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I tensed up a little, but neither of them noticed. In fact, Connor pointed out his own bottle.
“You ought to drink mine too then,” he laughed. “If I know Elliot, six is probably lowballin’ it.”
I put on my best smile, thinking back to the events of the past two weeks. If the extraction had gone well, the next few days had progressed even more smoothly. My twenty-six eggs had been fertilized nineteen times, resulting in fourteen viable embryos that had matured over the five-day incubation period. Four of those were ‘A’-grade, and Connor had promptly claimed responsibility for all of them. They’d implanted two to maximize our pregnancy chances, but not three to minimize the possibility of twins.
And then waiting game began…
Rattling the bottle in my hand for a second to make sure there was ice in it, I tilted it back and shot a cold stream into my open mouth. Some of it spilled down my chin and ran down onto my chest, but the guys didn’t seem to mind.
“There ya go.”
The implantation procedure had been quick and painless, and a mere hour afterward the guys had me on the couch again. For the next couple of days they waited on me hand and foot, even though I was supposed to resume all normal activities. It sure was fun though, being the center of all that attention.
That was five days ago now, almost six. And tonight…
Tonight we’d find out whether or not the whole thing had been worth it.
“You alright, love?”
Connor was staring at me strangely. Probably because I was acting a little strange myself.
“Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”
My smile was a little too quick and a lot too wide. It also wasn’t exactly genuine.
“Do you, uh…alreadyhave news?” asked Aiden.
My heart started pounding wildly. I was going to wait until later. After Elliot got back.
But I also needed to tell someone.
“Sort of,” I said, lowering my gaze.
Connor’s eyes went wide. The two of them crossed the distance between us, and I felt their arms go around me. For once, I didn’t feel reassured.
“Well?”
“I know I was supposed to wait, but I took a test this morning,” I said sullenly. “And it was negative.”
Silence. Now it was their turn to stiffen.
“So what?” Connor eventually offered. “It’s just one test. It doesn’t mean—”
“After that I ran to the store and bought two more pregnancy tests,” I went on, “this time different ones. I took them both right there in the bathroom. Neither came back positive.”
A warm hand squeezed my shoulder. On the other side of me, a pair of lips kissed the top of my head.
“It’s alright then,” Aiden told me. “It’s not the end of the world.”
“Aye,” Connor agreed. “We’ll try again, that’s all.”
“And we still have a dozen embryos, so you won’t need another extraction,” Aiden pointed out.
“And I won’t have to run them out of specimen cups,” Connor joked.
They were trying to make me feel better, of course. In some ways it was even working. I still couldn’t help but feel badly, though.
“Look, mum’s the word,” said Connor. “Wait ‘till tonight, take Elliot’s tests for him. But no matter what, try to relax.”
