Must Be Crazy: (Melissa and Jackson) (A Jetty Beach Romance Book 2) (21 page)

“Yep.”

He hands the bag back to me. “Yeah, those don’t really give false positives. You might get a false negative if you test too early, but once you’re far enough along, the test will pick up the hCG. There’s not a reason to have hCG in your system other than pregnancy.”

I stare at the bag. I know he’s right. I understand the biology. I’d hoped I missed something, that I was wrong about how they work and I screwed up when I took the tests. All twelve of them.

“If you want, I can do another test here, but it’s basically the same as the ones you’ve already taken,” he says. “The tests on the market are just as sensitive as the ones we use here. But if you want to go pee in a cup…”

“No,” I say. “I think it’s pretty clear.”

“Do you want to talk about your options?” he asks.

I’m still half mortified to be sitting in a doctor’s office with Cody as the doctor, but his voice has so much compassion.

“No, I understand my options,” I say.

“Okay,” he says. “If you decide to proceed with the pregnancy, I do obstetrics—but I can refer you to someone else if that would be more comfortable for you.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure I want you getting that familiar with my vagina,” I say.

Cody laughs. “Fair enough. If you want to see me for your first couple prenatal appointments, we can leave your vagina out of it entirely. Mostly we’ll just need to check on you periodically to see how things are progressing, and I usually order blood work around twelve weeks. You get to keep your pants on for all of that.”

“Thanks, Cody,” I say. “Or, you know, Dr. Jacobsen.”

He shakes his head. “Cody. And listen, this might go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Whatever happens here, stays here. It’s like Vegas, only with stethoscopes and tongue depressors. You don’t have to worry about me saying anything, to anyone.”

“Thank you.”

“Now for a question from me as Cody, not as your doctor,” he says.

“Sure.”

“Are you okay?”

“Honestly? No. I’m very much not okay. But I’ll figure this out.”

“Yeah, you will,” he says. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do, okay? I mean that.”

“Thank you. Really. I appreciate that.”

“You bet,” he says. “I have some brochures and things, if you’d like.”

“That’s okay,” I say.

He stands. “I’ll let you get out of here, then. Just give us a call when you’re ready to make an appointment, or let us know if you’d like a referral somewhere else.”

“I will.”

Cody leaves, and I pull out my phone. If this is really happening, I can’t face it alone. I tap out a text to Nicole.
Are you busy? Can you meet me at my place? Important.

Seconds later, my phone buzzes with her reply.
On my way.

I tuck my phone back into my purse and grab my bag of doom. Shit is getting awfully real.

***

Nicole lives twenty minutes north of town, so she arrives about fifteen minutes after I get home from the doctor’s office. She bursts in without knocking.

“What’s going on? Did you hear from Jackson?”

“No,” I say.

“Is it your dad?” she asks.

“No, Dad’s okay,” I say. I’m not sure how to tell her this. She’s my best friend, but I suddenly have the horrible fear that she’s going to be disappointed in me.

I sink down on the couch and pull a pillow onto my lap. Nicole sits down beside me.

“Then what is it?” she asks.

“I’m pregnant.”

Nicole is silent for a long moment, staring at me. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You heard me. Knocked up.”

“You’re sure?” she asks. “How many times have you tested?”

I grab the shopping bag and hand it to her.

She pulls apart the edges and looks in, the plastic crinkling. “Okay. That’s … yeah.”

“I just got back from the doctor’s office,” I say. “It was fucking
Cody
, though. That was awesome. And by awesome, I mean mortifying.”

“Oh my god, you saw Cody?” Nicole says. She puts a hand to her mouth, clearly trying to stifle laughter.

I glare at her. “It’s not funny.”

“No, no, it isn’t,” she says, still half laughing. “It’s just … of course you’d go to the doctor and it would be Cody.”

“I made the appointment to see someone else, but she wasn’t there.”

“Yeah, at least Cody’s a good guy,” she says. “Okay, so you’re pregnant. Holy shit, Melissa. This is huge.”

