From Enemies to Expecting

Cass cocked her head. “Have you talked to him about what you’re feeling?”

“I can’t,” she wailed. “He’s in New York at meetings about a very big problem for his team and I just want him to come home and sleep with me, like really sleep. I want to wake up with him in the morning and have coffee and just be together. We’ve never done that. I don’t do that with anyone. I don’t know why I want that now. It’s ridiculous to feel so clingy and out of sorts and—”

“Trinity.” Alex’s voice rang out from the TV. “Breathe. That sounds like hormones talking. Maybe after your cycle, you’ll feel better.”

“I’m not on my period,” Trinity snapped. Like Alex knew anything about that. She’d only been pregnant for forever. “I’m not even due to start until—”

The first. What was today? Trinity glanced at her phone. The sixth. Oh, my God. It was the sixth. And she was always so regular.

Panic slammed through her chest as she did the math. It had been almost three weeks since the broken condom incident. With all the baseball games and juggling the Bloom campaign and missing Logan, she’d totally lost track of the calendar.

“I’m sensing we’re having a revelation in the works,” Harper said cheerfully. “Should we reconvene another day while you go take a pregnancy test?”

A pregnancy test.

The phrase made literally no sense, as if Harper had spoken Swahili. Trinity hadn’t taken a pregnancy test in eight years. Because she’d never had the slightest doubt about what the result would be.

“I have a couple of extras in my desk,” Cass offered. “From when Gage and I were trying. If you want to know now.”

Numbly, Trinity nodded at the woman who had been her best friend since eleventh grade. The distance that had grown between them due to their very different life circumstances vanished. There was no one else she’d want holding her hand as she verified whether her problems with Logan were exponentially greater than she’d supposed.

After an eternity that was really more like ten minutes later, she had her answer.

Amazing how she could actually see the plus sign though all the blurry tears. Pregnant. With Logan McLaughlin’s baby.

“Should I say congratulations or I’m sorry?” Cass asked quietly.

Trinity didn’t answer, just tossed the positive test onto the counter and sank to the ground to put her head on her bent knees. Her whole body shook with a cocktail of nerves and wonder and disbelief and hope. But she had to squash that. Now.

There was no way she’d carry to term. Her body didn’t work like that. The little miracle inside would be snatched from her before it had a chance to form, and she’d have to deal with it. Again.

Oh, God. A new round of horror tore through her. What was she going to tell Logan? She’d promised she’d let him know if this happened, but that had been back when she’d been ridiculously certain her birth control would stick. Obviously her pills had failed her and her secret belief that she couldn’t get pregnant again was false.

“I don’t understand how this happened,” she sniffled out brokenly to Cass through the sobs still racking her chest. “What am I going to do?”

“Do you want the baby?” Cass asked, cutting to the chase in her usual style. And of course that was the most important question, and Trinity knew the answer instantly.

“Of course. But that’s not in the cards—”

“Stop. You don’t know that. You’re going to get the best prenatal care possible,” Cass countered. “And then we’re going to stage sticky-baby sit-ins, ply you with peanut butter, whatever it takes to make this work for you this time. Your womb has had eight years to develop, to mature.”

The words filtered through the crushing pain in Trinity’s chest but did nothing to absolve it. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t bear the idea of eventually—soon—having absolute confirmation that she was indeed as broken as she’d always assumed.

But what if Cass was right? What if the baby actually stuck? What if this was the start of the most amazing chapter in her life? For today, right now, she was pregnant with Logan’s baby.

Fledgling emotions that she’d never allowed herself to embrace welled up and over with the realization that she had a piece of him inside her, that the universe had conspired to make their relationship real in the most wonderful way possible.

She could admit that when he talked about having a family, she wanted that, too.

And then she realized. She couldn’t tell him.

Instead of fearing that he’d take off, the opposite would be true. He’d want to be there every step, to go to the doctor’s appointments, pick out a crib. That’s who he was, and he’d be devastated if—when—she miscarried. And then she’d have to deal with it alone, because what else would bind them together? He’d be done with her at that point, forever.