Sidebarred: A Legal Briefs Novella(5)

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Fucking, wow.”

“I know.”

I’m guessing couples usually talk about having kids before they get married—but Chelsea and I didn’t. Mostly because our plate was already f*cking full.

“How . . .” I begin, then stop myself. Obviously I know how. “I mean, you’re still wearing the patch?”

Chelsea nods. “Yes. But it’s not one hundred percent effective and remember a few weeks ago it kept peeling off?”

I’m lucky I remember my own name right now.

My thoughts are still scrambled. Images of a tiny newborn mixed in with the six faces we already have. Ronan was only a few months old when Chelsea and I first met, so I know what’s coming. Midnight feedings, teething, crying for no reason at all. And the diapers—f*ck—so many diapers. For years.

On the other hand, I’ve heard pregnancy makes a woman’s tits huge. My eyes are drawn to Chelsea’s already impressive rack. That pro might just outweigh all the cons.

I scrub my hand over my face. “Have you taken a test yet?”

“Not yet.”

In the years before Chelsea, I banged lots of women. Hundreds. But I never had a pregnancy scare because I was religious about condoms. There was an STD scare once—because those can happen even with condoms—but this is brand-new territory.

“Okay.” I stand up from the couch. “I’ll go buy a test.”

“I already bought one.” She smiles shyly. “I bought three, actually.”

“Oh.” My brow wrinkles. “Well, let’s go take them.”

I hold out my hand and pull her up from the couch. As I turn toward the hallway, her hand on my arm stops me.

“Jake . . . where are you on this?” She peers up at me, trying to read my face. “I mean, if I am pregnant . . . are we gonna be okay?”

I’m floored that she even needs to ask.

“Of course we’ll be okay.” I cup her jaw, holding her gaze. “It’s a hell of a shock, sure, but it’s not like we don’t know what we’re doing. Adding one more to the mix . . . will only make it better. Maybe.”

When she smiles, it’s full and relieved.

I kiss her forehead. “Let’s go piss on some sticks.”

****

“I couldn’t believe it when I didn’t get my period. I kept waiting for the cramps to start, I double-checked my calendar, and when the realization finally hit me, I was just like, wow! You know?”

Chelsea’s talking a mile a minute. She talked while she took care of the three tests and hasn’t stopped to take a breath while we wait to read them. She flutters around the room, like a twittering, gorgeous bird, putting laundry away, shifting things around on the dresser, unable to be still.

“I was thinking I’d like to have the baby down here with us for at least the first year. They’re so tiny when they’re first born, I don’t want to be too far away. I don’t know if we’ll need to do more construction, to make our room bigger—which will suck—but we have nine months still. There’ll be time.”

My mouth quirks up as her wheels spin. “Plenty of time.” I check my watch. “Speaking of time . . .” I tilt my head toward the bathroom.

Chelsea practically vibrates next to me. “I can’t look! You should do it, you look.”

“Okay, okay—I’m looking.” I chuckle as I walk to the adjoining bathroom to get the tests.

Chelsea’s voice follows me. “The kids are going to freak out. Regan and Ronan will be excited—Riley will probably be glad . . .”

I step back into the bedroom slowly, a heavy weight pressing on my stomach.

“Chelsea . . .”

“. . . that she’s leaving for college in a year. I’ll have to talk to my boss at the museum. I wonder—”

“Chelsea.” My voice is firmer this time, drawing her smile to my face. “It’s negative.”

Her smile freezes. “What?”

“They’re negative. All of them.”

Pink rises in her cheeks and understanding washes over her expression, taking her beautiful smile with it.

“Oh.”

She glances at the tests in my hand—and the weight in my stomach is replaced with an empty, sunken feeling.

Chelsea clears her throat and lifts her shoulder. “Well, I guess that’s good news then.”

“I guess.”

But it doesn’t seem like good news.

She exhales a big breath and takes the white sticks from me, tossing them in the trash can. Then she moves around the room quickly, rearranging the things on the dresser she just arranged.

“Of course it is. I mean, the last thing we need . . .” She shakes her head. Her back is to me so I can’t read her expression. “I must’ve miscalculated my dates. Stupid. I’ll be more careful.”

“Chelsea.”

She turns around, head down, moving toward the door. “I have laundry to do. Rory needs his uniform tomorrow and—”

Before she gets near the door, I catch her with my arm and pull her in close. She presses her face into my chest and a second later she lets out a deep, choked sob.

Chelsea’s not a crier. Or a sulker. She’s scrappy, tough in that feminine, enduring, always-making-the-best-of-things kind of way. And I do my damnedest to make sure she doesn’t ever have a reason to cry. Because I’m tough, too. Hard. Some would even say callous. Except when it comes to her tears.