“I really don’t want to talk to you while you shit.”
“I’m not shitting, Ani. Fuck, I fucked up so bad.” My voice caught on the last few words, and I couldn’t hide the sob that came out of me. I was so tired, and my whole body seemed to ache from the amount of vomiting I’d done. I couldn’t keep anything down—why couldn’t I keep anything down?
“Crap, Katie! What’s going on? Are you okay?” she asked nervously.
“I’m pregnant,” I whispered, as if saying the words quietly would soften the reply.
“Didn’t you get your shot? What the fuck, Kate? You can’t miss a shot!”
“I didn’t. I swear, I got it right when I was supposed to. I don’t know what the fuck happened!”
“I hope to Christ you know what happened,” she replied drily.
“It gets worse,” I moaned, laying my head back on the towel beneath me. “Way worse.”
“Was the guy ugly?”
“Worse.”
“A gigolo?”
“Way worse.”
“Oh, fuck, Katie,” she whispered after a moment of complete silence. “You didn’t.”
“We were drunk. It was a mistake.”
“That excuse stopped working when you were nineteen. It doesn’t work when you’re almost thirty.”
“I know. I’m such an idiot. God, what was I thinking?”
“Does Shane know?”
The lights were off in the bathroom, but the sun was shining through the small window of my shower and I closed my eyes against it. Shit, even my eyeballs hurt.
“Yeah, I told him this morning.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much.”
“Not much?”
“He asked if I was sure it was his.”
“That cocksucker!” she yelled, intensifying the pain in my head. “I hope you ripped him a new asshole!”
“No, I just left.”
“What? Why? Don’t let him be a dick to you, Katherine. You’ve put up with far more shit than you should’ve from him over the years.”
“No, I know. I just—” I started weeping then, feeling more pitiful than I ever had in my entire life. “I’m just tired, Ani. I’m so fucking tired, and I keep throwing up. And Keller was such a brat this morning, he actually hit me, and then Shane got home and was a complete ass about it. I just couldn’t take anymore, and then I had to leave when Kell was asleep and he probably woke up and thought I was still mad at him.”
“Whoa, slow down, sweetheart,” she said soothingly. “Let’s work this out piece by piece. You’ve been sick?”
“I’m so sick,” I rasped, my stomach starting to churn yet again. “God, Ani. I haven’t been able to keep anything down for days.”
“How many days?”
“Like three, I think. God, it feels like forever.”
“You’re probably dehydrated, Kate. You need to go to the doctor.”
“I have an appointment day after tomorrow.”
“No, you need to go in now.”
“I’m too exhausted. I can’t even get off the bathroom floor.”
I heard her rustling with something, then her voice came through the phone more clearly. “I have to call you back, sis, okay?”
“Yeah,” I replied wearily. “I’ll be here.”
“I’ll call you right back.”
“Okay.”
I hung up as my stomach revolted again, and I didn’t even bother trying to kneel up to reach the toilet. There wasn’t anything in my belly to lose anyway.
By the time I was done, I was sweaty and my abs were on fire, but that didn’t stop me from falling asleep curled into a ball.
* * *
“Katie?” I heard Shane call, pulling me out of the first deep sleep I’d had in days. “Kate!”
Before I could answer him, his body filled the doorway to my bathroom.
“Sorry, I must not have heard the door,” I said inanely as he came to an abrupt stop. “I don’t really feel like company.”
“Katie,” he said softly, taking a step toward me.
“Don’t. I just—don’t. I smell like shit, and I’m all sweaty, and just—give me a few minutes, okay?” I asked tiredly, rising slowly to my knees.
“Don’t move, baby,” he replied gently as he came into the bathroom. “Let’s get you out of here.”
The endearment made my throat feel tight, but I pushed past it. “Where are the kids?”
“I picked Sage up and brought them to the neighbors for a bit.”
“Oh shit!” I tried to rise to my feet, but swayed dizzily and started crying yet again. “I was supposed to get her from school. Oh my God, she must have been so freaked out.”
“Hey,” he called softly, “stop. I talked to Anita, and she told me you were sick. I got Sage right on time. She was fine. Totally fine.”
“God, I’m so sorry. I fell asleep.”
“I can see that. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
He leaned down to pick me up, and I scrambled to try to move away. “Please don’t, Shane.” I sniffled. “I stink. I need a shower.”
He stared at me, not replying for a long time before he leaned over my body and pushed the shower curtain back.
“What are you doing?”
“You want a shower, right?” he asked as he turned on the water. “So let’s get you in the shower.”
I watched in shock as he slid the curtain closed again and reached back to pull his T-shirt over his head, stepping out of his flip-flops as he did so. Next, he pushed down his khaki shorts and boxer briefs at the same time, leaving him completely naked.
“What in God’s name are you doing?” I asked when my mouth finally started working again.
“Come on, let’s get you up.”
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
“If you don’t stop looking at my dick, it’s going to perk up and say hello,” he warned.
“That’s what got me into this shit show in the first place.”
