look at.
I head into my bathroom, shut the door, and open the top drawer where I threw the tests. The two pieces of plastic stare up at me, the answer on them glaringly obvious. One has a bright pink plus sign, while the other has a single word.
YES.
Grabbing the tests out of the drawer, I slump back against the wall, blood rushing through my ears. What if these are defective because they were sitting for so long? That has to be a thing, right? Maybe it’s a false positive.
I run into my room, grab the remaining tests from the floor, and return to the bathroom.
Three minutes later, I flip the tests over and swallow the giant lump of fear that’s settling in my throat.
I’m pregnant.
Do I want this? Do I want to be a mom? I could get an abortion, but when I think about it, I know that isn’t what I want.
I watched my mom practically raise me on her own since my dad worked and traveled so much.
He was never around, and it was hard on her, so I took years of subtle dig after dig from her.
I know how much she resented me. She never wanted kids, but my dad did.
She could have been a stay-at-home wife, but I foiled all her plans.
I want this baby.
I want to prove I can be a better mom than my mother was, that I can love my child regardless of who or what they become.
Jude and I aren’t together, and I don’t want us to be. Do I want to co-parent with a man I barely know? Would he reply to a message if I text him? He ghosted me, after all.
I sink onto the bathroom floor. My head falls into my hands as I take deep, calming breaths.
I need sleep. I can’t do anything right now. It’s nearly one in the morning.
After getting ready to sleep, a weary sense of exhaustion settles through my body as I climb into my bed. The bed Fletcher bought me after college.
Everything that I have, I owe to him. He gave me a place to live, and he’s charging me way less than he should. He furnished this place, but he let me pick out things I liked, too, so we could make it our place.
My parents wanted me to move back to my hometown after college, but I wasn’t ready to leave Minnesota.
Fletcher is the closest friend I’ve ever had, and sure, people always assume we’re together, but it’s never been like that between us.
He’s my person. Relationships come and go, but he’s always there for me, through good times and bad.
Will he be here for me now as I take on the next challenge in my life? I don’t doubt it for a second. He’ll be the cool uncle, the one to teach them how to skate, shout their name at hockey games, and be there to support me, too. I can’t ask more than that.
He needs to focus on his career, on his own life. I need to focus on mine, however that life may look in the near future.
My alarm blares, waking me from a deep and heavy sleep. I groan and rub my eyes, rolling over to shut it off. Why didn’t I take the whole day off again? Oh, right, probably because I didn’t think I’d get life-changing news the night before and have to rot in bed to process it all.
Work is the last thing I want to do right now, but at least it’s only a half day. I can make it through that. I sit on the edge of my bed, swallowing thickly as a bout of nausea hits me.
I take a few deep breaths until the sick feeling in my stomach passes. The clanging sound of pots and pans in the kitchen lets me know Fletcher is awake. They have an afternoon practice today, so he will be up and out the door shortly, and then off to Vegas tonight for his game tomorrow.
I head into the kitchen, where Fletcher has his headphones in, bobbing his head to the music. Sitting down on one of the stools at the countertop, I watch him. He’s always been so calm and collected. So confident in everything he does. It’s something I love about him.
Fletcher flips a pancake, drinks from the giant glass of milk on the countertop, and uses the spatula in his hand as a microphone.
He mouths the words to whatever song is playing, swaying his hips to the beat.
When he spins around and sees me watching him, his eyes bug out, and the highest-pitched screech I’ve heard from him pierces my eardrums.
“Lydia!” He rips out his headphones and takes deep, calming breaths. “What the fuck are you doing?”
I laugh, striding over to him. Music still blares from his headphones. “Just wanted to make sure you were awake. You know, it’s bad for your ears to listen to music that loud.”
“Yes, because my headphones are what will cause damage to my ears, not the extremely loud horn or cheering crowds every night for eight months of the year.” He narrows his eyes, pinching my arm.
“Hey,” I shriek, swatting him away. “Stop that!”
Fletcher reaches for me, spatula in hand.
“Don’t you dare.” I hold out my finger, pointing at him as I skirt away.
“Or what?” he taunts, taking another step toward me.
“Fletcher…”
“Lydi…” He launches toward me, but I dart out of his grasp.
“No!” I laugh, racing into the living room, laughing hysterically as he chases me. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of the black plastic spatula as it flies past me and hits the living room wall.
I rest my hands on my knees to catch my breath. “You know, it’s a good thing you don’t play baseball with a throw like that.”
“Oh, you’ve done it now.” Fletcher’s voice grows low and dark as he continues to saunter toward me.
I try to flee around him, but he catches me, wrapping his arms around my waist and lifting me.
We both laugh as Fletcher spins us in a circle until a clammy feeling breaks out on my brow, and a sick feeling rises in my gut. The dizziness is way too much, too fast.
“Put me down,” I yelp.
He sets me on my feet, resting his hands on my shoulders as I catch my breath. I cup my mouth, and the nausea intensifies.
“Are you okay?” Fletcher asks in a high-pitched voice.
I tip my head down in a nod, keeping my hand firmly over my mouth.
“What’s going on? Are you sick?”
I shake my head, taking slow, deep breaths. Once the worst of it has passed, I drop my hand. “I’m fine. The spinning made me dizzy, that’s all.”
He quirks his eyebrow. “Since when does spinning in a circle twice make you so dizzy you nearly puke?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting too old to spin.”
“You’re a figure skating coach. Pretty sure you have to spin a lot. What are you going to do, barf all over the kids?”
The mental image is enough to make me heave.
“Okay, now I know something is up.” Fletcher holds my wrist, his eyes brimming with concern.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I swallow the pooling saliva in my mouth and step away from him.
By some miracle of fate, the fire alarm goes off, saving me from him prying the information out of me.
“My pancakes!” Fletcher gasps, running back into the kitchen, pulling the smoking pan off the burner. He flips the burnt pancake into the sink and runs water over it.
With him distracted, I run to my bathroom to get ready for the day, avoiding any further questions.