Not My Match (The Game Changers 2)

“Say hi to Lance!” Aunt Clara calls to her back as she gets to the door.

“Get the early-detection one, Mama!” Elena yells, and Mama says she will, and the door shuts.

“You are not coming in here with me,” I say to Mama as she follows me into the small bathroom at the beauty shop twenty minutes later.

She hands off the grocery bag and shows me all five tests. “Yes, I am. Now pee on all of them.”

I take the bag, ease her out, and shut the door in her face. Holding the first pink box, I read the marketing tagline: Accurate up to six days before a missed period.

That’s fast in detecting hCG in my urine. Despite my random information gathering over the years, I realize I know zilch about pregnancy tests. I sit down on the toilet lid as I unwrap the box and take out the stick and read the instructions. Remove the cap and reveal the absorbent section, pee midstream—oh, that’s nice—then place it on a flat surface and wait six minutes. If you’re pregnant, a line will appear under the control line. Seems easy.

My hand trembles.

And hope, feathery and sweet, blooms and takes flight in my heart, the vision of me with Devon’s baby making me tremble. Is it crazy that I want this? I can have a baby, finish school, be a sci-fi author by night, a teacher by day. More kids, I don’t care—give them all to me, running around our big house and the barn where I’d put my office, renovated with white paint, rustic crossbeams, and industrial lighting.

What do you want most in the world?

Devon. You. Always you.

God, what a mistake I made.

I’ve been clinging to CERN because it’s been part of me for so long, yet part of that desperation revolved around the mistakes I made with Elena and Preston, a lifeline to escape and start fresh, but now . . . dreams are meant to evolve. Goals readjust. I want family. I want love.

Einstein said many great things, and his favorite quote hung in his office at Princeton: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

Science is important to me—it’s the core of my personality—but love and happiness, those intangible, beautiful, hard-to-hold things, are what count the most, and physics is just icing on the cake. I can’t be me without him, knowing he’s in the world and I’m thousands of miles away. What good would I be at CERN, not caring, missing him with every breath I took?

A knock makes me start. “You’ve been in there for half an hour!” Mama says. “Can’t you pee? Let me get a Sun Drop.”

She shuffles off, and I hear talking from the shop. They’re probably out there planning a baby shower. I shake my head and stare at the magical pee thing. “Thank you, little stick,” I whisper. “I would have figured it out before I left, but you helped. Let’s hope Devon . . .” My voice cracks. What if he doesn’t let me back into his heart? Worse, what if I’m pregnant and he . . .

Don’t go there.

Might as well get this over with. I take care of business, using two sticks, one after the other, then setting them on the counter—and wait.

I can’t breathe as I watch the minutes tick down on my phone. My fingers clutch the edge of the sink as I breathe, anticipation building and rising with each moment. I want this, I want this, I want this—and him.

Six minutes later, I clean up the mess, throwing the package and instructions in the trash. Leaning my head against the door for a minute, I attempt to get my emotions under control, grappling with the torrent of feelings as I swipe at my face.

Walking down the hall and out into the beauty shop, I watch my feet, my mind tumbling. I need another shower. One wasn’t enough. I need to put some makeup on, some decent clothes besides his shirt—which I haven’t taken off. I need to see him. Friday night rushes back at me: his anger, his disappointment, his I love you.

“Why are you crying?” Mama asks, rushing over to me.

From her perch in a stylist chair, Myrtle says, “Bun in the oven. Knew it.”

The door opens, and he walks in.

My whole life. Right there.

His eyes are wide, and his face . . . “Baby, don’t cry,” he says in a deep husky voice.

My body reacts, spinning toward him as he rushes to me, broad shoulders swaying as he stops in front of me, and I jump in his arms.

“I called him,” Elena offers with a grimace as she waves at the rest of them and shoos them out the front door. They file out, not willingly, but they do.