by Lulu Pratt
Him and all his lies. Eric had to be behind it. The timing was too close for me to think anything else.
“This is kind of exciting.” Lily whispers, even though we are alone. “Private waiting room, babies, you know. All that stuff. I never knew how all this worked.”
“I wish I didn’t have to.”
Her face immediately clams up. “Shit. I’m sorry, Kate. This has to be really uncomfortable and I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, no. It’s okay.” I reassure her without really feeling like it. “I didn’t mean to make you think… it’s just weird, you know? I don’t feel like this is really happening. Until now, I could pretend that maybe I just had a stomach virus. None of it was real. After this… it’s real.”
Lily takes my hand and squeezes it. I’m so freaking grateful for her I could cry. But I’m tired of crying, so I gently smack my cheek instead.
“I need to stop.”
“Kate?” A scrubs-clad woman in another bouncy ponytail opens the door and smiles. “Ready to see baby?”
Tears press against my eyeballs and my heart flits like a caged bird, but I take a deep breath and nod. Lily slips her hand in mine and I don’t let go as we pass through the bright yellow halls covered in pamphlets about babies and vaginas.
It reminds me of my regular gynecologist, whom I absolutely could not be seen at without the paparazzi swarming. Maybe I can just pretend I am going in for a yearly check-up, not to see the thing swimming in my belly.
“Here we are!” She chirps and ushers us into a room with a giant machine and a screen. “I’m Rayanne, the ultrasound technician. We’re going to start with taking a look at baby, so Dr. Reynolds can review them before seeing you. Since you’re a little further along than normal for the first appointment, we won’t have to use the vaginal ultrasound. How wonderful!”
I stare blankly at her, all her words foreign. I give a small nod. She hands me a dressing gown to cover the lower half of my body and gives me a squeeze on the shoulder when I’m told to lie down on the table.
Apparently, everyone can smell my fear.
“Remember that time we were in college and Brad Heinz paid us fifty bucks to make out at his party?” Lily asks brightly while Rayanne gets the machine up and running. “I would have made out with you for five. Just thought you should know that.”
“Thanks.” I laugh a little. It sounds high-pitched and insane. “I would have done it for free.”
“God, such a one-upper.”
“You know me.”
“Breathe, Kate. You’ll be okay. Like when we made out the first time. It feels scary at first, but then it turns out to be just fine. This will be just fine.”
“I hope so.” I whisper.
Rayanne exposes my belly and talks a mile a minute about her nephews and some birthday party they just had. Like this was all totally normal and I wasn’t about to have my life turn on its head.
I don’t do anything but lay there while she manipulates my body.
“Okay. This might be a little cold.” She grins at me and points to the screen next to me. “You’ll see everything there. One, two…”
I jump as she coats my belly with something cold and then shoves the ultrasound wand against it. Instantly, the screen goes from all black to static, like it lost the signal. Rayanne moves the stick around, talking to herself
“I think I am going to need the vaginal wand,” Rayanne says, furrowing her brow.
Lily squeezes me extra harder for reassurance, but all I can think is maybe I’m not pregnant after all.
“Phew, there he is,” Rayanne says, sounding either concerned or shocked. I’m not sure which is better. “How far along did you say you were?”
“Based on my last period, should be about nine weeks?” I shrug a little. “This is all sort of new to me, I’m sorry. Did I get it wrong?”
“Well.” Rayanne frowns and starts plucking around the ultrasound machine’s keyboard. On the screen, it looks like she’s measuring it. Numbers populate around the lines. “Baby does not look nine weeks along. He’s measuring closer to five.”
“Five?” I whisper. My heart pounds in my ears and I suddenly feel so, so cold. “That can’t be right according to the parenting magazines. I haven’t had a period in over two months.”
“Skipped periods are pretty common if you are undergoing a lot of stress. Which, if the news is right, you have been.” Rayanne offers a sad smile. “Stress can shut it down for a month if it wants, and kick back up the following. Developmentally, your little peanut is not nine weeks.”
