Chapter 3 The Positive Test
Two Lines
Three weeks had passed since Evan had last seen Nathaniel.
Three weeks since the kiss.
Three weeks since Nathaniel had looked him directly in the eyes and admitted that the attraction between them was real before walking away as though honesty itself had been a mistake.
Evan had expected the memory to fade.
It hadn't.
He had tried to move on with his life. He returned to work, met friends for coffee, spent evenings at his apartment, and deliberately avoided the places where he might accidentally encounter Nathaniel.
He had even stopped checking his phone whenever a message arrived, because some stubborn part of him still expected Nathaniel to reach out.
He never did.
Evan told himself that was probably for the best.
Nathaniel had made his position clear. Their attraction was real, but the consequences were too complicated. Evan understood that, even if he didn't agree with it.
What Evan hadn't expected was how strangely his body began behaving.
At first, he blamed exhaustion.
The previous month had been demanding. His workload had increased, and he had been sleeping badly. He had also been eating at odd hours, sometimes forgetting lunch entirely when a project deadline approached.
The nausea started one morning while he was getting ready for work.
Evan stood in his kitchen with one hand resting against the counter, waiting for the sudden wave of sickness to pass.
He closed his eyes.
"Not today."
The feeling eased after several minutes.
He drank some water and continued getting ready.
Two days later, it happened again.
Then came the fatigue.
Evan had never been someone who needed much sleep. Even during university, he could function on six hours without complaining. Now he was falling asleep on the couch before ten at night and waking up tired.
His appetite changed too.
Some foods he normally loved suddenly made his stomach turn. Others became strangely appealing.
He ignored all of it.
There were reasonable explanations for everything.
Stress.
Poor sleep.
Work.
He repeated those explanations often enough that he almost believed them.
Then, one morning, he stood in front of his bathroom mirror and stared at himself.
Something felt different.
Not visibly different.
Just different.
His body seemed unfamiliar in a way he couldn't explain.
Evan looked down at his hands.
His thoughts moved backward.
The missed period.
He had dismissed it because his cycle had never been perfectly predictable.
But now he counted the days.
Once.
Then again.
His stomach tightened.
"No."
The word came out quietly.
He sat on the edge of the bathtub and reached for his phone.
He opened the calendar application.
His thumb moved across the screen as he counted.
His heart began beating faster.
He knew exactly what the timing meant.
The kiss with Nathaniel had happened three weeks earlier, but the circumstances surrounding it had begun before that. One night. One decision. One moment when neither of them had been willing to stop what was happening.
Evan swallowed.
Pregnancy was not something he had ever seriously imagined for himself.
It was the kind of possibility that belonged to other people, other lives, other circumstances.
Yet now the thought had entered his mind, and he couldn't force it back out.
He stood abruptly.
He needed a test.
The nearest pharmacy was only a few blocks from his apartment.
Evan drove there without allowing himself to think too deeply about what he was doing. He bought two tests because buying one felt too frightening, then stood at the checkout pretending that he wasn't aware of the cashier's polite smile.
The drive home seemed longer than usual.
He placed the small paper bag on the bathroom counter and stared at it.
For several minutes, he did nothing.
He could walk away.
He could decide he had imagined the symptoms.
He could continue living as though nothing had changed.
But his hands were already opening the package.
Evan read the instructions twice.
Then he took the test.
The waiting was worse than he expected.
He paced around the bathroom.
He checked his phone.
He washed his hands.
He checked the test again.
The first line appeared quickly.
Evan exhaled.
There.
Negative.
Relief moved through him so quickly that his knees almost weakened.
Then a second line began to appear.
He stopped breathing.
"No."
He leaned closer.
The second line became clearer.
Evan stared at it.
His mind refused to process what his eyes were seeing.
He picked up the second test.
He followed the instructions again.
The result was the same.
Two lines.
He sat down slowly on the closed toilet lid.
Pregnant.
The word seemed impossible.
Evan looked at the test again.
Pregnant.
His first emotion wasn't happiness.
It wasn't fear either.
It was disbelief.
He placed one hand against his stomach.
There was nothing there yet that he could feel. No bump. No movement. Nothing that could explain how dramatically his life had just changed.
He laughed once, but the sound was nervous and broken.
"How?"
He already knew the answer.
Nathaniel.
