Kane (Face-Off 2)

“You didn’t mess up. It was an accident.” She sighs, taking my hand in hers and giving it a squeeze. “Let’s just wait and see what the sticks tell us before you go beating yourself up over missing a pill. It happens to plenty of people.”

Digging my fingers into my hair, I stare at Sydney, wishing she had the answer. She always has the answers, knows the right things to say, but even she seems as if she’s having a hard time with this situation.

“One more minute,” she says, glancing down at the cell phone in her trembling hand. “

“I cannot believe this is happening,” I say this more to myself, but Sydney can still hear me. “I am so fucking stupid. How could I swap them out without noticing? I’ve been taking the same pills for years. My schedule is like clockwork. I wake up, I grab my medicine, I brush my teeth—”

“Stop dwelling on it.” Sydney snaps me out of my self-loathing rant. “There’s nothing you can do about it now.”

“I finished the sugar pills three days ago and didn’t even notice I still had one left. How? Was I half asleep when I took them? Probably,” I say, answering my own question.

Most mornings, Tyler wakes me up with a hard-on, wanting sex before I can even stretch my arms out. He’s insatiable. He can never get enough of me, and the feeling is mutual. But we are not ready for children.

The alarm on Sydney’s phone beeps, my heart pounding out my chest with each ring. She shuts it off and pulls herself to her feet, using the edge of the vanity to brace herself.

“I’m afraid to look,” I tell her. “You have to do it for me.” Tasting the bile rising up from my stomach in the back of my throat, I try to choke it back down along with my nerves. But nothing can help quell my anxiety.

I watch Sydney, praying for a sign of relief. Her face brightens, the corners of her mouth turning up into a happy smile as she turns to face me. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I am going to be an aunt, and I am so damn excited about it.”

“I’m pregnant!” I shoot up from the toilet seat to check out the tests for myself. All of them have two lines, indicating that I am having Tyler’s baby. Our baby. We are pregnant.

A small part of me is excited because a child is what Tyler has wanted every since the day he signed the adoption papers for Blake. He has regretted his decision from that moment on, forced to live with his choice.

What if this news sends him over the edge?

Sydney wraps her arms around me and snuggles her cheek against mine, the scent of her sweet perfume making my stomach churn. “You’re going to be a mom, K. This is so exciting.”

I want to be happy, and I am to some extent. But I have trouble sharing Sydney’s enthusiasm without knowing how Tyler will respond. I left the house this morning as his girlfriend, and now I’m the mother of his child.

“How do I tell Tyler?” I stutter the words, my nerves getting the best of me.

She takes a step back from me, holding me at arm's length and staring into my eyes. “You tell Tyler he’s going to be a father,

and if he has a problem with it, he will have to deal with me.” Her smile reaches up to her eyes, and I can’t help but join in because her words provoke a reaction from me.

For the first time in over an hour, I am smiling. No matter the outcome of my conversation with Tyler, it does not change the fact that I am having his child.

“I guess I better get home.” I slip away from her grasp, throwing my hands onto my hips as I stare down at my stomach. “What will I look like a few months from now? With the way I eat, I will end up being the size of a house, and Tyler will be repulsed by me.”

She shakes her head and then brushes a loose curl behind her ear. “I can see you already, glowing and gorgeous and the cutest mother to ever rock Chanel.”

“There’s no way I’ll fit into Chanel in a few months. The last time I checked, they don’t sell maternity clothes.”

“Hey, they have a maternity wedding gown. I’m sure we can find you some maternity clothes to go along with it.”

“Oh, God. Now you’re freaking me out. Wedding gowns, babies, this is all too much at one time.”

“Just focus on my little niece or nephew that is cooking inside your belly, and I will worry about you being the best dressed baby mama this city has ever seen.”

I laugh at her insanity, keeping my fingers crossed that Tyler will respond in the same fashion as Sydney.

Chapter Nineteen

TYLER

By the time Kennedy walks through the door, I have just finished another ass kicking workout with Donovan and our trainer, Brian. We had to replace Vanessa with Brian after Donovan hooked up with her a while back and made the situation awkward for all of us. Our last session with her was brutal to say the least, the weird tension between them too much for any of us to tolerate.

I hired Brian around the time Kennedy moved into my house, and I have been hitting it hard with Donovan and him for the last few weeks. This year we have to get our team to the playoffs. That is my goal, one that I will die trying to achieve.