Page 111 of Possessive Ink

It is…I think.

I’m overthinking. There’s no way I could be pregnant. Having a breakdown over not being able to make a whole wedding dress in a super short space of time doesn’t mean my hormones are going crazy. It just means that I’m stressed from trying to do the impossible. Crying all over Atticus and then being mad at him is all about the pressure I felt from him and not because my emotions are going haywire.

My boobs not fitting into the bodice isn’t because they’ve gotten bigger. It just means I can’t accurately measure.

I’m not pregnant. I’m not.

“Okay, so that’s not the dress. Let’s try another,” Cora says, thankfully taking charge and forcing me to push aside my crazy thoughts.

I try another five duds until I slip on a dress that makes me gasp when I spin around and look at myself in the mirror. The light, floaty dress is a simple A-line skirt with a wispy botanical embroidered bodice finished with sequins and illusion cut-out details on the sides. It’s nothing like the dress I designed, but it’s beautiful and ethereal and…perfect.

“Wow,” Cora gasps.

Tears fill my eyes, and I nod, my lip quivering as I fight not to cry.

“Is that the one?” she asks quietly, reverently.

“I think so,” I whisper.

“Do you want to show everyone?”

I nod again, silent tears rolling down my cheeks. Cora pulls back the curtain, and I step forward, struggling to stifle my emotions.

“Oh my god, that looks incredible on you,” Tori gushes.

“It really does,” Bonnie agrees.

“Hot mama,” Leo catcalls, wolf whistling loudly and making me laugh through my tears.

“Why are you crying?” Missy asks.

I shake my head, trying to smile. “I don’t know,” I admit.

Like she knows I need it, Leo marches toward me and pulls me into a hug. In her sky-high heels, she towers over me and has to bend down to wrap me in her arms, but I hug her back tightly, needing the comfort, even though I wish it was Atticus’s arms around me and not hers.

After it’s universally agreed by everyone that this is the dress, Cora and I go to find Jill, and I pay the almost ridiculously cheap price tag for it. Octy, Betty, Leo, and Etta all have to get back to work, so they wave us goodbye, and Knight drives them all away while the rest of us pile back into the van and head back to Rockhead Point.

Instead of dropping me off at the warehouse, the girls insist on us all going for lunch, so after Bonnie parks at the curb outside a place they insist is amazing, we all climb out and head toward the front door.

The server seems to recognize Bonnie, and she leads us over to a round table near the window, pouring us all water while she takes our drink order. “Are you okay?” Tori asks from beside me. “You seem a little out of it.”

“I wasn’t really expecting to find a dress I actually liked today. I thought I’d just have to pick from what was available, and I think now that I found a dress that I love, all the anxiety I’ve been feeling recently has leaked out of me,” I tell her, not mentioning that most of my dress-related stress has now become am-I-pregnant stress. Tori might be my future sister-in-law, but her loyalty will always be to Atticus first. I get it, but because of that, I can’t tell her I’m worried I could be baby-trapping her brother.

Atticus and I haven’t really discussed children. He made an offhand comment about us having a family one day, but I’d guessed it was a way, way, way in the future suggestion and definitely not a right-now idea.

If I am pregnant, and he decides this isn’t what he wants right now, I don’t know what I’ll do. My mom chose to keep me when she fell pregnant unexpectedly, but I don’t know if being a single mom is something I’d choose for myself. In Montana, I have options, but…

Closing my eyes, I force myself to stop thinking about it. Driving myself crazy over things that aren’t happening right now isn’t healthy. Just because I’m feeling overly emotional and my boobs are enormous doesn’t mean I’m pregnant. It could just mean that my period is due. My birth control injection makes my periods super irregular, and sometimes I can go for months without having one at all, so if I am due to start a period soon, it makes total sense that I’d get some exaggerated symptoms.

That’s it. I’m hormonal, that’s all. It sucks that I could be bleeding on my wedding day, but it’s not the end of the world, and it’s better than having to explain to Atticus that I’m lumbering him with a baby a month into our relationship.

“Oh, sweetie, you should have said you were so worried,” Tori says, her face sympathetic.

“It’s fine,” I tell her, forcing my lips into a smile. “I found the perfect dress, and now I just need to wait for this stress to dissolve.”

“I know what will help with that,” Tori says with a giggle. “Can we have two cosmos, please?” she asks the server, then turns back to me. “It’s an oldie but a goodie, and I’ve been watching reruns of Sex and the City while Nero has been on shift.”

“A cocktail actually sounds perfect right now,” I assure her, refusing to question if I should be drinking alcohol.