Thrive (Addicted, #4)(101)

His footsteps sound on the floorboards, drifting off.

“Female menstruation?” I ask with the rise of my brows. “What’s this about, Rose?”

She passes me with fire in her eyes and crouches to the cabinets beneath the sink. Her silence makes me nervous.

I almost bite my fingernails, but I drop my hand quickly. “Should I go get Daisy?” I ask. “If this is like a sister thing, we should include her, right?” I feel badly leaving her alone with the guys, especially since we’re all together to celebrate her trip to Paris. In a few days she’ll be off to Fashion Week, her first time attending without our mom. It’s a big deal for her, and Rose likes any reason to throw a party, even if only close friends attend.

Rose rises to her feet, brandishing a box of tampons.

I squint. “So this is about your period?” I feel like there’s a mystery here. One that I am not programmed to solve.

“No,” she says like I’m an idiot. I don’t see how I could be the stupid one. She pops open the flaps and takes out a familiar looking stick.

My rushed thought spills out of my mouth. “Who mixed up a pregnancy test with tampons?”

Rose purses her lips. “I put the test in here,” she says flatly.

Oh.

Ohhhhhh. My eyes widen in alarm, never believing or registering that this could actually happen: Rose pinching a pregnancy test between two fingers. “You’re not…”

“I’m late.”

Oh my God. This is really happening.

I just don’t understand why she’s keeping it so secret. Sure, I’ve had to sneak around pregnancy tests more than I’d like to admit aloud or even to myself. Rash-like welts start springing up if I go back that far to my past. But this is coming from Rose—my sister who used to buy tampons for me because I blushed too hard at the checkout counter.

“Why the incognito pregnancy test?” I ask with the tilt of my head.

She points a manicured nail at the toilet. “Sit.”

What? “Um, Rose,” I say hesitantly. “You’re supposed to sit on the toilet, not the sister of the person who may be pregnant. That’s how pregnancy tests work…”

She glares like she’s trying to shrivel me. Like I’m Loren Hale—her one true nemesis.

“Team Rose.” I point to my chest. In the mirror, I catch my bony arms and flushed skin, looking very much sunburnt by now.

“I need you to take the test first,” she says, pushing the stick into my hands.

Now I go pale, blood rushing out of me. “Why?”

“I need a baseline,” she says. “To know that they work before I try.”

That sounds…ridiculous, but Rose has begun to pace, worrying me a little. Her eyes dart around the room like she’s thinking way too hard about the future. It’s not a secret that Rose dislikes children, babies even more.

“I thought you and Connor talked about children,” I say softly, tiptoeing very carefully on the topic.

“Thirty-five,” she says. “We agreed to have kids at thirty-five. This isn’t part of the plan.”

She’s only twenty-five.

“You know,” I say, “lots of women have babies at your age.” I try my best at being supportive, but she shoots me another withering glare.

“Piss on the stick.” Each word sounds like a threat.

I take a deep breath. She’s done far more for me. I can definitely do this for her. “But you can’t tell Lo that I took a pregnancy test—even one in camaraderie. He’ll freak out.”

“It won’t ever come up,” she promises.

I approach the toilet, roll down my leggings and sit on the cold seat. I concentrate on the task, really careful not to pee on my fingers (that’s the trickiest part). When I finish, I pull up my leggings, set the stick on the counter and wash my hands, waiting for my results.

“You next,” I say with a smile, like see it’s not so scary, Rose.

She inhales sharply. “I’ll wait until we read yours.”

“It’ll be better if you just get it over with.” She’s going to wear down her five-inch heels to three-inches if she doesn’t stop pacing. I delicately hand her the tampon box, showing her that it’s not so bad after all. “It’s probably negative anyway. You’re on birth control, right?”

“I haven’t missed a single day, so you know what this means?”

“That there is no way you could be pregnant.” I exhale for her and smile. She’s being dramatic for nothing.

“That I’m unlucky. Very, very unlucky, Lily. Birth control is 99% effective, so Connor’s superhuman sperm somehow penetrated my body’s defenses. He won. His sperm reached my egg and now I’m going to have this thing growing inside of me for nine whole months while he gets to parade around the fact that he impregnated an impregnable woman.” She exhales after that rant.

My eyes are saucers and I pat her iron-like shoulder for support. I try not to think about Connor’s sperm or his sperm wearing a superhero cape. “If you have a baby, just think of all the cute clothes you can dress her or him up in.” It’s the only pro that I can think of.

“A baby isn’t a doll,” she refutes in a chilly tone. She struts forward, forcing my hand to fall. I doubt it was that comforting anyway. She reluctantly pulls out the pregnancy test from the tampon box.