The timer went off.
“Together or alone?” asked Savana.
I’d never had a close friend. Not like her. Not someone willing to face one of the scariest moments of my life with me.
“Together,” I said, and she nodded.
“Let’s do it.”
The short trip to the bathroom revealed what I already knew.
Four sets of double lines. Eight total. I counted just to be certain.
One plus sign.
One that simply read pregnant.
Six tests. Clear as day. Unmistakable.
I lunged for the toilet again, but nothing came up. Just dry heave after dry heave assaulted my body. My back was sore. Ribs felt as if I’d taken a severe beating.
Savana wet a washcloth, wrung it out, and handed it to me. “When was the last time you ate?”
I sat on the floor, back pressed against the bathtub. Sighing, I pushed the wet, abrasive cloth to my forehead. “I don’t know. Yesterday.”
“Yesterday…when yesterday?”
My shoulders rose and fell.
“God. Okay.” Savana hooked her hands beneath my elbows and pulled me to my feet.
She began undressing me.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, although, really, I was too weak to be demanding.
“I’m not doing anything.” She tossed my sleep shorts in the hamper. “You are taking a shower. Come on, arms up.”
I complied and she removed my shirt with medical-like efficiency. Tossed it in the hamper and didn’t pay me a bit of mind when I covered my breasts and blushed like an idiot. She started the shower and snapped her fingers.
“Get in. Shower. I’ll go get you some clothes. And then you’re gonna eat. Got it?”
Arguing with her was out of the question. “Okay, fine. Savana?”
At the door, she turned around, her hand on the knob. “Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
Her lips tipped to one side. “Me, too.”
Savana made eggs and toast, which I was surprisingly able to keep down.
“Want another helping?” she asked after I’d taken the last bite of dry toast.
“No, thanks.” I offered her a weak smile from across the bar, where we’d sat processing the last half hour. “Trying to pace myself.”
She’d made tea, too. Spearmint, my favorite. “Are you okay?” She sipped from her cup, eyeing me over the rim.
I wrapped my hands around my own cup, savoring the warmth. “I’m going to have Lawson’s baby.” I inhaled a long breath through my nostrils. Closed my eyes. Exhaled. “I’m going to have Lawson’s baby, my dad won’t speak to me, and I’m going to college in less than in a month.” Opening my eyes, I said, “Am I okay? I don’t know, Savana. I honestly don’t know.”
Something a girl at school used to say kept rolling through my mind. That God would never give us more than we could bear. Her dad was a preacher, and she was always giving us pamphlets, urging us to come to church on Sunday. It was annoying. Her persistence, her constant kindness. But then she never wavered, never changed, no matter how much flack she got.
Later, I found out the verse didn’t exactly go like she said, but she meant well, and I admired her for that.
“So…” Savana drew out the word, slowly. “You plan to keep it?”
“She or he,” I corrected. “My mother abandoned me when I was a little girl. Giving up a child has never been an option for me.”
“Even if it means your whole college plans are about to be upended?”
“Who says my plans will be upended?” I sounded way too defensive, I knew, but when you’re the kind of chick who plans out every major detail, the smallest suggestion of something putting a dent in those plans automatically raises your blood pressure.
“Harper.” Savana reached her hand across the bar, placed it over mine. The stacked rings she always wore shimmered in the light. “How do you think Lawson’s gonna react when you tell him?”
Doubt didn’t have a chance to seep in.
“How am I gonna react when you tell me what?”
Lawson was standing in the arched doorway that separated the hall from the kitchen. Looking like a rock god in his black jeans, black leather short boots, distressed gray v-neck and aviators. He took off the sunglasses, tucked the arm in the collar of his shirt. He stepped further into the room.
Fleetingly, I wondered if there would ever come a time when the sight of him didn’t make my heart stutter. Or when the way he looked at me didn’t make me feel like I was the most beautiful woman on earth. Now, I was carrying his child and he’d gotten hotter since this morning, which was crazy and true but still crazy.
