Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Shit. Greensboro was over an hour and a half away. If she got a job there, our relationship—casual or otherwise—is done.
“But you’re still coming to the doctor’s with me day after next?” she asks, and that makes me feel a little better. I’ll at least be seeing her soon, although by the time the appointment rolls around, it will have been a full week since we’d been together, and well, that just sucks.
“Yeah,” I say in a chipper voice. “Definitely coming to that appointment. I’ll just meet you there, right?”
“Right,” she says, and at least she sounds a little more enthused. “So, good luck with Simone.”
I chuckle without any real humor. “Thanks, I’ll need it.”
“Okay…bye,” she says softly, and I wonder if she was being true to her feelings would she say something like, “I miss you.”
I wonder that because, fuck, I miss her and I want to tell her that, but I don’t want to freak her out. So instead, I just say, “Bye, Stephy.”
“Cancel a date?” Simone asks, and I hear the worry in her voice that’s confirmed when I turn around to see her in the kitchen with concern on her face. “Because you should totally go on that date and we can talk later.”
“It wasn’t a date,” I mutter as I walk into the kitchen and pull out a chair for Simone.
She plops down in it and asks, “Was that with Stephanie?”
“Yeah, but not a date,” I reiterate.
“But you like her,” Simone guesses.
“Sure I do,” I say evasively.
“But you don’t like her, like her,” she pushes at me.
“Our relationship is complicated,” I mutter as I sit next to my sister. And fuck is it complicated, as it involves me having a baby with a woman I actually like very, very much, but I’m pretty sure she’ll never feel the same way. “But I don’t want to talk about it. We’re going to fix your shit right now.”
“Okay,” she says, sitting up straighter.
“First, you’re going to call Mom and Dad tonight and tell them you weren’t enrolled this last semester and that you won’t be graduating,” I say firmly. Simone moves to interject something, but I hold my hand up and reiterate, “Tonight. Get it done, get it over with.”
“But what do I say?” she asks with a cocked eyebrow.
“The truth. Exactly as you told it to me.”
“Sounds so simple,” she grumbles sarcastically as she looks away.
“That is the simple part,” I tell her, and her eyes snap to mine. “You need to figure out how to make this right with them. They shelled out a shit ton of money for you to get an Ivy League education and you need to make it right.”
Simone swallows and nods once. “I know, but I’m not sure how.”
“You make it right by finishing,” I tell her. “You finish next fall and you get that degree. Let it sit on a shelf for all I care, but you finish what Mom and Dad paid for you to have.”
Simone shakes her head. “I’m not going back.”
“Then what do you propose?” I ask, knowing that’s really the only way she’ll be able to make things right with them.
“I’ll pay them back the money,” she says with her chin lifted.
I bark out a laugh. “And you know how much money you’re talking about? They’ve probably spent more than $250,000 on your education so far when you calculate tuition, books, and living expenses at Dartmouth.”
“So it will be an extended-payment plan,” Simone snaps at me. “But I’m not wasting another second of my life doing something that doesn’t bring me happiness.”
I let out a frustrated sigh and scrub my hands over my face. “Okay, fine. Let’s leave that for a moment and move to number three. What do you want to do with your life?”
Simone blinks at me a few times and shrugs. “I’ve got ideas. Lots of ideas.”
Great. Just fucking great. I need to settle in for a long night.
Chapter 12
Stephanie
There’s a knock at the exam room door and before I can answer, it’s pushing open and Lucas is walking through. I feel incredibly naked and vulnerable in nothing but this paper gown and my socks as I sit on the examination table with stirrups to the side, waiting for the doctor to come in. I honestly didn’t think Lucas was coming since he wasn’t here when I was called back from the waiting room. My mind raced as to what that could mean while the nurse was instructing me to disrobe while handing me the gown.
It took me no more than two minutes to strip, put the gown on, and hop onto the table, but in that time I’d talked myself into believing that Lucas wasn’t going to be a part of this. We’ve hardly talked in the last week and he canceled our date—well, our hookup—the other night. I knew he was going to be pulling back after his talk about the play-offs, but I didn’t think it would include pulling back from the pregnancy stuff.