“You think?” I say.

“Do you know why it happened?” she asks. “What were you using?”

“Just condoms,” I say. “But we used one every single time. Every time, I swear. We went through a lot of them.”

“Well, they’re not one hundred percent,” she says. “Nothing is.”

A memory runs through my mind, hazy with alcohol. “Oh shit.”

“What?”

“The limo,” I say.

“What about the limo?” Nicole asks.

“We went out to this club and got really drunk, and then he fucked me in the limo. And again in the villa. I have no idea if he used a condom. And—son of a bitch—the time he showed up here in the middle of the night. He might not have then, either. I was half asleep, I didn’t even think about it.”

“Well, I guess that would do it,” she says. She’s quiet for a long moment. “Have you told him?”

I stare at my coffee table. When I answer, my voice trembles. “No. I haven’t talked to him at all.”

“Come here, sweetie,” she says, wrapping her arms around me. I lean into her. “You know you have to tell him, right?”

I groan.

“It’s his baby too, Mel,” she says. “He has a right to know.”

“There’s no way he’s going to want to have anything to do with this,” I say. “I know how he lives. His life is all parties and fancy restaurants and expensive clothes and yelling at people in meetings. There’s no room for a baby in all that. I don’t even think he wants kids.”

“Do you know that?” she asks. “Did he ever say he doesn’t want kids?”

“No,” I say. “We never talked about it. Why would we? This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were supposed to go off and have this crazy week that didn’t mean anything.”

Nicole leans her cheek against my head. “But it did mean something, didn’t it?”

Tears sting my eyes. “Yeah. It did.”

***

Nicole makes tea and stays with me for a while. It’s well after dark when she finally leaves. She offers to stay over, but I don’t want to make her do that. It isn’t like it will change anything.

And there’s a phone call I need to make.

Dread makes my fingers jittery as I bring up Jackson’s number. I do not want to do this. But I have to. There isn’t any other option. My heart beats hard, and I feel a bit like I might throw up. I figure I should get used to that feeling.

He answers on the first ring. “Hi, Melissa?”

The background is so loud, I almost can’t hear him. “Hi, yeah. I can’t hear you very well.”

“Sorry,” he says. “Hold on.” He pauses and the noise fades. “There, is that better?”

“Now you sound kind of echoey,” I say.

“I’m in the stairwell.”

“Of your building? What’s going on?” I ask.

“Um, nothing, just, you know, some people,” he says.

“Oh, right, a party,” I say. “Fuck, it’s Friday night. I didn’t even think of that.”

“No, it’s okay,” he says. “Don’t apologize. It’s good to hear your voice. Really good.”

“Listen, Jackson, I need to talk to you about something,” I say.

“Yeah, me too,” he says. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you but—”

“Jackson,” I say. “Let me talk.”

“Sure.”

I take a deep breath.
There’s only one way to say this.
“I’m pregnant.”

Jackson is silent. I wait, bile rising in my throat.

“Jackson?”

“You … okay … um.”

The phone disconnects.

He fucking hung up on me?
Anger tears through me and I almost throw my phone at the wall. That fucking bastard. He gets me pregnant and now he can’t even—

My phone rings. Jackson.

I press answer, ready to fly off the handle and scream at him.

“Melissa? Please, I’m sorry. I dropped my phone. I swear, I didn’t mean to hang up.”

I hold the phone to my ear, breathing hard.

“Melissa?” he says. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t expect that. You took me by surprise.”

“Yeah, it took me by surprise, too.”

“Holy shit,” he says. “Okay, I’m… Sorry, I’m just not sure what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” I say. “I will. This happened. I’m pregnant. And I’m going to have the baby, so let’s not even talk about that. That’s just how it’s going to be. I’m sure this is something you’ve tried to avoid for a long time. It sucks that it had to be me. But I won’t make a mess of this for you, okay? I’m not going to come after you, or broadcast this to the world or anything. I don’t need anything from you. I felt like you had the right to know about it, but that’s where this ends for you. You don’t need to do anything.”