I opened my mouth to speak, to utter a sound, anything.
But Savana blurted, “What the hell is that underneath your arm?”
Because, sure enough, tucked beneath Lawson’s bicep was a panting, tail-wagging, wriggling little puppy.
“A present for Harper.” He kissed the pup between its ears. Winked at me.
Savana cleared her throat. “Wow. A baby animal.” She got up, set her cup in the sink. “Just what you two need.” Glancing at me from over her shoulder, she arched a brow, laughter dancing in her eyes.
“I…um…” I ran a hand through my hair, still damp from the shower. “What kind of dog is he? She?” There was a pink satin bow around her neck.
“She is a dachshund mixed with I-don’t-know-what and before you ask, Savvy, yes, I adopted her from the local shelter.”
Savana held up her hands. “I didn’t say anything, but, on that note, I’m outta here.”
“What? You don’t wanna stay and spend time with your new niece?” Lawson scratched the puppy beneath her chin, and her tail wagged faster. “Help us come up with a name?”
“So much,” said Savana, “but Chris and I are celebrating our anniversary tonight, so I gotta run.” She pulled me into a hug, and I thought I might start crying all over again. “Everything’s gonna be fine, okay?”
I nodded, my chin bumping against her shoulder.
“Your dad, college.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Everything.”
“Thank you for coming.”
“Any time.”
After Savana kissed Lawson on the check and ruffled the puppy’s furry head, she left, and Lawson stared at me for a moment, his eyebrows bent.
“I should’ve asked you first,” he said. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to cheer you up.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” I scratched the puppy behind her ears. “She really is adorable. Can I hold her?”
“Sure.” He handed her over, and she licked my chin.
“I didn’t even ask if you like dogs.”
“Yes, of course, I like dogs.” I said this to the dog, not Lawson, and in my best baby voice. “That’s right. I love puppies. Love, love, love.” Her little tail beat against my hip.
“Why did Savana come over?”
My pulse roared in my ears. “Because I asked her to.”
“Everything okay?”
Nodding, I asked, “Is everything okay with you? How did it go with your agent?”
I needed to buy more time. Needed to sort out how to tell him what I knew—I knew I had to tell him but didn’t know how. Not even in the slightest.
“Good.” He hung up his keys on a hook beside the fridge. “He thinks I need to make a statement.”
Ice water trickled down my spine. “Are you?”
“I have some ideas.” He filled a bowl with water, placed it on the floor. “Here, let’s see if she’ll drink. I bought food, too.”
“Okay, but…” I gently set the puppy to her feet and she whined. “Ideas? This isn’t like making an album, Lawson. We’re talking about the damage my dad…” I won’t cry. I won’t. I won’t I won’t I won’t. I drew in a quick breath. “What my dad’s been accused of, the fact that you’re dating me—”
“I understand what I’m up against, Harper.” His eyes m
et mine. “We’ve been through this.”
“Okay, fine, what ideas do you have?”
“I wanna do a Q and A.”
I thought of an article I’d read that discouraged frowning and tried to school my features. “Q and A?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He leaned back against a counter. Gripped the edge. “Allow my fans to submit questions via the Gram, then…” He shrugged. “Make a video for YouTube, answering whatever they ask.”
I blinked at him like an owl.
“We’d go through the questions first.”
“We?”
“You and I, of course.”
Fear tap-tap-tapped at the back door of my thoughts.
“You and me? You don’t mean…?” Sickness bobbed in my throat like a cotton ball dunked in acid. “You don’t mean for me to make a video with you.” My lashes fluttered. “Do you?”
“Sure. Why not?”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“You’re my girlfriend, Harper. I want people to know, and I want people to know the truth.” His head tilted. “From us.”
“But I’ve never…I don’t know how to...” I pressed one palm to the cool marble on the bar, the other to my sweltering forehead. “Did you just call me your girlfriend?”
“Well, aren’t you? Harper, what’s going on? Hey.” He wrapped his long fingers around my wrist, extracted my hand from my head. He pulled me close, his arms encircling my waist.
