by Brook Wilder
One morning she went to the drug store again, deciding that this time she needed to grow up and just do it, take whatever consequences were waiting for her on the other end of that pregnancy test. She could handle it. She was a grown woman, she had an apartment with her boyfriend, she was going to be a lawyer. She’d faced down gang members and terrifying threats, she could handle peeing on a stick.
She bought the tests and did not look the cashier in the eye as he scanned them. To make it a little less obvious she always bought a bottle of soda for the road and a pack of paper towels. Just some regularly old house hold items she needed to pick up that morning. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
She walked home and guzzled the soda. She had been sure to get caffeine free, non-diet, already prepping for the possibility of what she was slowly starting to think was inevitable. By the time she got back to the apartment she was so nervous and full of caffeine-free Pepsi that she was practically ready to burst right there in the kitchen. But she went to the bathroom and pulled out three sticks, taking turns giving them each a Hannahple.
And then she waited. The test kit said it would take up to 20 minutes for the results to come through completely on the test and she didn’t watch them as they did their work. It was like the world’s most anxiety-inducing pot of water, waiting to boil and tell her if her life was about to change completely in an instant.
When the time came she pulled out all three at once, letting her eyes scan over them. They all said the Hannahe exact thing: three pink plus signs.
She was pregnant with Chance’s child.
***
She had no idea how to tell him. It was different when you were married, when you’d talked about children, maybe even picked out some baby names. But they’d only just moved in together, they met two months ago. Her deep connection to him was there but she felt the burdens of society and the social norms of the people around them weighing in.
What if they weren’t ready? What if he was ready but she wasn’t, and vice versa? What if he threw her out, not wanting to deal with a child? What if, three months from now, they decided they weren’t the people they thought and broke things off. She’d be left with a permanent reminder of him and a burden to care for.
It was a lot of what ifs, and the longer she took to figure out what she wanted to do, the more they started piling up on top of her.
“Are you okay?” Chance asked over dinner one night. She’d order club soda with a lime and he’d raised an eyebrow at her but did not question it. “You seem a little off.”
“I’m just thinking about school,” she said. “Getting back into it, it’s a lot to catch up on.”
“Well I can help you study,” he said. “I know this is your dream. I want to support you.”
That was the other problem. He had become Mr. Beacon of Support for her in the past few days and it made her feel absolutely terrible. He was so kind and gentle and wanted to be there for her and she was keeping a massive secret from him because she didn’t trust him. That was the crux of the problem. She didn’t trust Chance not to run out on her, not to stay by her side. He gave her no reason to think that way and yet there she was, assuming the worst of him. For that, more than the baby, she had a feeling he might never forgive her.
“That would be nice,” she said, smiling and meaning it. “We could make a date night of it.”
“I think you need to look up the meaning of the phrase date night,” he said.
“Well if we light some candles and have some wine and a fancy cheese plate, why can’t it be date night?”
“Touché.”
The air was warmed around them, a least for a little bit. Her resolve was cracking when he offered her to try the wine he ordered and she declined. That, he noticed, was off and she was sure he had to suspect. She was making her condition somewhat obvious now but all he had was concern in his eyes. He reached out his hand to hold hers on the table and she wanted to yank away because she didn’t deserve his comfort but she also needed him to know her feelings hadn’t changed. None of this had to do with him. It was all her.
She decided, as they walked home from dinner, she would just tell him. She would just rip of the Band-Aid. After all, she was pregnant now and she would only get more pregnant as each day went on. Soon there would be no time left to waffle on decisions, she wouldn’t be able to hide it from him anymore. So it was better to get it out now.
“Chance, I need to tell you something,” she said, letting out a breath she had not realized she’d been holding onto but there it was.
“Everything okay?”
He immediately went into defense mode. She knew that face well. She felt awful for making him wear it but the best way to make it go away was to tell him the truth. She was there now. She needed to just keeping going. It wasn’t like in movies where she could just turn back by mumbling something about how she just wanted to ask what he wanted for dinner or what laundry detergent she should buy.
“I’m pregnant, Chance,” she said.
It was such a plain sentence. It was only three words. But in her experience three words were sometimes the most painful and difficult to get out of all. But there she was. She sat there and waited, looking down because it would be too hard to look him in the eye right at that moment. She wanted nothing more than to let the Earth swallow her up as she heard her own words echoed back at her. It would be the end of their happiness, their contentment. She’d fundamentally changed something about their relationship by telling him.
