Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-seven

Sam

Maybe I’m dreaming.

Or having a nightmare. Yeah, that’s more like it. Because there’s no way I’m running on only a few hours of sleep, need to be at work soon, and my ex-girlfriend is standing right in front of me with her hand on her stomach, saying we need to talk.

“Talk about what?” I ask, though I already know. But it can’t be. It’s not possible. Except it is.

“I’m pregnant,” she says, and the ground goes out from beneath my feet.

I blink. Once. Twice. My heart hammers in my chest and I’m suddenly feeling like I’m going to throw up. “Is it mine?” I ask, words coming out on their own accord. I don’t want to be an asshole, but we weren’t exactly exclusive. The last time we had sex was nearly three months ago, and it was the first time in over half a year.

“The timeline matches up,” she says and makes a move to come inside. I’m in such shock I’ve just been standing here, rooted to the ground. I blink one more time, hoping the next time I open my eyes, I’m in bed…next to Chloe…where I’m meant to be. “We hooked up in July.”

“June,” I automatically correct and then shake my head. “Sorry.” I step aside and let Stacey in, closing the door behind her. An instant headache starts to come on, one I know won’t go away until all of this is over.

And it might very well never end.

“Do you want coffee?” Stacey goes into the kitchen, opening the cabinet that holds my coffee mugs. It bothers me that she knows me, that she knows her way around the apartment, yet it makes sense she does. We on-and-off dated for years. “You look tired.”

“I am tired.”

“Long night at work?”

“No.” My feet move, body going on autopilot, taking me to the island counter in the kitchen. My coffee pot is already full, thanks to the automatic timer. Normally, it’s a welcome smell in the morning, but right now it’s making my stomach churn. “I had the weekend off.”

“Long night then…what?” Stacey looks around, eyes wide. “Do you have someone over?” she whispers. “I’m so sorry if you do. I didn’t want to drop over unannounced, I just…I’ve been trying to call.”

Shit. She has. And I’ve been declining her calls.

“No, I don’t have anyone over.”

Stacey smiles and takes two mugs from the cabinet. “Good.”

I rest my hands on the cool counter, needing proof this isn’t a nightmare. This is actually happening. “I don’t have decaf, and you shouldn’t be drinking coffee, right?” I ask when she fills up the second mug with coffee.

“A little doesn’t hurt.” She hands me my mug. “And look at you, being all protective of the baby already.”

I set the coffee down, certain I’m going to throw up now. The baby.

My baby.

Maybe?

I’m still not convinced, and if that makes me a jerk, then so be it. But it’s been three months…which I guess isn’t really that long.

“Where do you want to go from here? How can I help?” I ask as the room spins around me.

“I’m going through with the pregnancy, obviously, and I’d like you to be involved.” She comes around the counter and takes my hand, placing it on her stomach. “Just like before.” She pushes my hand down, moving it between her legs. I jerk my arm back.

“Stacey,” I start, closing my eyes. I bring one hand to my forehead again, pinching the bridge of my nose. “If the kid is mine, you know I’ll help however I can. I’ll be there. But us? I’m sorry…we’re over.”

“But I’m pregnant.”

I just nod, not sure what to say. We have history between us, but nothing was ever serious. There was never a point in our relationship where we talked about the future. The most we ever planned ahead was where we’d want to go on my next week off, and even then, a lot of our trips were spur of the moment and not very well planned. We casually dated on and off for years because it was easy, not because we couldn’t deny our feelings for each other.

Each hookup was met with a sense of familiarity, not comfort. And each breakup left me feeling some relief. There was no regret, no longing or heartbreak. Our relationship was one of convenience, and I was always upfront about it.

Stacey never came home with me for holidays.

I never met her family.

Our relationship status on social media never changed from single to in a relationship.

And now she’s pregnant with my child. Maybe.

“How have you been feeling?” I swallow hard. Pressing my fingers into my flesh before opening my eyes again.

“The morning sickness is ramping up,” she says with a grimace.

“You’re what…twelve weeks along? Thirteen?” I’m too shocked to compute the actual due date, and I can’t pinpoint the night she came over, but all it will take is a quick look at my call log to see. It was early in June. The fifth maybe? Sixth? “Hopefully it’ll fade soon.”