“Right. I’m not going to bang you against the wall. You’re fucking sick, and you need to go to the hospital—so either you let me help you in the shower or I’m taking you like that—smelling like ass and looking like a homeless person.”
“I’m pretty sure any sort of ego I had from sleeping with you has just shriveled up and died.”
“Good, then you won’t care if I see you naked.”
“Oh believe me, I don’t,” I replied tiredly as I let him pull me off the floor. “I already know you don’t want ‘seconds’ so I’m not worried you’ll see something that turns you off.”
“I was a dick.”
“No worries, at least the sex was good,” I answered as he pulled my T-shirt over my sore breasts. “Careful,” I warned.
“I’ll be careful,” he promised as he slid my leggings and underwear down my legs.
“I shouldn’t have said those things to you,” he told me sincerely, holding my hand as we stepped into the shower. “I was so messed up that morning—”
“You think I wasn’t?” I asked as he moved me slowly toward the running water. “God, I fucking threw up. I should have seen that moment for the omen it was.”
“I’m sorry, Katie,” he said, pulling my hands around his torso to stabilize me so he could run his fingers through my hair. “I was such a dick. I knew none of that was your fault, but fuck if I wasn’t pissed anyway.”
“You know that I was drunk, right?”
“It doesn’t—”
“No, it does matter,” I argued before he could finish his sentence, closing my eyes as he worked shampoo into my scalp. “You seem to be under some illusion that I took advantage of you or something. That’s bullshit. We were both drinking, and if I recall things correctly, you fucked me while I was pinned facedown on the bed.”
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed, pausing as I felt his cock twitch against my stomach.
“Not that I was complaining at the time,” I mumbled, making his ha
nds tighten in my hair. “Fuck, my stomach is starting to—”
I jerked away from him and barely bent over before I was heaving. “I’m sorry,” I gasped between waves. “Shit. I fucking hate—”
“Shhh,” he replied calmly, bracing one of his arms across my chest and rubbing my back with the other. “You’re okay. It’ll pass.”
“God,” I groaned as my stomach finally settled again. “Why are you even here?”
“Let’s get you washed up.”
“Oh no, I can do this shit on my own.”
“I’m not leaving you in here by yourself.”
“Fine.” I washed the most important areas on my body quickly, refusing to exert the extra energy for anything else, and within a few minutes I was wrapped in a towel and Shane was carrying me into my room.
“Did you really just help me take a shower?” I asked, dropping my head to his shoulder. “What the hell was that about?”
I fell asleep before he could answer, and I vaguely felt him dressing me as I faded in and out. By the time I woke up fully, Shane was once again carrying me.
“You jackass,” I said, my entire body stiffening as I realized where we were.
“You need to see a doctor,” he replied, marching through the waiting room of the ER.
“I don’t have insurance, Shane, and it’s just morning sickness.”
“Rachel was never this sick.”
“I’m not Rachel.”
“You’re getting checked out.”
“When exactly did you get a say in this?”
“When Anita called and said you were sick as shit and lying on the floor of your bathroom.”
“She’s such a fucking drama queen.”
“That’s exactly where I found you.”
“Semantics,” I mumbled as we reached the front desk.
* * *
“I still don’t understand why you’re here,” I called softly, rolling over gingerly in my hospital bed. The damn bed was so uncomfortable that I knew I’d be even more achy when I climbed back out of it.
“We’re friends,” he replied, messing with something on his phone.
He’d barely looked at me since they’d brought me back to the small room and proceeded to confirm my pregnancy. He’d left while they gave me an internal ultrasound, and had remained silent even as I caught him glancing at the images I’d conveniently left on the counter by the only chair in the room. He was restless, almost jittery, and to be honest it made my tension rise with every small movement.
“We’re not friends, Shane,” I told him seriously, making his head snap up in surprise. “We’ve got history—a shit ton of it—but we haven’t been friends in a long time.”
“I can’t leave you here alone.”
“I’ll be fine. Seriously. You need to get home to the kids. Sage is probably freaking out by now.”
“I just called her. She’s fine.”
“Well, I bet Megan is losing her mind with all those kids.”
“I just talked to her. She’s fine, too.”
“I don’t want you here,” I finally said, looking away from the shock on his face. “I’m not sure what you’re doing, but let’s be honest here, okay?”
“I’m being honest.”
“No, you’re feeling guilty or something, but you’re sure as fuck not being honest.”
“You’re being a bitch.”
“Ah, there’s the honesty,” I replied drily to cover how his words had stung. “I know you don’t want to be here, okay? You’re fidgeting and sighing and looking at your watch, and frankly, it would be easier to enjoy this glorious anti-nausea medicine if I didn’t feel like I was keeping you from wherever it is you want to be.”
“I want to be here,” he argued stubbornly.
“Why? Why would you want to be here?”
“Because you’re sick and you’re pregnant. I can’t just leave you.”
“Why is it your problem?” I stared at him, silently pleading with him to acknowledge the child in the images next to his elbow.
“I guess it’s not,” he finally said, rising from the chair.