“I don’t need to do anything?” he asks. I can hear the anger in his voice. “Melissa, this is my baby, too. Of course I’m going to do something. What the fuck? Do you think I’d just walk away?”

“Well, look at you,” I say. “You’re probably half drunk at your party right now. This isn’t what you wanted. You didn’t want long-term. You wanted a fun time with me, and you got it.”

“Is that what you think?” he says. “That’s all it was?”

“We both know that’s what it was,” I say. My throat feels like it’s going to close up, and tears fill my eyes again.

“I’m not going to just walk away,” Jackson says.

“You can’t fix this, Jackson,” I say. “Your money isn’t going to help.”

“Yes, it is,” he says. “No, that’s not what I mean. I can help with costs, obviously. That’s a given, but that’s not all I can do. I can be there. I want to.”

“I won’t be a responsibility that will wind up stifling you.” I sniff and take a shuddering breath, trying to hold back the tears. “I called because you needed to know. That’s all.”

I hang up and toss my phone on the couch.

Seconds later, my phone buzzes, lighting up with Jackson’s number. I don’t answer. He knows. I did what I had to do. I can’t talk to him anymore.

I hit send, trying to call Melissa again, but she doesn’t answer. I don’t bother leaving a message. I don’t know what to say. I can’t make her talk to me.

My chest is tight, like I can’t breathe, and I stare at the wall. Did she just say she’s pregnant? How is that possible? We were careful. I was…

Oh.

No, I wasn’t careful. Not every time. After the club, I was too drunk to think straight. I remember hiking up her skirt in the limo, but I do not remember putting on a condom. And I can’t blame the alcohol—that wasn’t the only time. At her house, when I surprised her in the middle of the night. A voice in the back of my mind tried to remind me, but she felt so fucking good. I didn’t stop myself. She didn’t say anything either, but I certainly can’t blame this on her. She was clear with me that she wasn’t using birth control, and I said I’d take care of it.

Come to think of it, she’s the only woman I’ve ever had unprotected sex with. I always use a condom, even when the woman assures me she’s on birth control. I
never
take that chance. Too many women have tried to worm their way into my life over the years, wanting my money. An unplanned pregnancy is eighteen to life. I wasn’t going to let a woman snare me that way.

I’m not even sure I want kids. I’m a great long-range planner when it comes to business, but as far as my personal life goes, I fly by the seat of my pants. Before meeting Melissa, I had no desire for a relationship, let alone a family. I saw the bullshit my parents went through. They were miserable. My own experiences with women were more or less the same. After a while, all my relationships went downhill, and I ended them. I’m resigned to being the perpetual bachelor. I have other things in my life that fulfill me.

I go upstairs, leaving the noise of the party behind. I’m not enjoying it anyway. Just a bunch of hangers-on, all wanting a piece of me. I don’t know who half of them are. Maybe more than half. I keep trying to fill the quiet, to dull the pain in my gut, but nothing works. I don’t want those assholes who are clogging up my condo, drinking my booze. I don’t want another bottle of Scotch, or a new car, or a vacation in the fucking Caribbean—all things I would have turned to in the past when life got hard.

I want Melissa.

I grab a bottle of water out of my fridge and take a drink, trying to gather my thoughts. She’s pregnant. Melissa is going to have a baby.

My baby.

That should terrify me. I should be calling Tammi—having her draw up some sort of agreement to make this go away. I’d agree to pay for everything if I can step out of the picture, and make Melissa sign something so she won’t go to the media. I should be shaking with fear, or with anger, or … something.

But I’m not. In fact, I can’t stop smiling.

I imagine my beautiful Melissa, her belly swelling with the baby we made. I can’t even name all the things I’m feeling. I’m worried, and amazed, and more than a little bit scared. But more than anything, I’m overcome with an overwhelming desire to protect her. I want to wrap her in my arms and keep her safe. I want to watch over her while she nurtures our baby. I don’t want her out of my sight.