Stacey takes a drink of coffee. “Hopefully. It’s making it hard to work.”

“Your OB didn’t prescribe you anything to help with it?”

She shakes her head. “I haven’t seen her yet.”

“Really?” I plow my hand through my hair. “I’ll, uh, I’ll go with you to the first appointment, if you want.”

“No,” she says quickly. “You don’t have to.”

“If this baby is mine—”

“It is.”

“Then I do want to be involved. I’ll go with you if I can.”

She smiles and puts her coffee down. “I can go to the first appointment by myself. It’s just blood work and probably that Pap smear I’m overdue for.”

I nod, again at a loss for words. “Well, if you, uh, need anything…”

“I’ll let you know.” She throws her arms around me, crushing her breasts against my chest. It feels wrong. “I know this wasn’t planned, Sam, but I can’t help but feel like it was meant to be. Maybe we shouldn’t have broken up so many times.”

“No,” I say, more harshly than I mean.

She breaks away. “No?”

“Stacey…” I shake my head and let out a deep sigh. “I thought we settled things the last time we saw each other.”

“Yeah, but now I’m knocked up.”

“That doesn’t change how I feel about you, and being together just because we’re having a child won’t make a good or healthy relationship,” I say slowly. This is uncharted territory for me. I have no fucking clue what to say or do. Stacey having my child doesn’t change how I feel about her. If she was a random hookup—which I’ve had plenty of before—and she showed up saying she was carrying my child, I wouldn’t drop everything and fall to one knee. I will take care of my child no questions asked, but I don’t love Stacey.

I have and always will love Chloe.

And—fuck—I’m going to have to tell her, and the thought actually causes vomit to rise in my throat. I close my eyes again and swallow hard, still not wanting to accept this as the truth.

“I need to get to work,” Stacey says, slowly backing away. “I only stopped by because I was on my way. I didn’t want to bug you so early, but you weren’t answering my calls.” She playfully pokes me in the ribs. “And I didn’t want to leave this in a message.”

“Yeah, I, uh, appreciate that.” And I’m fucking grateful she didn’t show up yesterday when Chloe was here. Though at least then she’d know, and I wouldn’t have to go through the pain of telling her myself. “I don’t know what to do,” I confess.

“I don’t either.” Stacey takes my hand again and inches closer. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”

“Yeah. Let me, uh, know when you get that OB appointment.”

She presses her lips together in a smile. “I will.” She picks up my mug of coffee and takes a big drink, and then hurries to the door. “I’ll call later, and answer this time, okay?”

“Okay.”

I open the door for her, and close it the second she’s out, wishing I could close everything out of my life. This isn’t happening. It can’t be. Not when Chloe and I are finally together.

I’ve been so careful before, always using a condom in fear of getting someone pregnant. Whenever I thought about the future and tried to envision a family, I always saw Chloe as the mother of my children.

Locking the door, I turn and go into the living room, sinking down on the couch. I sit there, unmoving, and then force myself up. I have enough time to take a power nap before work, but there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to fall asleep.

Instead, I go into my bedroom and take my phone off the charger. My heart starts to hammer in my ears, and I squeeze my eyes closed, doing little to drown it out. Sinking onto the foot of my bed, I call the one person I trust enough to confide in—who’s also been through the shock of an unplanned pregnancy.

“Hello?” Archer answers, sounding like he just woke up. And fuck, it’s early. I didn’t realize how early until just now. “Did you butt dial me?”

“Hey,” I reply. “And no. Did I wake you up?”

“No,” Archer says. “It’s my turn to get up with the twins. They’re your goddaughters. You should come deal with them every once in a while, you know.”

“I might need the practice.”

“Yeah, you—what?” he asks and a baby—either Eliza or Adeline—fusses in the background.

“Yeah.”

“The fuck?” Archer repeats. “You’re serious?”

“Yep. I think…I mean…she says it’s mine.”

“Back up.” Rustling comes through the phone as Archer picks up one of his youngest.

“Stacey,” I start, knowing that Archer is aware who I’m talking about, though he’s never met her. Rory has never been a fan of Stacey, and I know Rory and Quinn, Archer’s wife, are close. Quinn is aware of all of Rory’s thoughts on Stacey, which means Archer is too. “She showed up this morning saying she’s pregnant and I don’t know what to fucking do.”

