“Right. That’s what I was thinking.”
“He probably wants a little bit of privacy, babe. Let’s let the man be.”
“But…” Josie protests.
“I’ll be fine,” I promise her. “I’ll be here for the next few days for you to keep an eye on me, remember?”
All my life, I’ve been Josie’s protector. Since I was five years old when she was born, I took on the role as her guardian pretty fiercely so having her trying to “protect” me now feels… good. We’ve been there for each other our entire lives and I know without a doubt that this situation will be no different, even if she does have a newborn baby soon.
“Love you, Niko.”
“Love you, too, Josie. Even if you’re a pushy pain in the ass,” I add on.
“What a lovely term of endearment,” she murmurs. I help her stand and Dean takes her hand in his, guiding her out of the bedroom. She looks over her shoulder at me and I give her a smile, praying that it looks real enough that it eases her worries.
Just as I lie down on the bed, staring up at the white ceiling, my phone chimes with a text.
A picture.
Of Ashley holding up a pregnancy test with a clear reading of two lines displayed for me. Along with another test with a plus sign.
She really is beautiful.
“Holy shit. We’re having a baby,” I whisper to myself.
Me: Thank you.
Ashley: You’re welcome. Little weird taking a picture of something I just peed on.
Me: Might as well get used to weird things happening.
Ashley: Weird like getting pregnant by someone I barely know?
Me: Exactly like that.
Me: My sister’s excited. She wants to meet you. She’ll be a little crazy and I apologize in advance for that. She’s protective and pregnant so she’s also hormonal.
Ashley: Are you saying I’ll be hormonal?
Me: It’s a guarantee.
Ashley: Not gonna even try using the kid gloves on me, huh? Just telling me like it is straight from the start.
Me: You’ll learn I’m not a liar, Ashley. Even if it’s over something to make you feel better.
Ashley: That’s a concept I’m not used to from the male species. Might be kind of fun to learn what that’s like.
Me: Ashley?
Ashley: Yes?
Me: It’s going to be okay. And that’s not a lie. It will be hard and difficult at times and probably scary, too. But it will all work out in the end and be okay. And I’m here for you. Always.
Ashley: Even if you hadn’t just told me you weren’t a liar, I would still believe that.
Me: Good. Now, get some sleep.
Ashley: It’s 8 p.m.
Holy shit. It is. My gosh it feels like the last few hours have lasted ten.
Me: Gotta get used to those early bedtimes. LOL
Me: Actually I didn’t realize it was so early.
Ashley: It does feel like it’s been a long evening, right?
Me: For sure.
Ashley: I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Nik. Thank you for being so great about this. I don’t know what I would have done if you had… well, acted like I was lying. That was my biggest fear.
Me: We might not know each other all that well but I do know that like me, you’re not a liar. We’ll learn the rest as we go.
Ashley: Yeah. We will. Night.
Me: Night.
Chapter Seven
Ashley
I place my cell on the end table in my living room and lie back on the couch, one leg bent, one stretched out, and my hand on my still-flat (well, mostly) stomach.
And proceed to break down in tears.
There’s no way I should be given this kind of responsibility. A baby? How am I supposed to care for a baby when I can’t even be smart enough not to get pregnant by a complete stranger? And how in the heck is Niko so calm about the entire thing? Why isn’t he freaking out along with me? Maybe he waited until he got off the phone with me to have his panic attack.
Part of me hopes that’s the case because I don’t know how I feel about him not being at least a little nervous about the fact that we’re going to have a baby together.
My cat, Frank, jumps up onto the couch and curls up on my chest, purring and nestling in. I feel like I’ve heard before that there’s something to do with cats and toxic poop that’s not good to have around babies. Does that mean I’m going to have to get rid of him? Surely not, right? There’s no way that every expecting parent abandons their cats. Maybe it’s because of the litter box? Or maybe I can’t get close to the litter?
As I lie here, I start do to a mental list of things I need to do around the house to make it baby-proof. Which reminds me I probably need to go to the doctor and start taking prenatal vitamins.
The questions I have about this pregnancy could make a list a mile long. I have no idea what I’m doing. No wonder people read that book What to Expect While You’re Expecting like it’s a bible. I’m completely clueless about all the rules. What happens if I eat something on the no fly list? Does my baby pop out with a third arm hanging out of his or her butt? What if I take the wrong vitamins or don’t get the exact amount of sleep I need to help develop the baby’s brain?
The what-ifs have the potential to break me as the anxiety overwhelms every part of my being. Soon I feel myself breathing heavy.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Now what? I forgot how to breathe! What am I doing? Breathe. That’s something I’ve been doing my entire life but now it seems like a monumental task.
I realize what I’m doing and exhale, throwing the cat off my chest and swinging my legs around so my feet are hitting the floor. I lean over, letting my head fall between my knees and count to ten. Breathing in and out slowly.
Before I can think better of it, I’ve hit a button on my phone and it’s ringing in my ear.
“Hello?”
“I’m a mess and need your help.”
“I’m here. I told you I’d always be here for you.”
