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“Do you think he’ll want to be involved?”

I let out a heavy sigh.

“I don’t know, Mom. He didn’t want a relationship because of work. That’s why I slept with him. We were on the same page and that page had ‘the end’ written on it. There wasn’t supposed to be a second page, let alone a whole chapter with a kid. And—fuck, I’m not even sure how I’d get a hold of him.”

“But you will, right?” I pitched my "mom" voice high, putting all my panic into it.

At this point in the talking-to-myself conversation, I’ve reached the conclusion that if I was pregnant, I wanted to keep the baby. Thinking about my mom made that decision easy.

But Niall … he was harder to think about. And that was only partly because all my memories of him were naughty.

“You have to tell him, sweetie. He should get the chance to be a dad, just like you get the chance to be a mom.”

“Ugh, I know. It’s not like I don’t want to tell him.” That was kind of a lie. If I didn’t tell him, he wouldn’t get involved and I wouldn’t have to keep myself distant from him and deal with my fear of close relationships. An all around win in my book.

But Mom/my self conscious was right. Telling him was the right thing to do.

It was just a matter of how.

“You know where he works,” "Mom" pointed out.

“God, I don’t want to look like some desperate gold digger. Maybe I can just message him on Instagram or some shit.”

“Leah Angela Walton, don’t you dare.”

“But Mom,” I groaned. “It might be the only way I can talk to him. I don’t have his number.”

“That’s why you’ll go to his place of work, walk up to the front office, and ask to speak with him. That’s a perfectly normal thing to do.”

“No, that’s low-key stalker behavior.”

“It would only be stalker-ish if you waited by his car.”

I sat up.

“His car. I know what his car looks like! I could just drive up to the parking lot and leave a note. Easy peasy.”

“Sweetheart,” "Mom" started to chide, but my alarm went off and everything went blank.

I let the ringing go on a bit longer, like I was in the middle of a good dream where I wasn’t pregnant and didn’t want to wake up. But this wasn’t the kind of alarm I could snooze or sleep through.

So with one deep breath, I stood up and looked at the test.

And just like I figured, it was positive.

The Reunion

Niall

It was October and Coach Sharma had found a comfortable rhythm with the team and practice and everything. Which meant for the past two months, I’ve left practice at the same time as everyone else. Two months and I still wasn’t used to it.

“You’re bored as fuck, aren’t you?” Brooker asked, joining me on the way to the parking lot.

“What’re you talking about?”

“You’ve been in a funk since Sharma caught up with everything. Like you don’t know what to do with yourself now that you have free time.”

“That’s … not entirely wrong,” I said with a sigh. “I suppose now would be a good time to find a hobby. Any suggestions?”