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“I can rush a pregnancy test,” Persy offered with pity swimming in her eyes.
“Not necessary,” I told her with a resigned sigh. “The nausea and the exhaustion, it all makes sense now.” My shoulders fell and tears started to burn the back of my eyes. “My goodness.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.” I absolutely did not want to talk about the fact that I was pregnant. Having a baby with a guy I wasn’t even sure I liked when he had clothes on. Sure, Drew was brilliant and handsome, and he could be charming when he wanted to be. But tied to him for life? That was a lot to consider. “Thank you, but I really don’t want to talk about it. I haven’t even wrapped my head around it yet.”
‘It’s not as bad as you’re thinking right now.” Persy’s assurance meant a lot to me, but it didn’t very little to calm the storm swirling inside me. She laughed at the skeptical look I sent her. “I’m serious. Right now this feels like the end of the world, at least that’s how it felt for me. But it wasn’t. Titus is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“This is really bad timing. A bad situation all the way around.” I couldn’t be pregnant and I definitely could not be pregnant with my boss’ baby. “I have to go, Persy. Thank you, for everything. Really.”
“No problem. Call if you need to chat.”
“I will. I promise.” Right now, all I wanted to do was go home, shut off all my devices, curl up on the bed and let the television watch me while I thought of all my bad decisions. “See you in the morning.”
“Have a good night,” she called after me but I was too busy rushing out of the building to respond.
Drew
I hadn’t seen Zola in a few days, not around the hospital, now around town, and not when I stopped by to visit Suzie. No, it wasn’t just a few days. It was four days. Exactly four days.
I laughed to myself at the irony of my situation, working for weeks, possibly months to get her to leave Jackson’s Ridge and JRMC, and now it hadn’t even been a week without seeing her and I missed her. Badly. It was strange, not seeing her face every single day, I got used to seeing her on a regular basis which was very probably, a big fucking problem.
None of that mattered though because as soon as my shift was over I drove right past my own house and over to Gavin’s mansion to see her. And because I was such a bad brother, I didn’t stop in to check on Suzie or Gigi and Berna, instead I parked and crept around the side to the stone path the led to the guest house, though to be fair the guest house was bigger than my small house that was perfectly sized for one. Lately, it felt too big and too empty, and I had a feeling that it was all Zola’s fault.
After a quick knock on the door, I stepped back and waited for her to open up, to flash her wide toothy grin that highlighted her smooth, sometimes shimmery brown complexion, and yank me inside where she would greet me with a kiss so hot that neither of us would make it to the bed or the sofa, or any other surface before we devoured each other. Devour was a good word for it because that’s exactly what we did, each time we came together. It was always fast and frenetic, frenzied until it spun out of control, until it was so damn hot that the building around us threated to combust.
She didn’t answer so I knocked again. “Zola, open up. It’s me, Drew.” I walked around the guest house and looked inside the windows since a few of the lights were on, proving just how desperate I was to see her. “Zola,” I called and tapped on the window.
I was officially worried and knocked until my knuckles started to ache.
Eventually the locks disengaged and the door opened to reveal Zola’s sleepy smile. “Drew? What’s going on? What are you doing here?” She didn’t step back, didn’t invite me in.
Why?
In that moment, I felt like a creeper chasing after a girl who wasn’t all that interested. I shoved my hands in my pockets, a nervous gesture meant to keep me from reaching out to touch her. “I just wanted to see you. To say hey. I haven’t seen you in a while.” Now that I laid eyes on her, I was glad that I had stopped by. It was just past five in the evening and she was sleeping. “Are you okay?”
Zola nodded and just as she did, her mouth split open in a yawn. “I’m fine. Come in.” Her words were as stiff as her movements, almost stilted as she did her best to look happy to see me. “Just a little tired.”