Lily stares at me and gapes. “That means…”
I cover my mouth with my hands. Five weeks? Five weeks would put me nowhere near David. Instead, that would put me with…
Tears well back up in my eyes and it’s hard to breathe. I watch Rayanne finish her measurements, while my brain tries to rationalize this.
We always used condoms. Always.
“Are you sure?” Lily finally asks Rayanne.
“Very. Later, it gets more difficult to pinpoint, but it’s very accurate in the beginning due to their growth stages.” Rayanne finishes and leaves the room to get the doctor.
Lily just stares at me.
“That means…”
“We used condoms.”
“Every time?”
I clean myself up with baby wipes and pull up my leggings. I bend over to put on my sandals and a memory comes blazing back. The night he showed up at my apartment and we had sex over the edge of the couch. I don’t remember seeing a condom.
My God.
Rayanne knocks and comes back in.
“Here’s your baby.” She hands me a small strip of black and white pictures, featuring the baby I did not make with David McArthur.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ERIC
After spending a solid ten minutes knocking on the door, I decide Kate isn’t home yet. She doesn’t answer any of my phone calls or text messages, but she has to come home soon. She has to.
The past week has been a rollercoaster of shit. The case, David, Paxton, the interview. At the heart of it has always been a yearning for Kate. Despite everything, despite drowning myself every time I went to the bar or sweating until I was dizzy at the gym, she was my center.
She is my center. Every minute with her, I become a whole new person. Every minute with her, I become the person I am supposed to be.
This whole process has done nothing but show me she is who I need to be with. There is no day worth living without her there. The minute I stopped fighting my feelings, everything turned around.
I have to get her to talk to me. I fucked up, and bad, but I will fight with everything in me to get her back. She just needs to get here. I’m going to lose my damn mind waiting.
Her neighbor across the hall opens his door for a fourth time to stare at me. I try to smile politely and wave. He says nothing and shuts the door. Again.
Where is she?
I narrowly missed David fifteen minutes earlier. I managed to slip down a side hall as soon as I saw him coming from the elevator. He knocked on the door for five minutes, very abrasively, and yelled for her to open it. I should have dropped this guy months ago.
If I were the neighbor across the hall, I’d probably be watching me too.
A true testament to my character was not beating the shit out of David when I saw him. I’ll save that for after divorce, when I no longer represent him. I’ll have to invite him to my boxing ring. Can’t sue me if I beat the fuck out of him there while “teaching him how to box”.
That’ll be such a great day.
The elevator chimes and I jump down the side hallway. Out walks Kate and her friend, someone I recognize vaguely from a night out at the bar. She must be Lily.
Kate looks so beautiful my heart stops. Something is bothering her, but what wouldn’t at this point? Everything around me slows when I see her, like I’ve been pulled into the center of my universe. Because that’s exactly
what she’s been, this entire time.
They talk briefly outside the door and I’m not sure what to do until Lily turns and goes back to the elevator.
“I’ll go get it. Be right back up.” Lily disappears into the elevator.
It’s now or never.
“Kate.” I say softly, walking up slowly, trying not to startle her. “Hey.”
As quiet as I am, she looks shell-shocked, her hand frozen in front of her lock. She only blinks at me.
“I really need to talk to you. Can I have a minute? Just one minute. It’s important.”
“Um.” She swallows deeply, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath. “Okay.”
“I was an asshole.” I’m desperate to touch her, equally desperate to not make her run off. “David fed me some bullshit about sleeping with you, showed me pictures, and I just lost it. It was dumb. So fucking dumb. I don’t own you and we weren’t anything serious, but it just made me realize that I am goddamn crazy about you. I mean, I also hate that fat fuck and picturing him with you made me murderous. But it’s because… I’m crazy about you. I can’t sleep without you. Eating feels like a waste.”
