by Whitley Cox
21
It was June eighteenth.
D-Day.
Defense day.
The day Tessa had been working toward for the better part of her adult life.
After years of hard work, thousands of dollars in education and hundreds of families helped, she was finally standing in front of a panel of people even more educated than she was, defending her life’s work in the hopes they would grant her a few very valuable letters after her name.
All was going well. She was confident in her research, in her explanations and her findings. So far, she had answered every one of their questions with sureness and concise answers. That doctorate was as good as hers if she could just make it to the end. A quick glance at the clock said she was forty minutes and thirty-eight seconds into her defense. She could make it to the end—she just had to.
Switching to the next slide on the overhead projection screen, she opened her mouth to speak but was caught off guard when bile rose up in her throat. She swayed where she stood, only to be forced to reach out and grip the table beside her before she collapsed to the floor.
“Are you okay?” Dr. Martin asked, standing up and making his way around the table toward her. “Do we need to reschedule? Are you ill?”
Swallowing down the bitter taste in her mouth and closing her eyes for a moment, she attempted to stand straight up but was forced to hunch over again. “I’ll be—” She clutched her stomach with her free hand as the nausea grew more intense and began to ascend her throat. “I’ll be okay, just … ”
A hand landed on her back. “Tessa, honey, are you sure you’re okay? You don’t look well at all.” Carey was now there too, as was Dr. Phipps and Dr. Alba. They were all standing around her with matching concerned looks on their faces.
What the heck was going on with her? Was it food poisoning? She thought back to what she’d eaten in the last twelve or so hours, but nothing funky stood out. She’d hardly eaten any breakfast at all that morning. Only half a grapefruit and her coffee. She was too nervous to eat. Carey had offered to take her out for a celebratory lunch after her defense, but food was the last thing she wanted to think about.
“Perhaps we should reschedule,” Dr. Martin said. “If she’s unable to speak, she’s unable to defend.”
“I can do it,” Tessa said, her mouth filling with saliva as the urge to vomit intensified.
“Tessa, honey, don’t push yourself,” Carey said. “We’re all therapists here. We understand anxiety and nerves. But we also understand the need for self-care and taking a step back. If you’re not ready or you want to reschedule, we can.”
Tessa lifted her head and pinned her gaze on her friend and supervisor. “Just give me five minutes.” Then she cupped her hand to her mouth and elbowed her way through her defense panel toward the conference-room doors. She only barely made it to the toilet in time.
As soon as it was all out, her whole body felt better.
The bathroom door creaked open, and Carey’s gentle voice could be heard on the other side of the stall door. “You okay, honey?”
“Just give me a minute, Carey, please. I don’t want to postpone this. I can do it. I must have food poisoning or something.”
She barfed once more, wiped her mouth and flushed the toilet, emerging through the door a minute later. Of course, Carey was still there, a concerned and motherly expression on her face. Her brown eyes narrowed. “I’m going to put on my friend hat right now, Tessa, okay? At this moment I am not your supervisor, not a therapist, and not a member of your panel. I am your friend, okay?”
Tessa nodded as she stared at her pale complexion in the mirror. She cupped her hand beneath the faucet and brought water to her mouth. She’d never tasted anything so damn delicious in her life.
“Could you be pregnant?” Carey asked slowly.
Tessa’s eyes went buggy as she washed her hands. Carey handed her some paper towels.
“I only ask this because, well, your breasts look larger, you’re nauseous and you look absolutely exhausted. I’ve also had three children of my own, and two of those are now women who have also had children of their own. I know what a newly pregnant woman looks like.”
She began to shake her head like a dog fresh from the bath. “No. No. No. No. No. I can’t be. I … I’m on the pill. We … we … ”
“The pill is not one hundred percent effective,” Carey said gently. “Now, I know you and Carlyle split up and you’ve started seeing a new fellow. If you are pregnant, do you know whose it might be?”
Well, now she was going to be sick for a whole new reason.