But he had to know. He deserved to know and she deserved to share the burden with him. She wasn’t sure how many seconds went by without him saying a word while she looked down at the ground. When she finally willed her eyes to look up, there he was looking right back at her. But there was no fear there, not really. In fact his eyes were almost glassy, like he was ready to cry. He was looking at her with pure adoration.
“You mean it?” he said. “You’re pregnant? Really?”
She nodded, biting her lip tightly hoping that this wasn’t a dream, that he really was looking at her like that, that he really was that excited about it. Then he smiled. His face broke out into a large, boyish grin and she couldn’t keep her own from mimicking his. Okay. So it was out there. This was happening. And he was smiling.
“You’re not mad?”
“Why would I be mad? I’m the one who got you pregnant…right?”
“Yes, you idiot.”
He walked over to her and held her tight, like she might disappear at any moment.
***
With them, intimate contact never stayed all that innocent for long. And it seemed being pregnant was something of a real turn on for Chance. Not that he was one of those weird guys into pregnant lady porn or anything like that. But knowing that his kid was growing inside this woman, knowing that they were going to share something between the two of them that no one else could have, that got him excited in every way possible and his anatomy wasn’t immune to it.
“You’re going to be such a hot mom,” he growled against her neck, nipping at the skin there.
She chuckled as she pushed him back and into their bedroom, toppling over and on top of him when he fell back against the bed. He secretly loved when she got on top and nothing was hotter than her doing it right now, glowing with pregnancy. She moved her hips over his crotch with a practiced glide. She was always so measured and smooth in her movements that he wondered if she hadn’t been a stripper at some point in her life. That, of course, was a line of thought that took him down a strange road and suddenly he found himself imagining her dressed in her lawyer duds, stripping them off piece by piece, just for him.
God, one day she was going to be a hot lawyer, too. Adulthood and maturity should not be turning him on so much but she brought out a different side in him. He wanted a family life and a family to share it with and he couldn’t hide it when he was around her. She was everything he ever wanted and he was going to show her.
So he laid ba
ck because he knew she liked this part. She popped open the buttons of his shirt one by one, letting her nails rake down the skin on his chest as she went. It was just light enough to be felt. A tease to how, soon, it would turn to red, angry welts on his back as she pulled her clawed hands down his back tight and hard. She opened his shirt, moved the fabric, and replaced her fingers with lips as she kissed every heated part of his flesh that she could reach.
She nipped here and there, giggling at the way he jumped from a mixture of tickling and pain. Eventually he started in on his own work with her clothes, getting them loose and peeling them off as she continued to leave marks all over his body with her tongue and teeth. She used them with great skill and familiarity. She knew the path from his pecs to his belly button well. And she even knew the trail from his belly button down below.
She peeled off his pants, flicking open the button and pulling down the zipper and he lifted his hips to help her pull them off and down his legs. This left only his tented boxers as the final barrier between her and her prize. She took the moment to slip her own yoga pants off, leaving her in nothing but her black panties which, luckily, hid how wet she really was.
Eventually those went too and together they moved once he was inside her. He held her at her hips with such care and softness. She moved over him with such grace. They reached the peak of their pleasure very nearly together and sighed as one when it was all over. They were going to be parents, it wasn’t scary, or wrong. It was perfect.
***
All things tend to have their downswing, however. If passionate sex was the high of them celebrating a baby on the way, having to tell the rest of the family was something of a bummer. They’d find out eventually, and Kat deserved to know that she had a grandchild on the way. Even Link had that right too. Hannah understood that. She also knew that Chance was so close with them, he’d want them to know, demand that they find out as soon as possible. It was a family that didn’t keep secrets from each other. She wondered what that must have been like but also respected it a great deal.
“I think they should know sooner rather than later,” he said as his fingers lightly traced patterns on her back.
She wanted to remind him that most women didn’t even tell people until they were three months pregnant. But she didn’t think this was a battle she was going to be winning against Chance. So she sighed and stayed quiet, feeling him leave a trail of goosebumps across her skin like the wake on the water or a jet in the sky.
“Whatever you think is best,” she said. “I have no family I need to tell so whatever you need to talk to yours.”
It took a darker turn that she’d intended but it was also true. She had no family that she needed to break the news to. It almost made her bitter. She was jealous of what Chance had, his ability to see his family, the freedom he had to talk to them. The only person she had was Gabe and he was currently locked up in some rehab Chance got him into up north. He might even get out until the baby was born and he was already an uncle.
“They’re your family too,” he said. “I know it’s not the Hannahe as having people of your own, people you’ve known your whole life and have trusted your whole life. But found family is a big part of life too. They found you, you found us. They’re just as much yours as mine and I promise that they see you the Hannahe way.”
