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“We’ll figure it out,” she promises. “You won’t have to do this alone.”
“Dean’s in his first year,” I choke out. “This is the last thing he needs. He’s already stressed out. I don’t want to ruin his career.”
“Dean will want to be there for you,” she says in a hushed tone. “So, let him.”
“I can’t tell him over the phone. That’s not right. Not until I know for sure.”
“But you do know for sure.”
I shake my head. “I need the doctor to draw my blood to confirm it. Then, I’ll tell him.”
“That’s fair,” she says, her eyes downcast as she cups my shoulder. “How about I make you some hot chocolate?” I nod, and she steers me out of my bedroom and into the hallway. “Maybe that will make you feel better.”
“Nothing will make me feel better,” I mutter. “I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
“It’s not the end of the world,” she says as we descend the long staircase.
“I don’t even know how I feel. Part of me wants to be happy, the other sad because of what this will mean for Dean and I. We just graduated. We haven’t had a chance to begin our lives. It’s so sudden and unexpected. We didn’t plan for this.”
“Plenty of people have kids they didn’t plan for,” she says, guiding me through the halls toward the kitchen. “But they adapt. They figure it out. And you will, too. After you tell Dean, I’m sure he’ll come up with a plan. You’ll feel better about it once you get this news off your chest.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I plop down on
one of the stools in front of the round, granite counter at the center of the room. “It’s just… not what I had planned. The same thing happened to my mom. She’d just made partner at her firm when she got pregnant with Duke. My parents were married a few months later, and then my mom gave up her career to raise us.”
“You don’t have to follow in her footsteps. You can have a kid and still have a career.”
“It’s not the same when you’re married to a hockey player. They travel all the time. My mom couldn’t keep up with Duke and her job with my dad on the road.”
She fixes us hot chocolate with marshmallows, my favorite. “One step at a time, Kat. Don’t overwhelm yourself with all of the what-ifs running through your head right now. I can only imagine what you’re going through. If it were me, I would be freaked out, too.”
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I confess. “I don’t know what I would have done if I had to take the tests alone.”
She slides a mug of hot chocolate in front of me with a smile. “Here, drink up. Hot chocolate makes everything better.”
When my cell phone rings, vibrating across my nightstand, my heart hammers against my chest. My pulse pounds when I see Dean’s name on the screen.
“Hey,” I whisper, hoping he doesn’t hear the panic in my voice. “Everything okay? It’s late.”
“Did I wake you, Kitten?” His deep voice soothes me.
“It’s okay. I’m up now. Sorry, I didn’t call you back earlier.”
I was too busy taking pregnancy tests and having a mental breakdown to answer him.
“How was your day?”
“Busy,” he says. “Weird. How about you?”
“Okay,” I lie and hate myself for it.
Until I know for sure that I’m having his baby, I need to keep my mouth shut. He’s too new to the NHL to throw it all away for me. Dean has to focus if he wants to keep his spot with the Flyers.
“I ran errands and ordered food,” I admit. “Not exactly what I had hoped for this internship. You said your day was weird. How so?”
“Full disclosure,” he says, “I thought I was meeting Will Roman and Ethan Waters for a drink at a sports bar, and they took me to a strip club. Please don’t be mad at me.”
I let out a sigh of relief into the phone. “I’m not, Dean. At least you told me instead of hiding it.”
