Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 87110 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87110 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Amber slipped away to the bathroom.
When she came back out, I could tell that something was up.
She whispered in my ear, “I just peed on the stick. I have to wait five minutes.”
I froze. “I didn’t know that was going to be tonight.”
“Yeah, well, it’s time. It should be accurate now. At least, we’ll know…you know?”
I knew the time was coming soon but wasn’t expecting it tonight. Deciding not to pressure her, I hadn’t been asking when she was going to do the test. So, apparently it was suddenly D-day.
My heart started to pound furiously. It felt like the longest five minutes of my life. The sound of Amber and my mother talking became muffled as I thought about the life-changing impact a positive result would have. Visions of an auburn-haired little girl in pigtails flashed through my mind. The more the situation with my mother deteriorated, the more I was realizing the importance of family. Was I ready for a child now? No. But for the first time in my life, I felt absolutely certain that I wanted a family of my own. And each day it was becoming clearer that it was Amber I wanted that future with.
The kitchen timer Amber had set dinged.
Our eyes met. I took a good long look at her, knowing that things might never be the same again.
Amber turned to my mother. “Christine, would you mind cutting the magic bars? I think they’re cool enough now.”
“Of course.”
Amber ventured down the hall, and I followed a few seconds after.
She was leaning against the sink waiting for me. “Well, here goes nothing.”
Just as she reached for the stick, I placed my hand on her arm to stop her. “Wait.”
“You don’t want me to check?”
“I have to tell you something first.”
“Can it wait?”
“No.”
“Alright.”
“If it turns out that this is positive, I just want you to know that I think it would be a gift from God. It’s not the right time for us, maybe, but it will be a gift nevertheless. And no matter what happens, we’re gonna be okay, alright?”
She blew out a nervous breath. “Okay.”
“Check it.”
Amber looked down at the stick then immediately up at me. “It’s negative.”
My true feelings became apparent to me in that very moment. Because instead of breathing out a sigh of relief and rejoicing over the fact that Amber wasn’t pregnant, I felt an emptiness in the pit of my stomach. It was the first time I realized that I might have been secretly hoping she was pregnant. That was pretty eye-opening.
My dick immediately stirred with a primal need to rectify this situation as I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her head.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded against my chest. “I am. This is good news.”
“Yeah, I suppose it is. It wasn’t the right time.”
She pulled back and placed her hands over my cheeks. “We would’ve had a beautiful baby with you as the father, though.”
“Only if she looked like you.”
Amber brightened. “She?”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “I might have imagined a little girl who looked like you once or twice over the past couple of weeks.”
“That’s sweet.” Her eyes widened. “You know what I’m excited about?”
“What?”
“Getting to have a glass of wine tonight. I hadn’t been drinking just in case.”
I placed a firm kiss on her lips then nudged my head. “Come on. I’ll open a new bottle for us.”
We returned to the kitchen to find an unsettling discovery. My mother was sitting at the table with the entire tray of magic bars in front of her. She hadn’t cut them but rather had eaten three-quarters of the batch. Under any other circumstances, this might have even been funny. But given her situation, it wasn’t. It was sad. This was the kind of unpredictable behavior I’d become accustomed to.
I felt ashamed. “I’m so sorry.”
Amber rubbed my shoulder. “It’s okay.”
“Really fucking need that wine right now,” I said, making my way over to the bottle of red on the counter.
After dinner, Mom turned in early—probably crashed because of all the sugar she’d consumed.
Amber and I stayed up late watching movies. I was incredibly horny, but it had been a long and emotional day, and I suspected she might not have been in the mood.
Her phone, which was in the bedroom, chimed. It was unusual that she would get a text so late at night.
She got up to check it and seemed to take a long time before finally returning to her spot next to me on the couch.
“Everything okay?”
A flush crept up her face. “Yeah. Yeah, everything’s fine.”
She didn’t look fine, but I blew it off, chalking it up to a grueling day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
* * *
AMBER
I’d hung onto Rory’s text for two days before I finally responded. He wanted to meet me somewhere to talk, but I didn’t feel like I could handle it.