by Ash, Nikki
“Hey, Harp, it looks like your phone is blowing up,” Bridget says, stepping out to join me with my phone in her hand.
“Thanks.” I swipe up my screen and find I have hundreds of notifications. What the hell? Friend requests from people I don’t know on my Instagram and Facebook are the first thing I notice. When I click on Instagram, five hundred and thirty comments pop up on my notifications. I click on one and it takes me to Landon’s post. Oh no! I didn’t think about it when I commented, but I should’ve. He has millions of followers, and my dumb ass commented about him being at my house like I was private messaging him. His reply is the first one I see: Don’t worry, babe. The house will be in one piece…The neighbor’s house, though, is another story.
I scroll through the rest of the replies. People asking if I’m his girlfriend, his wife, the mother of his kids… They’re all speculating. A couple comments mention I’m a mom of two kids and a nobody. Ouch! That hurts.
“What’s wrong?” Bridget asks, sitting next to me and looking over my shoulder. “Oh…” she says when she sees what I’m looking at. While some people are saying I’m pretty, others are saying quite the opposite. “Don’t let them get to you.” She plucks my phone out of my hand. “They’re just jealous women who don’t even stand a chance at speaking to Landon in person, let alone dating him.”
“I know.” I shrug. “It just reminds me of how different our lives are.” I know I’m not ugly, but I’m definitely different than all the women he’s dated in the past. He’s said they didn’t mean anything and that they were set up by his PR team, but you can’t deny he has a type—and I’m nothing like his type. Whereas they’re all tall and blond and busty with fake… well, everything, I’m short with brown hair and all real, too real, everything—including my stretch marks on my stomach and hips that will be a part of me until I die.
“You know he loves you, right?” she says.
“Yeah, I know.” And I do know. Landon goes out of his way every day to show me how much he loves me. But I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t occasionally have insecurities and self-doubts, especially after seeing all the hot women who would give anything to be with him. Women who come without strings…
“I would turn all your notifications off.” She nods toward my phone, which is lighting up like crazy.
As I’m doing what she says, a text from Landon pops up. There are three pictures. The first one is Ella sleeping in her bed, the second is Hunter playing video games in his bean bag chair, and the third is a selfie of Landon. Under his picture, he wrote: See? Everything is okay. Love you and miss you.
“See?” she says, nosily reading Landon’s text. “He loves and misses you.”
After I finish turning off all my notifications, and my phone is no longer lighting up repeatedly, I vow not to go on social media anymore so I won’t see any of that crap. Then I text Landon back, telling him I love and miss him too and thank him for staying with the kids and for paying for my weekend.
The rest of the weekend flies by way too quickly. We spend Sunday lounging on the beach and by the pool. And then after we have one last dinner in the resort restaurant, we head home. Since Bridget drove, she drops Calliope off first and then me. When she pulls into my driveway, I’m stunned to see Richard’s Mercedes in the driveway.
“Oh, boy,” Bridget says, recognizing his car parked next to Landon’s.
“I better get in there,” I tell her. Leaning over, I give her a hug. “Thank you for this weekend. I had a wonderful time.”
“Of course! Call or text me later and let me know everyone is alive.”
“Will do.”
I grab my luggage from her trunk and as I’m rolling it up the drive, the front door swings open with Richard storming from the house with Ella trailing behind him.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Ella pops her head around Richard and says, “Daddy said I have to go home with him,” with a pout.
“Your son refused to go,” Richard fumes. “I’ve had about enough of his shit.”
“Ella, sweetie, can you go inside while Daddy and I talk for a moment?”
“No, get in the car,” Richard says.
Ella looks between him and me, torn between who she should listen to, and my heart breaks for her. It shouldn’t be like this. Our children shouldn’t have to choose sides. They didn’t ask for their parents to get divorced, and I only have myself to blame for all this. I set it all into motion the day I agreed to marry him, even though I knew we didn’t love each other. I shouldn’t have allowed him to trap me into a loveless marriage simply because I was pregnant. I was so worried about trying to do the right thing for my baby, I didn’t think about the fact that the right thing isn’t always so black and white. If I could go back in time, I would tell myself that it’s okay to be a single mom. I could be a good, loving mother without being married to the father. Being forced into a loveless marriage only showed the kids what not to do. They didn’t grow up seeing their parents hugging and kissing and laughing and loving each other. And that’s my fault.
“Richard, can we please not do this?” I say, begging him with my eyes not to put our daughter through this.
He stares at me for a long moment before he sighs. “Fine, Ella, go back inside.”
She turns and runs back into the house, leaving the two of us alone.
“You can’t barge into my home and yank the kids out because you don’t like the man I’m dating,” I tell him. “It’s not right, and it’s not good for the kids to see that and be put in the middle. I never did what you just did to any of the women you’ve brought around.”
Richard steps closer to me. “Well, maybe you should’ve so I would’ve seen how stupid I was being. I miss you and the kids, Harper. I miss my family.” His eyes lock with mine. I wish I could agree with him, so we could give our kids both of their parents under one roof, but I can’t.
“You miss the illusion,” I tell him softly, not wanting to start a war.