“I know that’s what you said, but you can’t blame me for not exactly believing you.”
Zachary sighs heavily on the other end of the phone. I haven’t heard from my ex-boyfriend since the night he broke things off.
“You called me, Ashley. There must have been part of you that believed me. What’s going on?”
“I’m pregnant.”
And for lack of a better term, there’s a giant pregnant pause coming from Zachary. I wish I could say that his panic didn’t make me a little giddy, but that’d be a lie.
“Relax, it’s not yours.”
“How can you be so sure? We just broke up like a week ago.”
“Uh, it was over a month ago and you and I hadn’t had sex for two months before that,” I remind him. “You were too busy having sex with other women, remember?”
Another heavy sigh and a deep level of regret that I called him in the first place.
“Are we going to hash this out all over again? If you’re so sure it’s not mine, who else’s could it be? It’s not like you’ve been dating.”
“Checking up on me? Your little spies must not be very good.”
Is it possible to hear a snarl through a phone line? Because I’m pretty sure I just did. “Cut the shit, Ashley. What’s going on?”
I sigh, too, and explain, “The night that we broke up, I met someone.”
“What the fuck?! You fucked some random stranger?”
“Listen here, you judgmental ass,” I reprimand. There’s some truth to it, but I’m not the one who was a cheater and sleeping with other women, plural, while committed to another person, so he has no place to judge me. Besides, he and I were together for years and he wasn’t able to bring me to orgasm once. I’m not sure why that’s relevant here, but it’s still amazing to me that one night with Nik, and he brought me to a place that Zachary never could in the two years we were together.
“Sorry,” he grumbles.
“You know, I was having a scary moment and for some unknown reason I decided to call you. I thought maybe you’d be able to help me stay calm.”
He’s silent and I wish I could reach through the phone and flick his earlobe to gain his attention.
“Just forget I called,” I tell him and prepare to hang up.
“Wait! I’m sorry, okay? I just… I didn’t expect this call, you know? It’s a little shocking. I wasn’t… I don’t know, okay?”
“You weren’t, what?”
“I don’t know!”
“Sure you do. You just don’t want to say it out loud.”
“Maybe that’s it. But this is a surprise for sure and I don’t know how I feel about it.”
“You’re telling me,” I mutter. Standing up, I walk to the kitchen and fill up a glass with water and take a sip.
“Why’d you really call me, Ashley?”
Because I’m scared out of my mind and my first instinct was to call Nik but that made me even more scared so I made this mistake. Of course, I don’t say this out loud. I’m definitely not ready to tell Zachary anything about Nik yet.
“I don’t know,” I say, throwing his words back at him.
“Sure you do,” he says, throwing mine right back.
I roll my eyes and take another drink.
“You’re right. I do know. I’m scared, Zachary. I can’t stop my mind from wandering and I have no idea what I’m doing. I need to hear someone who knows me tell me that I’m not going to be a shitty mother. I need someone to tell me that…” I trail off, not really knowing how to finish that sentence. What do I want to hear? That I made a mistake but that the mistake doesn’t define me? It kind of does. I’m going to be a mother now because of a mistake I made.
I hear a door shut and some rustling in the background. Zachary says quietly, “Ashley. Listen to me, okay? I probably did a very crappy job of telling you this while we were together but you’re amazing. You have one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know and you’re so loving, so generous. You’re…”
“Perfect?”
He chuckles. “Damn near. Kind of made it hard for me to feel worthy of you, if I’m being honest.”
“So me being a good person made you cheat on me?” I ask, not in a snarky way, but out of genuine curiosity. Do people only cheat on the good ones and not the jerks?
“Kind of, yes.”
This right here is why I called him. Because I might dislike him for cheating on me, but if nothing else, I knew I’d get some truth out of Zachary.
“Why did you never want me to call you Zach, by the way?”
He laughs at my randomness. “My sperm donor father always called me Zach. I wasn’t going to completely change my name but I can’t stand hearing the shortened version because it reminds me of him.”
“You never told me that.”
“I never told you a lot of things,” he says, almost cryptically.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Ashley, you’re intimidating to be around. You’re so put together.”
I can’t help it, I burst out laughing. “What the heck are you talking about? I’m so far from being put together.”
He snorts. “Right. You’re so full of shit and you know it.”
Even though he can’t see me, I wrinkle my nose. “Explain to me how I’m intimidating. That doesn’t even make sense.”
“You’re… Ashley. You budget to the penny, your taxes are done within three days of when you’ve received all the paperwork, plan every detail of your day practically down to the minute, and keep your house looking spotless.” I look around the house and wonder what in the world he’s talking about. I know I didn’t make my bed this morning, there are two loads of clothes unfolded and sitting in the laundry baskets, there’s a thin layer of dust on my TV stand, and the not-so-thin layer of dust on the ceiling fan blades. “Your fridge is more organized than a five-star chef’s.” That’s not true, either. I haven’t cleaned my fridge in a month.
“I’ve never seen a car that looks like it came out of the showroom constantly. It’s never dirty inside or out.” Also not true. I haven’t vacuumed it out in a month, either.