She smiled into her pillow, hiding her red face from Chance as his light touches turned into a full blown massage. It was relaxing. And she was sure she was going to need quite a few of these massages before all was said and done considering how sore her body already was and there wasn’t even a sign of a bump yet.
“We should make a doctor’s appointment,” she said. “I should have made one the second I realized I was pregnant but I was afraid doing that would make it too real and I needed to tell you first.”
“Your health is more important,” he said. “I’ll find you one. The best one in town—unless you have a doctor in mind.”
His concern and readiness to help was adorable and she hoped he didn’t lose that as time went on and she got a lot more difficult to be around with the pregnancy. She placed a hand over his and told him that she had an OB/GYN since she was fifteen and she planned on going to that one. He nodded and took a breath and said okay and went back to rubbing her back.
She stretched out on the mattress, not unlike a cat, and smiled and sighed. It was probably one of the best nights she could remember having. She was more than satisfied from their celebratory tumble in the bed. She felt all her muscles start to relax and loosen as Chance’s hands worked her over and over. She felt excited at the prospect of moving forward with all this baby stuff. She was no longer alone and running her mind through all the paranoid things that could happen, the fake situations she was creating for herself by overthinking.
She could have fallen asleep right there. It was always better in life to be on the precipice of something, to be on a total high, waiting for life to take its next step and seeing no path but a bright and sunny one. She hadn’t known a feeling of optimism like this in a very long time, maybe even since she started law school.
“We’ll need to baby-proof this place,” she said.
“I may have already been Googling the best brands for that,” he said and she could hear how sheepish his voice sounded.
“What would everyone do if they knew you were a big softy?”
“Nothing because they won’t find out.”
“Oh please, even if I keep my mouth shut this baby won’t let you hide how smitten you’re going to get.”
He didn’t say anything but she could almost feel him smiling from over top of her. The energy in the room was calm and quiet and perfect. Ben hadn’t been heard from in over a month, Gabe seemed to be doing okay up in his rehab, Cindy had healed nicely and was even back to smiling and hanging out with others, Scout was coming around. Everything seemed to be falling into place for the better. Hannah almost believed, in that moment, they were completely done with Ben. She believed the worst parts of this whole situation were over. The BD would back off when they realized their man on the inside was out of the bag and everyone would go about their lives happy and normal once again (as normal as a group of loan sharking bikers could be). There’d be a new baby in this apartment and a new light in the world. Hannah’s mother, where she rested in the cemetery, would be smiling at her new grandchild. Kat would love the baby to the fullest extent possible, Link would teach it everything he possibly could, even when Hannah told him it was too early to get it on a motorcycle.
She saw no way how this future could go bad.
Chapter 19
Telling Kat and Link had not only gone well, it had gone incredibly exceptional. Chance’s mother was ecstatic, which is good because he was somewhat concerned she was going to be a little too silently concerned with his life choices. She told him, long ago, when she first discovered the box of condoms hiding under his bed when he was a teenager, that if he ever got a girl pregnant she was going to beat his head so hard that it would leave a permanent dent to remind him of his stupidity. Granted, this was a little bit different, all things considered. He was an adult, after all.
But still, they went over to his mother’s house and had dinner and Hannah very expertly avoided drinking any of the wine his mother offered or the craft beer that Link tried to give her. He was surprised neither of them suspected anything by the time all was done. He half expected his mother to say “I know” when they eventually told them at the end of the night. But she was just as shocked as he had been and, if possible, even more happy over it. Link was clapping him on the back, though later he pulled him aside to give him a more serious talk.
“The world is a fucked up place kid,” he said. “And bringing a child into it can be terrifying and tough. I know because I worried my entire life for your sister. And I clearly didn’t do that good of a job protecting her after what happened recently.”
“Those were Scout’s choices, not yours,” Chance said.
“I know. But I’m the one who taught her how to make choices in the first place. Whatever choices she’s making are still on me,” he said. “But this is my point. This world is scary, and what we do for a living makes it even scarier. You’re going to need to protect that girl and the baby she’s carrying with everything you got in you.”
“Of course I’m going to,” Chance said. “She means more to me than anything ever has. And that’s going to go double for this baby when it arrives.”
“Good, so step two: have you thought about proposing to her?”
That was something that took Chance back. He couldn’t say he hadn’t. He’d thought about a distant future with Hannah that included a ring on her finger and them sharing a home and a last name. But he hadn’t really thought about the act of actually proposing. It scared him too much to think of it as anything more than just a random necessary thing that had to happen in order to get to the life he was imagining for them in the distant future.