“Eric—”
“Kate.” I take her free hand and hold it to my chest. “You don’t need another loose cannon. I know that. I also know that you are the woman for me. I want to share a bed with you. I want to make breakfast with you. I want to run laps around the neighborhood and go pick up yogurt or whatever you yogi types do for fun on the weekends. I don’t deserve you, Kate. I have spent my entire career watching people fuck over the person they were supposed to love. I didn’t want to ever endure that. You’re the first person who gave me hope that maybe it didn’t have to be that way.”
I search her face and see the intoxicating warmth in her eyes and in the corners of her mouth. She’s smiling at me, just a little. It splits my heart in two and I want to kiss her and pretend these last few weeks never happened.
“You have every right to tell me to fuck off. I hope you don’t. I hope you accept my apology and let me spend the next however long making it up to you. I hope you feel the same ache in your chest for me. Geoff tells me that means I’m in love. I never knew what that felt like until I met you, Kate.”
I take her other hand and press them both to my lips. A small gasp slips from her lips and her eyes are damp. I cup her cheek and stare into the eyes that have haunted me for weeks.
“I love you, Kate. I am a stupid man who wanted to run, but I don’t want to run anymore. I just want to love you.”
The elevator behind us dings and slides open. Neither one of us move, but I watch Lily step out, look at us and turn right back into the elevator. It slides closed, leaving us alone again.
“Eric. I want… God, this is so complicated.” Her voice cracks.
“I know it’s not ideal, but we can work around it. I don’t care that you slept with David before mediation. I don’t care that he’s my client. He doesn’t matter. You, Kate. You matter.”
She takes a deep breath and reaches into her bag. I have no idea where she’s going with this until she presses a glossy strip of paper into my hands.
“What is this?” It’s black and white, a bunch of blobs that I don’t understand until I see the words Due Date in the top corner. The fifth of February. My birthday. Everything goes startlingly silent. “What…”
“It’s our baby.” Kate whispers, her voice thick. My entire body feels like someone slammed on the brakes. “I thought it was David’s and it was kind of terrible. Today, they told me the dates were wrong. I’m, um, I’m five weeks along. This whole time, I haven’t slept with anyone but you.”
“I don’t understand.” It’s a stupid thing to say and I know it, but my brain feels heavy and jumbled.
“The night you came over. You told me I was a fever—”
“A fever in my veins.” I look at the pictures and then at Kate. My Kate. My sweet Kate carrying my baby. Our baby. “I needed you so bad I forgot the condom.”
“Surprise.” She whispers and tries to take back the pictures. “Look, I know this is a big deal, but if you don’t want to deal with it, it’s okay. I’ll figure it out.”
Tears pour down her cheeks but I have never felt so much love — that stupid thing I spent most of my life avoiding — before now. I place one hand on her stomach and another on her waist.
“I’m going to be a dad?” I feel something wet around my eyes and I can’t help but smile. “We’re going to be parents? Together?”
She nods and smiles through her tears. I pick her up and spin her around in circles, kissing her neck and cheeks until I finally find her lips. I kiss her with all the emotion I’ve suppressed for weeks.
I kiss her like I love her. I kiss her like we belong together.
I’m finally home.
EPILOGUE
KATE
SIX MONTHS LATER
“Girl, we really outdid ourselves.” Lily all but squeals next to me and claps her hands. “This gala is our best yet. Have you seen the numbers yet? We passed a half million within the first hour. It’s still coming. All these swanky assholes are just dumping their cash into our hands!”
“I saw! It’s our best event ever. You are the best partner I could have ever asked for.” My cheeks hurt from grinning and my back hurts from standing, but nothing can temper the pure elation I feel tonight. Months of planning and scheduling, postponing while my divorce finalized, handling everything last minute — all worth it.