“Carlyle and I … I’d had my period right before he left me. We didn’t have sex at all that week, and … ” She thought hard, back to the weeks leading up to when Carlyle left. They’d had sex maybe once in that time. She’d initiated at least twice, but he’d rebuffed her—which had been a major hit to her ego. Then she got her period, and then he left her. If she was pregnant, and only just pregnant, it had to be Atlas’s baby.
Oh God, please let it be Atlas’s baby.
“If I am,” she whispered, “then it’s Atlas’s.”
Carey’s eyes softened. “Well, that’s good, then, right? At least you’re with the father and like him. Unlike that human equivalent of a Band-Aid in a salad, Carlyle.”
Tessa laughed as tears sprang from her eyes. Carey had always had a way with words. She somehow managed to perfectly articulate a moment or person, right down to their Band-Aid-in-salad qualities.
“Are you going to be all right?” she asked, resting a hand on Tessa’s shoulder. “None of us mind if you want to postpone this. Even until we simply figure out if you’re pregnant or not.”
Tessa shook her head. “No. I can do this. I want to do this. I’ll be okay.” She managed to straighten up to her full height, and this time she didn’t feel the need to puke nearly as much. “Let’s do this.” She nodded at Carey and pressed onward toward the door, determined to finish her defense, become a doctor, and then once all that was said and done, find out if she was also going to become a mother.
“Congratulations, Dr. Copeland,” Dr. Alba said with a big grin, shaking Tessa’s hand as they all stood in the conference room and toasted with—of course—champagne.
Oy.
Tessa blinked back the tears of joy as she thanked each one of her panel members. “Thank you, Dr. Alba.”
Carey had eyed her warily as Dr. Phipps poured the bubbly and handed out the flutes. “If you are, this much bubbly will not hurt it. The bubbles will probably help your tummy settle. Just celebrate and worry about the rest later.” She wrapped her arm around Tessa and pulled her in for motherly hug. “I’m so proud of you, kiddo. You did great.”
A knock on the closed conference-room door had all their murmurs halting.
Dr. Martin opened the door. “Can we help you?”
Not one to wait or be intimidated by a room full of doctors, Atlas politely (kind of) pushed his way into the room. “I’m here to see Tessa.”
“You mean Dr. Copeland?” Dr. Martin asked with a big grin. “Why, she’s right over there, celebrating.”
Atlas’s eyes glittered, and his smile was nearly as long as his strides.
She thought he was going to congratulate her, but when she suddenly found herself in his arms and up off the ground being turned around, she couldn’t stop the tears from running in thick tributaries down her cheeks. Then the laughter came, and she hugged him back just as tight.
His mouth on her neck murmured how proud he was of her before he set her on her feet and took her cheeks in his hand, resting his lips on hers.
“Well, I hope she knows him,” Dr. Phipps said with a chuckle.
Unable to keep the smile from making her cheeks hurt, Tessa wrapped her arm around Atlas’s waist and turned to face the panel. “This is my … ”
“Atlas Stark, Tessa’s boyfriend,” Atlas said, extending his hand to each member of her panel. “I wanted to take Tessa to lunch to celebrat
e, but we can move it to dinner if she has plans with her fellow PhDs.”
Something was different in his voice, even in the way he stood. He seemed more confident, surer of himself and them than he had before. He’d called himself her boyfriend, introduced himself to her colleagues. He was showing her he was in this.
“Carey and I were going to grab lunch,” Tessa said, pinning her eyes on her supervisor. She hoped that her intense stare was appropriately understood by her friend and colleague. As much as she appreciated Atlas surprising her—particularly since the last time they saw each other had been when she’d told him she loved him and he’d reluctantly murmured an agreement—she also didn’t want to bail on Carey. And she wanted Carey there with her when she went to buy and use the pregnancy test. Carey was like a surrogate mother to her in many ways, and at the moment, Tessa really needed her mother.