I inhaled him and was surprised that the scent of his cologne didn’t add to the threatening nausea. On the contrary, he soothed the anxiety. Calmed the storm. I laid my cheek to his shoulder, nudged my nose to his neck.
“I realize it’s a lot for someone who’s not used to social media.” His voice rumbled through my body and I closed my eyes. “Heck, half the time, more than half the time, I don’t even know what I’m doing. Wingin’ it’s been my motto since I was four and performin’ in front of people, but we got this Harper. We got this.” He stroked my head, my back. “Yeah?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Lawson stilled.
For a moment, I thought he’d stopped breathing. His pulse thundered against my face.
“I was trying to figure out how to tell you,” I said. “That’s why Savana was here…sort of…but also because I think I’m losing my mind and everything’s happening so fast…” Oh, crap, here come the tears. A massive internal sob made my body jerk against his. “We just met and my dad’s in jail for a fucking awful crime and your reputation’s at stake and I’m leaving, Lawson, I’m leaving, okay? I have to go to college. I have to.”
He pulled back, looked down at me. His hands framed my shoulders. “You’re pregnant?”
I nodded jerkily, tears streaming my cheeks. “S-six tests. Four double lines, one plus and one that spells it out in all caps.” My teeth were chattering. I wished my teeth weren’t chattering. I tried to read his face, but his normally open expression wasn’t there.
In fact, he didn’t seem to have registered what I’d said at all.
Fear leaned against the wall at the back of my mind, took a drag from his cigarette, cocked an eyebrow.
“Pregnant.” Lawson blinked. Swallowed.
And then a light switch flicked on and I bore witness to the exact second realization sank in. It was one of the most marvelous sights I’d ever seen: a smile—his. His gorgeous, famous smile that had earned him the loyalty of millions of fans, prestigious awards, gold records and the heart of an ordinary girl from Columbus, Ohio.
“I can’t believe it. You’re…really? We’re going to have a…” Blink. Blink. Blink. His smile was beaming now, so brilliant his eyes crinkled at the sides and my heart felt close to bursting. “We’re having a baby?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Looks that way.”
“Oh my gosh, shit.” He kissed my forehead, wiped my tears away with his thumbs. “Shit,” he breathed again and kissed my cheeks, then my lips.
Fear flicked his cigarette to the floor, ground it out with his foot and walked away. Another day, another time, maybe.
But not this day.
Lawson’s strong arms were around me and we were both crying.
And kissing.
And my heart felt fuller than it had in years.
chapter twenty-three
“You know,” said Lawson, “I always laughed at the Friends episode when Rachel tells Ross she’s pregnant and he freaks out and calls the condom company, but really…what’s the point in using them if they only work ninety-something percent of the time? Not that I’m complaining, but, I mean, what are the odds I got you pregnant the same night you lost your virginity?”
We were lying in bed, eating the rest of the chocolate Savana had brought over. Tired off euphoria yet too tired to sleep. The new puppy we had yet to name lay curled up on one of Lawson’s shirts on the floor.
“It sounds really harsh when you say it like that,” I said around a chunk of nougat.
“My bad. The night of your deflowering.”
“Now it sounds like we’re on the set of a bad historical romance.”
“A bad historical romance?” He snatched the remaining half of a Twix bar out my hand, tossed it across the room and dug his fingers into my side.
I squealed and squirmed. One of the many things I wished I could change about myself? That I wasn’t so damned ticklish.
“Is that what this is?” His fingers feathered up and down my rib cage, pressed into my waist. His laughter filled the room as I gasped for air. “A bad romance?”
“You’re the one…” I giggled, twisting, trying to get away from him, but his strong arms kept pulling me back. He knew exactly what he was doing. “You’re…you’re…”
“I’m what?”
“S-saying stupid things.” My back arched off the bed. “Oh my gosh, Lawson, stop!”
“Stupid things?” Ceasing his torture, he hovered over me, his chest rising and falling against mine. “What did I say that was stupid?”
