As soon as we walked into the restaurant, we were taken to our table. I raised my brows at Aubrey when Nash pulled her chair out for her and then draped his arm across the back of it when he sat down next to her. She shook her head, and focused her attention on the happy couple. “So, what’s the big news?”
I had a sneaking suspicion as to what they planned to tell us tonight. It was confirmed when Ethan took Madison’s hand and announced, “Madison’s pregnant.”
Thrilled that my best friend was finally going to have the baby she’d always wanted, I jumped out of my chair and rushed over to her. Aubrey and I hugged her. “How far along are you?” I asked.
“I’m just past the thirteen-week mark.”
“That means you’re already in your second trimester.” I gave her another squeeze. “I’d better start planning the baby shower soon.”
We sat back down, and the waitress reappeared with our drinks. After we placed our orders, we talked about baby stuff until the food came. Then we chatted about it more while we ate. And drank wine. By the time dinner was over, I was feeling a little light-headed. Apparently, I wasn’t alone in that as I overheard Nash telling Aubrey that she’d had enough.
“Nash is probably right. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow’s hangover. Want to share an Uber, Aubrey?”
Nash did not like my suggestion. “I’ll take her home.”
Madison took offense and the air around them practically crackled with heat as they argued. Madison interrupted them and dragged Aubrey and me to the bathroom.
“Okay, Aubrey. Spill,” Madison demanded as soon as the door shut behind us.
Aubrey tried to act like she wasn’t keeping anything from us as she avoided eye contact with us. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit,” I scoffed. “Nash has been all over you tonight.”
“I’ve never seen him be so openly possessive of you, Aubrey,” Madison added.
She turned away from the mirror to face us. “Apparently, Nash has decided to trample over my insistence that a relationship between us is inappropriate. He said he’s, and I quote, ‘fresh out of patience.’ He’s unilaterally decided that we are going to be together.”
“It’s about time.” Madison’s smile was as wide as mine. “Come on, Aubrey. How long did you think he was going to let you pretend you weren’t interested?”
“Who says I’m interested?”
I burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter at that. When it passed, I pointed out, “Girl, the only person you were fooling is yourself. You’re completely transparent.”
Her jaw dropped. “I am not!”
Madison chimed in, “I hate to break it you, Aubrey. But, when you aren’t staring at him like you want to rip his clothes off, you’re staring at him like you want to have his freaking babies.”
“Do you think Nash noticed?” Aubrey asked, looking so hopeful that I hated to be the one to break it to her.
Luckily, Madison beat me to it. “Yeah, Aubrey. I think he noticed. Do you really think he would have kept pursuing you if you hadn’t seemed interested?”
My cell beeped, and my heart raced with hope as I dug through my purse to find it. I’d had the same reaction every time a call or text came through in the weeks since my night with Trace. But once again, it wasn’t the person I was hoping to hear from. Instead, the text was from my brother, letting me know he’d had dinner with our parents and they both seemed great. They were getting older, so it was always a relief when he sent me updates about them.
My head jerked up when Aubrey asked, “Melody, what’s going on?”
I’d avoided having this conversation for so long, but I couldn’t do it any longer. I was a wreck, wondering what could have possibly gone so wrong. Dropping my phone back into my purse, I put my head in my hands. “I did something really stupid.”
“How stupid?” Madison asked as she moved close and tugged on my hands to peer at my face. “Oh, shit. Like an eleven on a scale of one to ten?”
I nodded.
“Only a guy could make a smart girl like you do something that dumb,” Aubrey added, wrapping her arm around my shoulders. I figured she’d know since Nash had her spinning around in circles.
“The hot neighbor you mentioned but haven’t brought up again for a while?” Madison guessed.
If I was going to spill my guts, I figured it was best to treat it like a bandage and rip it off all in one, quick action. “We got drunk together a few weeks ago, had unprotected sex because I told him I wanted to have his baby, and then he ghosted me the next day.”
“Whoa,” Madison breathed out. “You weren’t kidding when you said it was an eleven.”
Aubrey’s brow wrinkled. “How could he ghost you? He lives right next door.”