Carey nodded. “Yeah, sorry. I made reservations at Lilac and Lavender. Tessa and I have been working together for a long time now. I figure lunch after everything she’s gone through to get to today is the least I can do. I’m not going to let you steal my date.” She tucked a strand of silver-blonde hair behind her ear and leveled her gaze at Atlas.
All Atlas did was nod in return. “All right then. I will leave you ladies to lunch, and then perhaps we can grab dinner? Or I could bring dinner by your place if you’re too tired. Liam and Richelle would like to chat about tomorrow anyway, so we could do a conference call.”
Right. Tomorrow.
For a blip in time, she’d actually managed to forget what tomorrow was.
Getting a doctorate and then finding out you might be pregnant will do that.
But the fact was, she was facing off with Carlyle and Blaire tomorrow in the hopes of finally getting her beloved Forest back. And before that, she needed to find out something else.
She slipped her arm from Atlas’s and stepped away from him. “I’ll call you later and let you know about tonight, okay? I am pretty tired. And I want to be mentally on my game for tomorrow. I might just go to bed early.”
His face fell, and his eyes turned sad. “Call me later, okay?” He took her hand and squeezed her fingers before pressing a kiss to her cheek. The confidence he’d brought in with him seemed to have evaporated, and he now glanced around at the other therapists like a rooster in a foxhole. “I’m going to get going. Let you doctors continue your celebration. Don’t need a lawyer cramping your style.” His grin was cunning but a bit fake. She could tell now he just wasn’t ready to leave her. The sentiment warmed her heart to a comforting temperature, but she had a lot on her mind, and at the moment, Atlas just made all of that feel heavier than ever.
Once she knew if she was pregnant or not, she would tell him. But there was no sense worrying the man who already had his plate heaping. He didn’t need to know until there was something to know.
A wave of nausea swam through her.
Was there something to know?
“Ha ha,” Carey said with a chuckle, showing Atlas to the door. “This party is for PhDs only, I’m afraid. The law department is in another building.”
“I know it well,” he murmured, glancing over Carey’s shoulder at Tessa. “Call me, Tess.”
She nodded, went to take a sip of her champagne, thought better of it and set the flute down. Atlas’s eyes followed her every move, and when she set the glass down without taking a sip, his brow lifted.
Oh no.
Before he barged back in and demanded to know if she was pregnant in front of everyone, she took the tiniest of sips from the champagne flute. “Thank you for coming,” she said to him as Carey ushered him to the door.
His questioning gaze softened. “Of course.”
“All right, Mr. Stark, we’ll see you later. Thanks for coming,” Carey said before closing the door on him entirely. Her eyes were wide when she spun back around to face Tessa and the other three panelists. “Man is as kind as he is persistent, that’s for sure.”
Tessa exhaled, and her hand went to her belly just as it did another roll. “That he is.”
Atlas tipped back his beer and cocked his ankle on his knee. “I think she might be ending this,” he said to nobody in particular. He, Mark, Zak, Scott, Adam and Mitch all sat out on Atlas’s backyard patio and drank beer while the kids played in the grass and on the play structure he’d gotten at Costco for Aria’s second birthday.
“What makes you say that?” Mark asked. His son had wondered up to their table, grunted and pointed at his water bottle. Mark handed it to him.
“I just have a feeling,” Atlas said. “She told me she loved me a few days ago, and I … hesitated.”
Groans around the table echoed.
“Not good, bro,” Zak said, shaking his shaggy red head.
“You never hesitate,” Scott added. “That’s a no-brainer.”
“But I did say it back. I just … she just caught me off guard. I’ve never loved anybody else besides Samantha. It felt weird saying it to another woman.”
“You do know this is like the most you’ve ever spoken to any of us, right?” Scott said with a stupid smile. “And Tessa has done that. How can you not love her when she’s pretty much given you back yourself? She’s also fixed Aria, not that she was broken, but you know what I mean.”
“I do love her. And I said it back.”
“But you hesitated,” Mitch finished for him.
Atlas raked his fingers through his hair. “Yeah.”
“And then what happened?” Adam asked.