“I want you back,” he says, ignoring my remark. “I want my family back.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I tell him honestly.
“We’ll see.” He steps back. “I took tomorrow off, so I would like to take the kids tonight to make up for missing my weekend. I’ll drop them off and pick them up from camp.”
“Okay.” I nod. “I’ll go tell them.”
“Hunter won’t listen.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
After speaking to Hunter and explaining his father wants to spend time with him, he reluctantly agrees to go. I give them each a kiss goodbye and then walk them to the car, giving them one last hug with the promise to see them Tuesday when I pick them up from camp.
When I walk back inside, Landon is sitting on the couch, his face devoid of all emotion. I plop down next to him and snuggle into his chest, and when he wraps his strong, warm arms around me, I sigh in contentment at being back in his arms.
“Did you have a good time?” he asks.
“I did. Thank you again.”
“You weren’t supposed to know it was me.” He kisses the top of my head. “But you’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry about Richard.”
“It’s fine,” he says, but the way his lips are turned down in a slight frown tells me it’s anything but fine. “I was about to call you when you pulled up. I didn’t want to overstep, so I didn’t argue when he came in and said he was taking the kids. Hunter refused to go, and I could tell Ella wasn’t thrilled, but she’s too sweet to argue.” His frown deepens with his words, and my heart shatters into a million pieces.
Landon shouldn’t have to deal with any of this. And it’s not fair for me to want him to stay, only for him to be slowly driven away by Richard and our messed up situation. It was one of the reasons why I pushed Landon away all those years ago. It’s too much to ask any man—even the man I’ve loved most of my life—to be dragged into this life, to be constantly reminded of the life we should’ve had b
ut didn’t get because of me. A life where every day is a constant battle as I struggle to find the balance between being a good mom and getting along with my ex-husband for the sake of our kids.
My thoughts go to Landon’s Instagram post. All those women commenting and begging him to marry them. He could be with anyone he wants. I know he says he wants me, but how much will he be able to handle before my mess of a life brings him down? Dims his light? He deserves so much more than my pre-made family. He deserves everything.
“Hey, you okay?” Landon asks, tilting my chin up to look at him.
“Yeah.” I nod and plaster on a fake smile. “Thank you for watching the kids this weekend.”
“Anytime, Harp. We had a good weekend. You have amazing kids.” He presses his lips to mine. “But it shouldn’t surprise me since they have an amazing mother.” There it is… that beautiful, safe bubble. Where we pretend like Richard and the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
Giving Landon a kiss, I beg him to take me to bed and make love to me. Tomorrow, I tell myself. Tomorrow, I will deal with reality. But tonight, I’ll live in our bubble.
Twenty-Nine
Harper
“I’m sorry, Harper, but we’re not going to be able to do the shot today as you requested,” Dr. Stein says. Since the kids were with their father, and he actually dropped them off at camp, I called the doctor’s office to see if they have any openings to fit me in. When the nurse mentioned there was a cancellation, I jumped on it.
When I arrived, the nurse went through the regular checklist: urine sample, weight, blood pressure. Then she had me undress so my doctor could examine me. After the examination was complete, she told me I could get dressed and the nurse would be back in to administer my birth control shot.
“Is there a problem?” I ask, confused. I’ve been on the shot for a while now and haven’t had any issues. I come in and get it every three months as required.
“Not per se,” she says with a soft smile. “Your urine test indicated a high amount of HCG, telling us you’re pregnant.”
My throat tightens and my stomach knots. This doesn’t make sense. “Could it have been something I ate or drank?” I ask stupidly. “I always get the shot. I thought it was like ninety-nine percent effective.”
“It is… when you take it on time. You’re a little over four weeks late getting it, though.”
I quickly do that math in my head. I rescheduled it once… twice… Shit! She’s right.
“But shouldn’t it like… last?” My heart is now beating rapidly against my ribcage, and it’s hard to breathe. I’m pregnant, and there’s only one man who can be the father. Landon. We didn’t plan this or even talk about it. He trusted me to be on birth control. I told him I was on the shot, yet I fucked up. Again.
“It should… and in most cases it does. But when you’re late getting the shot, you increase your chance of getting pregnant. Everybody’s body is different and reacts differently.”
I breathe out an exasperated sigh. “So, what do I do now?”
“We can do an ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy and determine the estimated due date and then we can go from there.”
Jesus effing Christ. An ultrasound. Confirm the pregnancy. Determine the due date. It’s like déjà vu.
I glance down and find I’m absently rubbing my belly. There’s a baby in there… Landon’s baby.
“Okay.” I swallow thickly.
After I change back into a gown, I’m walked to the ultrasound room where Dr. Stein is waiting. “Since we’re not sure how far along you are, we’re going to do an internal ultrasound.” She rolls a condom on the dildo looking probe, and once I’m lying across the medical bed, she spreads my thighs and inserts it slowly into me.
Since this isn’t my first rodeo, my eyes stay trained on the computer screen, waiting with bated breath to hear the familiar sound of a heartbeat. As Dr. Stein shifts the probe around, I wonder if maybe she’s wrong and I’m not pregnant. Maybe I did eat or drink something that gave them a false positive. Or maybe they switched my urine test with someone else’s.