“Are you going to just keep pretending that I got myself pregnant?” I asked tiredly, looking up into his face. “The dates are on the ultrasound prints you keep staring at. I’m sure even you can do the math.”
“I already have four kids,” he said roughly, reaching up to scratch his jaw. “With my wife.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I whispered back, feeling like I was being sliced open.
“Look, you’ve had a couple of days to process this shit, all right?” he snapped back. “I’ve had hours, and most of those hours have been spent peeling you off the floor and taking you to the hospital.”
“I’m sorry for being such an inconvenience.”
“Can you just for one fucking second give me a little space? Fuck, Kate, just give me a minute to process the shit storm that has become my fucking life!”
I nodded once, then slowly rolled until I was facing away from him.
“Right, because this is so much easier for me,” I replied flatly, refusing to look at him. “Take as much time as you want.”
I could feel his eyes on the back of my head for a long time, but I clenched my teeth and controlled my breathing until I heard him open and close the door.
Then I burst into tears.
Stupid pregnancy hormones.
* * *
They only kept me for a few hours more, letting me rehydrate with their nifty little needle in my vein, then sending me home with a prescription for anti-nausea meds and some prenatal vitamins.
Shit. Prenatal. It was really happening. I was really going to be a mom. Or was I already a mom? I sure as hell already felt protective of the little sea monkey curled up somewhere between my hip bones.
I took an expensive-as-hell cab back to my apartment and climbed the stairs, thankful that Shane had thought to bring my purse to the hospital. After losing my keys eighteen million times, I’d finally gotten into the habit of keeping an extra house key in my wallet.
When I got inside, something was off. It took a second before I realized it was the scent of lemon. What the heck?
Shane had cleaned up the bathroom.
Oh my God.
I sat down heavily on the sparkling-clean toilet and chastised myself until the tears I felt coming to the surface subsided. It was such a nice thing for him to do. But I couldn’t let myself think that it was done out of anything but kindness…or guilt. Guilt was probably the reason.
I grabbed my phone out of my purse to call him, but stopped short when I saw that my mom was calling my silenced phone. Shit! Anita must have opened her big mouth.
“Hey, Ma!” I answered cheerfully, shuffling toward my bed and crawling between the—did he wash my sheets?
“Hey, baby! Whatcha doing?”
“Not much, just hanging out at home.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I was pretty sure that she knew I was pregnant, but she wasn’t going to ask. I swear, she and Aunt Ellie had perfected the whole you-know-I-know-but-I’ll-wait-until-you-tell-me-as-long-as-you-tell-me-right-now routine. They’d caught many a child with that strategy as I grew up, kids who’d been impossible to understand and less trusting than an antelope surrounded by Siberian tigers.
Yes, I had a thing for exotic animals as a kid. Sue me.
My aunt and uncle had found out pretty early in their marriage that they couldn’t have children and, being the awesome people they were, had immediately decided that they wanted to open their house and their lives to foster children. It couldn’t have been easy—hell, I’d seen firsthand how not easy it was—but they’d never once faltered in what my aunt later told me they’d felt called to do. From the time I was two years old, I’d had cousins coming out of the woodwork—quiet, loud, calm, destructive, sad, and angry cousins. Some didn’t last long; most didn’t last long. But there were two that my aunt and uncle had
been able to adopt—Trevor and Henry—and a few who’d stayed in touch even after they’d gone. Shane had been one of the foster kids who had seemed to hold tight to Ellie and Mike Harris’s family, even though he’d been one of the oldest ever to be placed with them.
When I was five and Trevor came to stay with Aunt Ellie and Uncle Mike, my parents had some sort of epiphany. Less than a year later, our family had also started taking in kids who for one reason or another needed a place to stay. So, for the first time in my life, I had siblings. Loads of siblings. Siblings I had to say good-bye to far more often than I wanted. Then out of nowhere, in the middle of a heat wave during the long days of summer, came a pair of brothers that my parents would eventually adopt—which meant I got to keep them forever. My twin brothers, Alex and Abraham, stepped onto our front porch when I was eight and they were ten, and they never had to leave again. And thank God, because four years later my trusting and forgiving nature had trapped me into a situation that could have turned out very badly if Bram and Alex hadn’t chosen that exact moment to find me outside with our newest foster brother.
After that, my parents had never again fostered any children older than me and had refused to take in any more boys. They’d let their guard down, too, and I don’t know if they’ll ever forgive themselves for that. My parents took in their last foster child when I was seventeen, and that’s when I met Anita. She didn’t want to be adopted, even though legally my parents could have, but she’d also never left. She stayed with my parents for her last two years of high school and had moved into the garage apartment so she could attend college after that.
With all those children and all their problems, my aunt and mom had become interrogators that would make the CIA look up and take notice. They’d seen everything and heard everything, and no attitude or personality could withstand them when they had their minds set on something. Unfortunately, that also meant that I’d be telling my mother whatever she wanted to know.
“Anything new happening?”
“She fuh-reaking told you!” I yelled, slamming my hand down against the bedding, making the fresh scent of Tide float up around me. Shane had washed my sheets!
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m pregnant,” I retorted with a growl.