“We went a few days without seeing each other or talking, but I just chalked that up to her preparing for her defense. I went to the college where I knew she was defending, waited until it was over and then knocked on the door to surprise and congratulate her.”
“Wow, that’s very un-Atlas like of you,” Scott said.
He narrowed his gaze at the other Dixon Dickhead. “Old me—pre … being a …” He struggled to get the next word out. “Widower, no. I was actually not this fucking miserable when Samantha …”
Was still alive.
He cleared his throat. “I was a very different person … before.” He’d been a happy guy who enjoyed planning romantic surprises for the woman he loved. Then Samantha passed, taking his heart and happiness with her. But now, with Tessa, he felt as though a new heart had grown in the gaping hole left by its predecessor. He wanted to make her smile. Her smiles brought on his smiles. He felt more like his old self than he had in years and that not only made him happy, it made his kids happy. His house was a happy place—and so much of that was because of Tessa.
Scott rolled his brown eyes. “Well, we only know the new you, and to us that behavior is very un-you.”
Atlas grunted. “Anyway, I wanted to take her to lunch and she turned me down, said she had plans with her supervisor.”
“That was probably true,” Adam cut in. “I often take my PhD or master’s students for lunch after their defense. They’ve worked damn hard.”
“Yeah, but then her supervisor essentially picked me up by my collar like a puppy and hauled my ass out of the conference room. And Tessa let her. It was fucking weird.”
“Maybe she just wanted to celebrate with other eggheads,” Zak offered, his tattooed biceps bunching as he lifted his beer bottle to his lips. “I’d be intimidated as fuck if I were in a room with a bunch of shrinks.”
No, that wasn’t it. There was something else going on with Tessa. And the way she’d hesitated with the champagne only to then sip it, albeit with palpable reluctance. Was she just overworked, overtired and overrun with thoughts of tomorrow’s meeting with Carlyle and Blaire?
He didn’t like to say that he had a client’s case in the bag, but between him, Liam and Richelle, this was pretty much an easy win.
“So you want us at your office when?” Zak asked, bobbing ruddy brows. “Mason wants to come too. He’s tall as fuck and tatted as well. Aaron and Mase will meet me at the gym an hour or so before, then we’ll race over, st
and there with our arms crossed and glare at the mo-fo like we want to break his fucking neck.”
“Because you kind of do,” Adam snorted. “You sure you’ll need me there? With all that testosterone and the ego on his one”—he hooked his thumb at his younger brother, Zak—“not sure I’ll be able squeeze my tiny self through the door.”
Atlas snorted and rolled his eyes. “Richelle wants you there too. She seems to think Carlyle knows who you are, and to know that you’re on Tessa’s side will work in our favor.”
“So is Richelle running the show?” Mitch asked. “It sure seems like it. I know all the women are so curious about her. Keep pumping Eva and Tessa for information.”
Atlas tipped up his beer. “She is. Tessa hired her first. Liam and I hopped on for the ride.”
“Still curious as fuck about her myself,” Scott muttered. “She’s dating my brother, was Eva’s lawyer, and I still haven’t met the woman.”
Atlas shrugged. “Whatever she and Liam have going on seems to be working.”
“Back to you and Tessa,” Mark said, having been quiet for a while now. “You think she’s going to end it?”
“I don’t know. She’s just gone really weird and distant all of a sudden.”
“And that’s normally your MO,” Mark quipped.
Atlas didn’t say anything, but the man was right. He had been surly and stand-offish with all the men for a very long time. It’d taken the right woman—Tessa—and some much-needed time off work to bring him back to a semblance of his old self.
“Do you want her?” Mark asked plainly. “If she slipped away, would you turn back into the asshole you were before?”
Atlas rolled his eyes. “Yes, I want her.” And yes, he probably would.
Mark slammed his hand down on the table so hard, a few of the bottles jiggled. The kids in the grass paused what they were doing, and beer bottles held to the lips of the other single dads halted. “Then you go to her,” Mark said, his brows pinched.
