Home > Heart & Soul (Lost & Found #5)(5)

Heart & Soul (Lost & Found #5)(5)
Author: Nicole Williams

When she reached for the box, I lifted it out of her reach. My forehead couldn’t have creased any deeper.

“They’re for me, crazy,” she said, jumping to try to snag the box away from me. “What do you think they’re for?”

I swallowed so hard I felt my Adam’s apple drop a foot before bobbing back into place. “Like, just to have for one day in the future, right? A just in case precaution? Not to use, as in, right now? Right?” How many rights could I fit in one breath?

She let out a long sigh then, moving so quickly she caught me off guard, her fingers wrapped around the box and snatched it out of my grasp. She was halfway down the hall before I’d realized what had happened.

“Rowen? What’s going on? Not a fan of being left in the dark. Especially when my wife shows up with a box of pregnancy tests when she absolutely, positively, most certainly could not be pregnant.”

Before I could catch up to her, she disappeared into the bathroom and sealed the door. When I tried to open it, I found she’d locked it. I could already feel my heart in the back of my throat, but then I tasted it—the metallic, bitter taste of panic filling my mouth.

“Yeah, that’s why I was hoping to beat you home,” she hollered. “So you wouldn’t need to go through any undue stress if this turns out to be nothing.”

“If what turns out to be nothing?” I called back, hovering on the other side of the door. The last minute had happened so quickly, I couldn’t catch up to what was happening. What that box meant. What her disappearing behind the bathroom door with it meant. What her wanting to beat me home meant.

“If I turn out to be pregnant.” Her voice wasn’t quite so loud now, but it hit me as if she’d just dropped a grenade in front of me.

I had to take a couple of breaths before I could work up any sort of reply. “But we’re on, like, every form of birth control known to mankind.”

“Every kind but one.”

I heard what sounded like the box being ripped open, but I couldn’t be sure because everything from the time she’d said the word pregnant in reference to herself was a blur of total and utter confusion.

“I don’t understand . . .” I said to her reply and everything that had happened in the last two and a half minutes.

“Abstinence.”

My face screwed together. “That’s barbaric.”

“Well, you’re the one who brought up the birth control subject.”

I didn’t understand how she could sound so calm—so in control of her emotions. How could she go on acting and talking to me as if this was any old day, any old conversation, while she was taking a test to determine whether she was or wasn’t pregnant? Didn’t she understand what it meant if she was? Hadn’t she been sitting next to me while the doctor cautioned us to use every contraceptive measure possible until after the surgery? Hadn’t the ramifications and dangers computed in her head the way they had in mine? How could she talk to me as though her heart wasn’t about to burst out of her chest or her knees weren’t about to give out, like mine felt close to doing?

“Rowen?” I knocked on the door and tried the door handle again. I didn’t like being on this side of the door when she was on the other side, having her future revealed to her alone. “Let me in. Please?”

On the other side, there was silence.

“Rowen?” My knocks turned to pounds as I imagined the worst—her passed out on the tile from taxing her heart from the bike ride or the stairs or the shock of finding out . . . “Rowen! Please. Open the door.”

Another moment of silence. All I could hear was my heart beating in my ears before the door in front of me opened.

She stuck out her head, and even though she was biting at her lip like crazy, she lifted her eyes to mine. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?” She didn’t seem to blink as she watched me. “The good news, right?”

“Usually, yeah,” I answered, focusing on her because she was the only thing in the room that wasn’t spinning. “But let’s switch it up today. Give me the bad news first.”

Her teeth sank deeper into her lip. “We’re going to need to buy a new car.”

I waited for her to add something. When it was clear she was waiting for me to say something else, I cleared my throat. “That’s not bad news. I’ve been trying to get you a mode of transportation that has four wheels instead of two wheels for years. What kind are you thinking?”

Her head tilted as she gave me a curious look. I knew that look. It meant I wasn’t getting it.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I think a mini-van’s the no-brainer option, but maybe we could manage with a roomy sedan.”

“A mini-van? I thought I’d see you in a pair of chaps before I’d see you in a mini-van.”

Another look from her, this one even more pronounced. I really wasn’t getting it.

“Along with that mini-van, we’ll need to grab a car seat, and one of those mirrors so the driver can see into the backseat, and a case or five of diapers, and probably those stick figure decals people display on their back windows because . . .” She lifted her hand. In it was clutched a white plastic stick with one end showing two pink lines. “Because baby makes three.”

The air left my lungs in one quick rush . . . then what she said started to sink in. Two pink lines. Baby makes three. Car seats. Diapers. Was she saying? Was Rowen . . .?

   
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