“Shhh…it’s okay, sweetie,” Archer whispers to his daughter, and the fussing baby quiets. “Do you think it’s yours?”

“It could be.” I look out the window at the busy Chicago streets below. “We hooked up in early June.”

“She’d be right at the end of her first trimester,” Archer says, able to do math in his head much faster than me since he’s not suffering from shock. “And she just found out?”

“She tried calling me not that long ago and I declined her calls. I thought she wanted to get back together,” I admit.

“And you don’t because you’re with Chloe Fisher. Yeah, I know all about that.”

“Fucking Rory,” I huff.

Archer chuckles softly. “Quinn is a huge fan, by the way. And I’m a fan of her being a fan. Those books get her in the moo—never mind. Fuck.”

The feeling of throwing up comes back strong. “What did you do when Quinn told you she was pregnant?” I rub my forehead again, doing little to ease my headache.

“I internally panicked but was happy.”

“For real?”

“Yeah. I’d been in love with her for years and now she had a reason to talk to me. Which sounds fucked up and makes me sound creepy, I know, but it made the both of us give being together a shot, and well, it’s worked out in our favor, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah.” I don’t want to settle down with Stacey. I never did. If it was Chloe telling me she was pregnant after our first few times together when we were too swept up in passion to remember using a condom…I’d feel the same as Archer.

It wouldn’t be ideal timing, but it wouldn’t feel like this, because Chloe is my end game. She always was, even when I was too scared to admit it to myself. Back when I insisted she was like a sister to me because it was easier than coming face to face with my feelings…which I should have fucking done or else I wouldn’t be in this mess.

“You don’t love Stacey,” Archer says, filling in the silence.

“No, I never have. Chloe,” I start and can’t finish.

“I know.” A few seconds of silence tick by before Archer talks again. “You need to tell her. Sooner rather than later. You and Stacey hooked up before you and Chloe got together, right?”

“Yes. This happened in early June. I hadn’t even seen Chloe in years until a few weeks ago. She’s going to fucking hate me for it.”

“It’s a bump in the road, that’s for sure, but she can’t get mad at you for it. If she had a kid, would it change how you feel about her?”

My mind goes right to Charles Baldwin, the popular actor and star of the Shadowfall TV series. He and Chloe have dated on and off for the last few years, much like how Stacey and I did. If she came back into town with a baby in tow—Charles’s baby—it wouldn’t have changed a damn thing. I’d still be as hopelessly in love with her as I was all those years ago.

“Not at all.”

“Then I think there’s a good chance she’ll feel the same.”

I’m all jittery inside, a feeling I haven’t experienced since my first day of med school. I’m calm and collected, able to compartmentalize and deal with things rationally. Things that make a good doctor, and things that are necessary when you’re in the operating room dealing with traumatic injuries.

When it comes to Chloe…all that goes out the window.

“You don’t think she’ll see it as baggage?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. That’s not really fair, though, is it? Lots of single parents date and go on to get married again.”

“True,” I say.

“This vulnerable side of you is almost unnerving, yet I kind of like it.”

“You’re a married man, Jones. I know you miss seeing this hot piece of ass every morning, but I will not be the homewrecker you want me to be.”

“I did literally see that ass,” he says dryly. “Quinn did too.”

“It’s okay if she liked it. I will do a threesome, but not with you.”

“Best not to ruin the friendship.”

I let out a snort of laughter, feeling the knot in my chest loosen temporarily. “I don’t want to tell you to keep anything from your wife, but don’t tell Quinn. She’ll tell Rory, who’ll tell our mother, who will freak the fuck out.”

“I won’t say anything.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Sam,” Archer says, tone shifting. “Breathe. You have time to figure things out. Is Chloe in Chicago with you? Rory also told us she was there visiting you.”

“No, she had to go back to LA for work. She might be able to fly back out after a meeting.”

“You have to tell her next time you see her.”

“I know, though a text full of emojis makes things seem much less serious.”

“Hah, right?”

A baby starts to cry, which wakes up the other twin, and only a second later, another kid comes into the room calling for Daddy. Archer says he’ll check in later, and I end the call feeling pretty much the same.

Like I fucked everything up all over again.