The realization hit differently from the pregnancy itself.
Evan closed his eyes.
He remembered the hallway.
Nathaniel's hand against his face.
The kiss.
The way Nathaniel had looked at him afterward.
The older man had wanted him.
And now Evan was carrying his child.
He stood and walked to the bedroom.
For the next hour, he did nothing except sit on the edge of his bed.
His phone remained beside him.
He picked it up several times.
Nathaniel's contact was still there.
He could call.
He could send a message.
He could wait.
Evan stared at the name on the screen.
Nathaniel Cross.
His heart tightened.
This was exactly the kind of complication Nathaniel had feared.
If Evan told him, everything would change.
Nathaniel might believe Evan expected something from him.
Money.
Protection.
A relationship.
A future.
Evan didn't want any of those things simply because he was pregnant.
He had spent his entire life fighting against assumptions about him. Being Richard Brooks's son already meant people assumed doors opened for him because of his father's name.
He refused to become the young man who trapped an older, wealthy man with a pregnancy.
If Nathaniel wanted nothing to do with him, Evan would survive.
It would hurt.
But he would survive.
He placed the phone down.
Then he picked it up again.
Nathaniel had a right to know.
That was the truth he couldn't escape.
Whatever had happened between them, the child belonged to both of them.
Evan wasn't going to make a decision about Nathaniel's relationship with the baby without telling him.
He also wasn't going to use the pregnancy to force Nathaniel into a relationship.
The distinction mattered.
Evan looked down at his stomach again.
A strange tenderness moved through him.
He placed his palm against it.
"Hi," he whispered.
The word felt absurd.
There was no visible change yet. No sign that anyone else existed there.
But something had changed.
Evan's life was no longer entirely his own.
The thought frightened him.
It also filled him with an unexpected sense of determination.
He would figure it out.
Whatever happened next, he would handle it.
He would continue working. He would make his own decisions. He would take care of himself. He would make sure the baby was cared for.
And Nathaniel would know.
Not because Evan needed Nathaniel's money.
Not because he wanted to trap him.
Not because pregnancy gave him some claim over a man who had already tried to walk away.
Nathaniel deserved the truth.
Evan opened his phone again.
He considered calling.
His thumb hovered over Nathaniel's name.
Then he stopped.
A phone call felt too easy.
Nathaniel deserved to see him when Evan told him. Evan wanted to see his face, to hear his response without the distance of a screen.
He stood and walked toward the window.
Outside, the city continued exactly as it had before.
Cars moved through the street.
People hurried along sidewalks.
Someone walked a dog across the park.
Nobody knew that Evan's entire future had shifted that morning.
He looked down at his phone again.
He would tell Nathaniel.
But he would do it on his own terms.
He would tell him that he was pregnant.
He would tell him that the baby was his.
And then Nathaniel could decide what kind of father he wanted to be.
What he could not decide was whether Evan was capable of choosing his own future.
Evan had already made that decision.
He would not run.
He would not hide.
And he would not allow fear to make his choices for him.
He picked up his keys.
Tomorrow, he would find Nathaniel.
Whatever happened after that, at least the truth would finally be between them.
Nathaniel Finds Out
Nathaniel had spent the last three weeks doing exactly what he had promised himself he would do.
He stayed away from Evan.
After their conversation in his office, he had buried himself in work and deliberately avoided every opportunity that might place them in the same room.
When Richard mentioned Evan during casual conversations, Nathaniel kept his responses brief.
When invitations arrived for gatherings where Evan might be present, Nathaniel found reasons not to attend.
It should have worked.
Distance was supposed to make the situation easier.
Instead, Nathaniel found himself thinking about Evan more often.
He wondered whether Evan was angry with him. He wondered whether he had moved on. He wondered whether Evan regretted confronting him that night.
Most dangerously, he wondered whether Evan still wanted him.
Nathaniel never allowed himself to answer that question.
On Thursday afternoon, he was sitting in his office reviewing plans for a new development when his assistant appeared at the open doorway.
"Mr. Cross, you have a visitor."
Nathaniel looked up.
"Who?"
"Evan Brooks."
Everything inside him went still.
For a moment, Nathaniel simply stared at her.
"Evan?"
"Yes. He said he needs to speak with you privately."
Nathaniel's first thought was that something had happened with Richard.