Chapter Seventeen—Riley
Eight weeks pregnant. That’s the doctor’s number, not mine. Six weeks since it actually happened, pregnancy dates from your last period, not the night that changes your life. The distinction felt meaningless until I needed it to explain why the math worked. Connor's due back in two weeks.
Crackers first. Water. Vitamin.
The kitchen is dim, lit only by the stove light. I run my thumb along the edge of the cracker sleeve, feeling the rough paper catch against my skin.
I've gotten precise about the brand. Only plain saltines work—nothing flavored, nothing with seeds. I bought six boxes and hid five in the back of the closet. That counts as a win these days: hiding carbohydrates like state secrets.
The vitamin rests in my palm—yellow, larger than it needs to be. A supplement easy to explain away if no one looks too closely.
Every piece of this routine has a hiding place. Nothing gets left where someone else might notice.
Three days since the test. Feels like longer. Probably because the symptoms started weeks ago.
I've thought this through more than I want to admit.
More nausea rolls through me. Dizziness follows, creeping at the edges of my vision. I grip the counter, knuckles whitening against the cool stone, but the cracker sleeve slips.
It clinks against the glass—too loud in the quiet.
The sound cracks through the room like something breaking.
The glass wobbles.
I catch it just in time.
My heart kicks hard against my ribs.
One wrong sound and the system collapses.
Connor's not back for another two weeks. That's all the runway I have left.
Two weeks to figure out what to do. Two weeks to decide who needs to know first. Two weeks before everything changes whether I'm ready or not.
The margins are gone. There's no slack left.
Every morning feels like a countdown now.
Every sound in this kitchen feels louder than it should.
Too loud.
Like the room itself is waiting for me to mess up.
For someone to notice the wrong thing at the wrong time.
For everything I've been holding together to crack open right here under the stove light.
Liam could walk in early.
Andrew could finish his run sooner.
Ethan—
The air shifts before I hear anything.
I turn. Ethan stands in the doorway—the man who poured my water without asking, who noticed everything I didn't want noticed. He never misses patterns.
God, of all people. Not him.
My fingers twitch before I catch myself.
The coffee is already made. He doesn't sleep past five—button-down tucked, glasses on, mug in hand. Of course he does.
I miscalculated. That hasn't happened since this started.
His gaze isn't on my face. It's on my hand—not curious, just focused, the look of someone who's already run the data and is waiting on confirmation. He takes a step inside, then another, eyes moving from my hand to my face and staying there, taking in the cracker, the water glass, the hour.
I close my fist.
Too late.
The scent of his coffee reaches me before he speaks. Familiar. Too calm for what's happening under my skin.
His gaze drops to my closed hand, then comes back up. He looks like he's waiting for a confession.
“A vitamin,” I say. Like it means nothing. Like it's just another Tuesday.
The words come out steady. I don't know how.
He doesn't buy it. A beat passes—one of his, longer than other people's, the kind that stretches until breathing feels like work.
“Riley.”
He's too close now. My breath goes shallow.
He's had this stillness about him for weeks—something behind his eyes that says he's been running numbers. Watching patterns. Logging symptoms. Waiting for the last piece. Waiting for proof.
His hand lifts. Slow. Delicate. Like touching me could solve something. Or ruin it.
His jaw clenches—just enough to show. Not anger. Control.
His fingers hover near my wrist, the contact already inevitable.
I should step back. I should laugh this off. Make a joke. Change the subject. Spill the water on purpose if I have to. Do something.
I don't. I can't.
My body stays exactly where it is—frozen in place while my brain scrambles for exits that aren't there.
His fingers close around my wrist. Firm.
The contact lands like a spark.
Ethan doesn’t touch people casually.
Every contact from him has meant something.
A glass of water placed beside me without a word.
A hand over mine at dinner when I didn’t realize I was shaking.
Every time he noticed something I hoped no one would.
And now this.
His hand around my wrist like the truth has weight and he intends to measure it.
Too familiar.
Too close.
My pulse jumps harder under his thumb.
He feels it.
And suddenly this isn’t about a vitamin anymore.
This is about everything I've been hiding.
Not just the pregnancy. The fear that someone might see the whole picture. See how close I came to losing control.
How badly I want this and how terrified I am of what comes next.
The air leaves me in a quiet rush.
His thumb presses against the inside of my wrist. Right over my pulse. Counting. Feeling. Confirming.
Heat crawls up my neck. The fear of exposure coils low in my stomach.
I hate this feeling. Hate how quickly he cuts through the systems I've built. Hate how easily he reads things I don't want seen.
He doesn't step back. Doesn't loosen his grip.
“You’ve been sick in the mornings,” he says. Not a question. A fact. Something he's been carrying around, turning over, waiting to confirm.
His eyes hold mine. Steady. Sharp. Searching.
He studies my face like he's waiting for the last piece to click into place.
I feel it happen. That moment when logic outruns denial. Recognition sliding into certainty.
He already knows. There's no hiding left.
Of all of them, he's the worst one to figure it out first.
Andrew would react.
Liam would joke.
But Ethan—Ethan would understand.
And once he understood, there would be no pretending this was temporary.
No hiding behind logistics. No clean escape.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Because saying it out loud makes it real.
Once one person knows, the rest will follow. And weeks of holding things together with practiced performance that I’m still the same person who walked through that door. All of it starts to crack.