“I don’t know, but somehow he’s managed it.” I bit my lip to stop myself from crying. “I woke up that morning, and he’d just kind of disappeared. There’s been no noise from his apartment. His truck hasn’t been in the parking lot.”
Madison’s eyes were full of sympathy. “You haven’t heard from him at all?”
“Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada,” I rattled off.
Aubrey gave me a little squeeze before stepping away. “Well, fuck him then.”
“I already did. That’s why it hurts so much that he vanished into thin air after getting what he wanted.”
“If he didn’t realize how amazing you are, then he’s not worth another thought,” Aubrey added.
“Or maybe he is,” Madison gasped, her eyes narrowing on me. “You had unprotected sex with this guy a few weeks ago, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Did your period come last week?”
I staggered backwards and leaned against the sink.
“Wait. What? I don’t understand. How do you know when Melody is supposed to start her cycle?” Aubrey asked.
“We joke all the time about how we’re as close as two best friends can possibly be because our periods synced up years ago,” Madison explained. “And if I wasn’t thirteen weeks pregnant, then mine would’ve started last week.”
“Holy shit.” I shook my head in denial, but Madison took it as an answer to her original question—which worked for that too since it was accurate.
My best friend ignored the glaring problems that went along with me being pregnant and jumped straight to being excited about it. “This is awesome! We’ll get to be pregnant together, and our kids can be best friends too.”
“Except you and Ethan are crazy about each other and engaged to be married, while my potential baby daddy is nowhere to be found.”
“Let’s not all jump to conclusions quite yet,” Aubrey urged. “There are plenty of reasons why your period might be late, including the stress of being ghosted by your neighbor.”
“She’s right, Miss Babies on the Brain.” I wagged my finger at my best friend. “Just because you’re pregnant, doesn’t mean that I am.”
Aubrey was correct about the myriad of reasons my period could be late, but I was about ninety-nine percent certain that all of the unprotected sex I’d had with Trace was the culprit.
“Fine, you can hide your head in the sand all you want. But you’d better take a test soon,” Madison huffed before stomping out of the bathroom.
“You really should,” Aubrey agreed softly as we followed my best friend back to the table. It was a good thing we hadn’t just let her stomp off since the waitress was hitting on Ethan and Nash. We faced her down in a united front, even though they weren’t the kind of guys who’d ever mess around on their women. The confrontation helped me to forget about the bombshell realization I’d come to in the bathroom. But then everyone got all
kissy-face again, and it only made me miss Trace even more.
By the time I made it back to my apartment building—after a quick stop at the store to pick up a pregnancy test—I was a complete mess. So much so that I must’ve missed his big truck in the parking lot when I pulled in. But the man himself was impossible to miss. I spotted him as soon as I got off the elevator since he was sitting on the floor in front of my apartment with his back resting against the door and his legs stretched out in front of him.
Chapter Ten
Trace
“If it isn’t the disappearing man.”
My head jerked up and my eyes blinked open at the sound of the voice I’d desperately missed over the past few weeks. Only I hadn’t expected the sarcasm in her tone. With her blue eyes sparking fire and her hands clenched at her sides, one of them holding a bag from the drug store around the corner, she looked as irritated as I felt. She was also as gorgeous as I remembered. Just seeing her dimmed some of my frustration.
“You would’ve known exactly where I was if you’d bothered to call me,” I grumbled as I rose to my feet.
“Call you,” she snorted, elbowing past me to unlock and open her door. “How was I supposed to do that when we’re the biggest idiots in the world? We have to be the only people ever who have somehow managed to date—or hang out or whatever you want to call it—for two months and never exchanged phone numbers.”
I followed her inside, listening to her rant and enjoying the view while she paced back and forth. “My number was on the note I left you.”
She abruptly stopped to stare at me with wide, blue eyes. “Note? What note?”
“The one I wrote the morning I left, so you’d know about the family emergency.”
Her shoulders slumped as she walked over to the couch and dropped down on the cushions, tossing the bag she’d been carrying on the coffee table. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. When I woke up that morning, other than finding your shoes in my living room and your tie in my bed, it was like you’d never been here.”