Eric dropped David turned his Google investigation skills against David. He found a mountain of proof that David cheated on me years before he claimed I started the cheating. When presented with the evidence, David agreed to settle quickly for more than I’d even been pursuing him for to save the further expenses of lawyers.
I never did show David the video of Eric and me, but an image of us passionately kissing was plastered all over the internet. I only wish I’d been there to see his face.
Interestingly, and unlike David, neither of us has heard from him since, and he paid Eric’s bill without whining. I guess he finally realized how badly he lost.
“Lily, partner with boobs, anyway. We all know I’m otherwise the best partner.” Eric gives my ass a light squeeze and hands me a glass of water. “For the woman of the hour.”
“One of the women of the hour.” I shoot Lily a wink.
“Definitely the sexiest.”
“I’m huge.” I groan and give my behemoth belly a rub. “Every week she tells me there is only one in there, and every week I don’t believe her.”
“That’s because Stevens men are beasts.” Eric kisses me and rests his hands over top of mine. “He’s going to be a great pitcher. Switch pitcher, obviously. They get paid more to be on the mound. Very rare.”
“Is he now? What if he wants to be an actor?” All three of us collectively shudder. I laugh. “Never mind. Baseball player sounds great. Let’s keep our son out of Hollywood forever.”
“I better look as good as you when I get knocked up.” Lily clinks my glass with hers. “Paxton keeps telling me he wants to staff his own law firm with offspring, but my genes aren’t as pretty as yours. I’ll look like the old lady in the shoe. Hell, I don’t even look as good as you during sex.”
“How do you know what she looks like during sex?” Eric asks, waggling his brows. He’s trying to be funny, but Lily turns bright red. “Wait. Wait. Reverse this party train. You’ve seen what Kate looks like during sex?”
“Maybe.” Lily looks away, a smile on her face.
“Maybe?” Eric looks at me.
“Hmm?” I play dumb. Eric places kisses along my neck and slides his hands down my back, hot and heavy. He does this every time he wants something. “Okay! Okay. You can’t get mad. This was a long time ago.”
“I’m all ears.”
“I may have recorded the first time we slept together.”
“What?”
“And Lily may have seen it.”
“It was really goddamn hot. Well done, Eric. I mean, she was way hotter than you. But, yeah. Well done.”
“We have a sex tape and you never told me?” Eric gapes. “You little—”
“Mother of your child?” Lily interrupts. “Why yes, yes she is.”
“I was going to use it to fuck with David’s head.” I explain. “But it was just too good. I couldn’t show him.”
“You still have it?” Eric advances on me again. “I need to watch this.”
“She used to watch it while she masturbated.” Lily says loudly. “Oh, look, someone is calling me. Bye!”
“Lily!” I yell at her, but she’s already disappeared into the chaos of moving bodies. Eric walks around and presses himself against my back. His very erect cock presses into my back. “Eric, there are people everywhere.”
“Do you have any idea how sexy this is?” He breathes in my ear. Already, I can feel myself melting against him. “Knowing that you taped us? Watched us? Touched yourself while watching us? Knowing you made yourself come while watching me fuck you?”
“Eric, there are a million people here.” I beg, even though all I want is for him to take me over the nearest table. The way his hands slide across my body, and the rumble of his voice in my ear, is enough to drive me crazy even without the surging pregnancy hormones.
“We are going to reenact that video later. Only this time, it’ll be one hundred times better.”
“I don’t know.” I can’t help myself. “It was already really sexy. Can you beat a first time?”
“Baby girl.” He purrs in my ear. “I have learned your body. I know how to make you sing with two finger strokes. It will be the best you’ve ever seen.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
“Fuck waiting.” Eric’s hand lingers just under the hem of my dress and he presses his lips to the back of my ear. “There’s a private room upstairs. Let’s go now. You in this dress is going to make me crazy.”
“The party—”
“Can wait.” He turns my head so he can kiss me, and a fire blooms through my veins and between my legs. “Come with me.”