Uh oh.
Ohhh. No.
A month seems to be the common denominator here.
The more he talks about who he believes I was, the more it makes me realize that the entire time I was with Zachary, I pretended. A lot. I put on a front. One that made me look exactly like the person he’s describing. He’s not wrong in believing that I was perfect. That’s who I wanted him to think I was and apparently I did a damn fine job of making it happen.
“I never felt like I was worthy of being in your presence.”
Well, that’s a little extreme. Right? “That’s such a load of crap. You did, too.”
“Not very often.”
“Zachary, you’re starting to make me mad.”
“Never mind the fact that you managed to do more in one day than most did in a week. Whenever we’d go out somewhere, I swear you had this glow to you that drew people in. It was impossible to compete with.”
Never mind. I wasn’t mad before. Now I’m really mad. My voice is unrecognizable when I growl, “Compete with? What the heck is that supposed to mean, Zachary?”
“Poor choice in words,” he mutters.
“Ya think?”
“But here’s the deal, that old saying, it wasn’t you, it was me? That rings very true in this case. It was exhausting being with you.”
Over the past month, I’ve felt a range of emotions ranging from frustration, confusion, and settling on anger over Zachary breaking up with me. I blamed him for everything.
“It’s not me, it’s you? That’s what you’re trying to say here?”
He sighs, frustrated with me. “So, you’re pregnant?” he asks, changing the subject.
“As it turns out, I’m not quite as perfect as I’d led you to believe. I don’t even know why I called you tonight,” I admit.
After a long pause, he asks quietly, “Are you scared?”
That’s a good question. My immediate reaction is to tell him no, and maybe that’s because I’m still trying to keep up with the appearance I held so tight to while we were dating. Red flags are going up all around me, memories flashing through my mind. They’re not exactly pleasant, either. A lot of moments in my life where I chose to pretend because I was so worried about being alone. That’s not the kind of person I want to be and I need to be better.
Instead of continuing with the lie, even a small one, I admit the truth to Zachary. “I didn’t think so, then I realized I was scared out of my mind. Right now, I’m settling firmly in the middle. It’s a comfortable place to stay, at least for a little while.”
“Nice and safe in the middle,” he agrees.
“Exactly.”
“You could even travel to denial, the better-looking cousin.”
“Oh yes, I’ve been there. Lovely place. Nice yards.”
He laughs lightly. “I’ve heard great things.”
“To answer your earlier question, I’m appropriately scared. But, I’ve already let the father know, and thankfully he took it pretty well.”
“Wow. He did?”
“Yeah, he did. He’s a pretty good guy. I’ll tell my parents tomorrow when I go there for Christmas, and I’ll call to schedule an appointment with my doctor tomorrow, too. My savings account is big enough that I’ll be able to buy what the baby needs to get started. Plus, my insurance through the dental office covers maternity care.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out. Typical Ashley. No challenge is too great for you.”
Suddenly I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin. How did I become this person? The one who changed everything about themselves to keep the guy? Worse yet, it was a guy that if I really think about it, wasn’t meant for me. For one thing, if I have to change who I am just to keep him interested, then clearly it’
s not a good match.
“Zachary, I’m a fake. A fraud. A phony.”
“What?”
“You thought I was this perfect person because I needed you to believe that. It’s who I thought I had to be.”
“I don’t understand. Why would you do that? What did you fake?”
I want to tell him everything, including that I never had an orgasm with him, but figure that’s just mean. “All those ways you just described me? Having everything together? It’s not who I am.”
“What are you talking about? Yes, it is.” His voice has a hint of frustration and anger to it that I’ve never heard before. I’m not surprised, though. He’s just found out the last few years of his life were sort of a lie. At least where I’m concerned, they are.
“Not entirely, no. I do like to have things organized, but not to that length. I was so tired of being alone and then we matched through the app and I was going through this phase because of new year’s resolutions where I was super on top of things. Then we met and we got along so well. I figured it was one of the things you liked about me because you talked about it all the time.”
“Because it was fucking overwhelming,” he growls, annoyed. “Do you realize how perfect you are? Or were in front of me, apparently.”
I hear the sound of a can opening in the background and figure he’s having a beer. Could be a soda, too, but something tells me he would want a little bit of alcohol at this point. I don’t blame him. If I wasn’t pregnant I would do the same. However, this conversation wouldn’t be happening if I wasn’t pregnant, and I probably wouldn’t be pregnant if I hadn’t drunk too much that night.
“I didn’t at the time. It wasn’t until you mentioned it a few moments ago that I realized it. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever really been myself around any of the men I’ve dated. I’ve kind of just morphed into who I thought they wanted me to be.”
I don’t like admitting that to myself, much less out loud, but one thing’s for certain, I will not continue the pattern. Nik and I aren’t together, but we are going to be raising a child together and having lies between us is a disaster waiting to happen. I won’t do it. I can’t.
For my sanity, for the baby, for Nik.
Together: A Surprise Pregnancy Romance Page 7