“Deflowering? Honestly. Have you been reading Julia Quinn novels without telling anyone?”
His head dipped and he kissed my neck. “Who’s Julia Quinn?”
I reached back, moved my hair, giving him better access, and he dove in, kissing, sucking, pulling moans out of me that might’ve woken the neighbors, if he had neighbors, which he didn’t. Not close ones, anyway.
“She writes about deflowering?” His hand slipped under my shirt to grab a handful of a breast. Thank goodness I’d forgone a bra after showering.
“She writes about a lot of things.” I chewed my lower lip as his kisses became hotter, more desperate, his hand abandoning my breast to roam down my belly. “Sex, love, relationships. Sex. Sometimes someone loses their virginity.”
“Sounds like a brilliant writer.” His fingers snaked beneath the waistband of my sleep shorts. “Although, that was a first for me.”
He must’ve felt my body tense, because he paused. “What is it?”
“You’ve never had sex with anyone who hasn’t had sex before?”
“That is the definition of virginity, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but…” It seemed implausible for some reason. Lawson. Gorgeous, talented, panty-dropping Lawson Hill, who had doubtless been presented with many, many opportunities for sex, meaningless or otherwise, had never slept with a virgin.
I was his first.
I used the tip of my index finger to trace his eyebrow, the chiseled line of his cheekbone and his jaw. “I’m glad it was you,” I whispered. “It’s not that I haven’t had other opportunities.”
He sucked in a breath.
“Not many, mind you. Like I said, I didn’t date much.”
“Much.” His mouth quirked. “Am I a jerk for wanting to kick every guy’s ass who ever touched you? I am, aren’t I?”
I laughed. Our legs were interlocked, my knee tucked between his thighs. “I can’t imagine you ever coming close to being a jerk.”
“Oh, that
’s right. I’m too nice.”
“I didn’t say that, either.”
“You mean, I’m not nice?”
“I didn’t say that, either. Maybe somewhere in between?”
“Ah.” He rolled his gaze toward the ceiling. “So, what you’re really saying is I’m perfect.”
“Definitely didn’t say that,” I teased, and he kissed my forehead.
His arms tightened around me.
“Yeah, I know I’m not perfect,” he said, but he was. In so many ways, he was. “I never stop thinking about you, Harper Evans. Haven’t since the night we met.” His chest expanded, then relaxed. “It’s fast, probably bordering on obsessive, but…I’ve never felt this way. About anyone.” Added as an afterthought or, perhaps, a realization.
“Lawson?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“I’m scared.”
He pulled back to look down at me. Moved a lock of hair away from my eyes. “About which part?”
“All of it?” I felt the worry lines etch across my brow. “My dad, college.” I swallowed, my nostrils flaring slightly. “Being pregnant.”
“Babe.” He kissed me softly. Sincerity pooled in his eyes, so blue and calm the breath snagged in my throat. He took my hand in his. “I’m here, okay? You’re not alone, not anymore, not ever again, if you don’t wanna be. We’re gonna get through every step of this together.”
“But how can we, Lawson?”
His gaze narrowed by a minute degree. “What do you mean?”
“Cambridge? My education? I have scholarships, obligations.”
“Obligations you’ll obviously have to put on hold.” There was an edge to his tone. Not meanness, no, not Lawson. But I could tell he was surprised that I was talking about college.
Problem was, I couldn’t understand why he was surprised. He’d known this from the beginning. Knew, because I’d told him, that I was leaving at the end of the summer. That our relationship was finite.
Granted, he would be a part of my life in some capacity, at least for the next eighteen years, and then only if he chose to, because I wasn’t about to force him to do anything he didn’t want to do. He’d fathered our child, yes, but it was my choice to keep the baby, not his. And while I hadn’t completely thought out how I was going to juggle classes and an infant, I knew schools offered assistance in such circumstances. I’d be okay. It would be hard, of course it would, but I’d be okay. I would make it. One way or another, just as I always had my entire life, I would make it.
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