But then a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh fills the silence, confirming what I already knew but didn’t want to admit… I’m pregnant. The exhaustion, nearly throwing up over the smells of certain foods. The way I’ve been overly emotional.
I watch the tiny little heart flutter as the doctor takes measurements and checks to make sure everything is okay. “Looks like you’re roughly five weeks pregnant,” she says. “This can change, but that’s what we’ll go with for now.” She presses a few buttons and then pulls the probe out. “Everything looks good. I will have some samples of prenatal vitamins put together for you, and once you decide which ones you would like, I can call in a prescription.”
“Thank you,” I say with a forced smile.
“We’ll give you privacy to get cleaned up and changed. Once you’re ready, you can go to the front to make your next appointment.” And then with a sad smile, she and her nurse exit, closing the door behind them.
I immediately feel bad that I’m not expressing more happiness about this. It’s not that I’m not excited to be pregnant. I love being a mom. I feel so blessed to be able to have kids, especially knowing this little miracle is Landon’s. I just hate that this wasn’t planned. I can still remember when I found out I was pregnant with Hunter. Did I love him from the moment I knew about him? Yes! But that didn’t mean I didn’t feel any less trapped. My choices were taken from me. My life as I knew it was over and everything changed. And now, here I am, years later, doing the same thing to Landon.
He was just telling me we have nothing holding us back. We can travel and see the world. Do anything we want. He even mentioned how it’s possible because my kids are older. A baby is the opposite of being free. A baby is commitment and responsibility. It’s waking up every few hours all night. Breastfeeding. Doctor’s appointments. Remembering the diapers and wipes and stroller and food just to run to the damn store.
I close my eyes and shake my head. I should’ve been more responsible. I should’ve paid better attention.
The entire drive home is one big blur. When I pull into my driveway, I grab the bag of prenatal vitamins and pamphlets the receptionist at the front desk gave me and head inside. It’s more like a welcome to pregnancy goodie bag. I haven’t really looked at it, but from what I’ve seen, it has various pamphlets with information about being pregnant, your options, and what to expect.
I throw the bag on the kitchen counter then head into my bedroom to change, thankful Richard has confirmed he’s picking up the kids from camp and keeping them until tomorrow.
As I’m changing into my pajamas, an overwhelming sense of nausea hits me and I run to the bathroom, barely making it in time to throw up in the toilet. I laugh humorlessly to myself as I flush the toilet. Of course the minute my pregnancy is confirmed my body decides to join in on the confirmation.
“Harp!” a masculine voice shouts. Landon. Shit! I forgot we agreed this morning, when he left to go to the ESPN station, to meet back here for dinner. Damn it, I can’t see him right now. I need time to think about everything. I quickly swoosh mouthwash around my mouth then spit it out.
“Hey,” he says with a soft smile, when I step into the living room. “Everything okay?” He eyes me speculatively and I wonder if somehow he knows. I don’t know how that would be possible since I’ve only just found out a little while ago, and I’m definitely not showing yet, but the way he’s raking his gaze over my body has me wondering.
While I consider how to answer him, I stay a few feet away, afraid if I get any closer, I’ll end up in his arms, telling him I’m pregnant before I have a chance to figure this whole thing out. It’s not that I’m afraid he’ll be upset or push me away. I know he wouldn’t do that. Landon is a standup man, and if I had to guess, the minute he finds out I’m pregnant, he’s going to go all in. Ask me to marry him, move us in together. Become an insta-family… but it will all be done out of obligation—
the same way I did all that with Richard when I found out I was pregnant. And I can’t do that to Landon. I love him too much to trap him. I know firsthand how it feels. At first you’re high from the news of a little miracle. But then reality will set in. Late nights, early mornings. Our sex life will decline and he will grow to resent me. And I wouldn’t blame him, because even though I know he loves me, he didn’t ask for this. He trusted me to handle the birth control and I messed up.
“Harp,” Landon says, shaking me out of my thoughts. “Everything okay?” he repeats.
I swallow down the lump in my throat. I need time to think about how to handle this. Of course I’m keeping the baby. I already love him or her. But I need to figure out how to handle Landon and me so we can get through this. And then a thought hits me… What if he doesn’t want this baby? Sure, he loves me and he’s amazing with my kids, but they’re not his. What if he didn’t plan to have any or he feels he’s passed that point in his life… or he isn’t at that point yet. This is exactly why you make sure your birth control is up to date! So shit like this doesn’t happen. We haven’t even had a single conversation about marriage or having kids.
Landon takes a step forward and instinctually I take one back. His brows furrow in hurt and confusion and my heart squeezes in my chest. “Harper, what’s going on?”
“I’m not feeling well,” I say. Not a complete lie. “I know we were supposed to have dinner, but I’m not up for it. I’m sorry.”
He stares at me for a long moment before he nods and then steps forward. Since I’m already against the wall, I have nowhere to go. My stomach is now roiling and I’m fearful I’m going to throw up any second.
