AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She just couldn’t tell him the real reason yet, wanting to process it thoroughly first. What would it mean to them as a couple to be pregnant after so short a time?
Yep, some food and some toiletries. Girl stuff.
Replying with a laughing emoji, he assumed it was for feminine hygiene products. Katrina was the neatest woman he’d ever known. When Amber had her period, she informed the universe, leaving all the evidence on display. The enormous box of tampons—plugs, she called them—was left on the back of the toilet, and the trash bin was always overflowing. She’d walk around in her thong with an odd wad of cotton pad wrapped around it.
With Katrina, he’d never known if she had it. He’d tell her she didn’t have to hide it. But she hadn’t hid it; she simply hadn’t had one.
It wasn’t supplies she needed. She arrived at the store, heading to the pregnancy tests. Friends had done it in the past; she’d driven Maggie and Calista at different times to buy the test because they couldn’t risk having the big mouth clerk at the drugstore telling the world. They both did the test in the ladies’ bathroom at Walmart. And they both had positive tests.
Now it was her turn. Peeing on the stick and then resting it on the toilet paper dispenser was like a scene out of a bad high school drama. Katrina got her phone and set the timer for two minutes. When the chimes rang, she picked up the stick.
Pregnantin pink letters. With trembling hands, Katrina stuck the test back in the wrapper and put it in her bag. Pregnant! She was in shock.
A sense of hysteria passed over her, so she waited for a moment, standing at the sink, washing her hands again before she left to shop.
She grabbed a cart and bought all the things Dave had asked for. Roast chicken and salad kits and frozen mac and cheese. Sandwich stuff and ice cream and cookies. Anything that caught her eye she bought for him, several hundred dollars’ worth.
The store experience had reached Katrina’s saturation point, so she got through checkout, focusing on the task to prevent becoming overwhelmed. The odd thing was she had wanted to get pregnant! She’d even asked Alphé about it. But later, she’d discovered from Calista that Alphé had had a vasectomy. It wasn’t Alphé’s baby.
A flood of relief washed over her. With eyes closed for a moment, the first vestiges of joy made an appearance. She was pregnant withDave’sbaby. And he was the love of her life.
The cashier asked for her credit card. She opened her eyes and handed it over. How was she going to tell Dave that after such a short time she was pregnant? It fit her time schedule almost perfectly, but what about his?
A rare domestic feeling swept over her when she loaded up the back of the car with groceries. They were going to be parents. Everything was going to change and it would happen fast. They were so self-indulgent, scratching every itch, and how wonderful it had been. It was the honeymoon period of a relationship, difficult to maintain for long. Soon—in less than nine months—if he didn’t flee, their needs would be in second place.
But the flip side of this was they were adults. They’d sowed their oats, so to speak, and at least she had traveled and done everything that she was supposed to do when you’re young and single. If Dave hadn’t done it, would he feel trapped?
The ride back to Cypress Cove was surreal. She still hadn’t fully acclimated to living in Louisiana, especially a backwater like the Cove. But being in the same town as her two best friends was a dream come true. How many people could say they grew up with the same people who they still talked to daily?
And now they would all have babies together, Annie first that summer, then Maggie, who had just found out she was pregnant not long before in early fall, and finally Katrina.
The dilemma was how to tell Dave. Her gut response was to do it immediately, that minute, call him while he was at work like how Annie had told Steve.
Or do a surprise dinner with a baby cake, like Maggie had done. Justin came home to a glamorous,dressed for an evening outgirlfriend. As soon as he saw Congratulations, Daddy written on the cake, he knew.
Neither was Katrina’s style. She needed to ponder it for a while, even over a couple of days. Dave couldn’t afford to be distracted at his work, either. He dealt with criminals every day and she didn’t want to jeopardize his safety in any way.
Finally, she decided the best time to tell him was over the weekend. It would give him the chance to recover before he had to return to work.
Then, as luck would have it, he pulled up behind her when she got home. Smiling, she waved to him in her rearview mirror.
“You must have ESP.”
“You shared your location on my phone,” he said, laughing, holding it up for her to see. “I’m here to help you unload. I figured anyone who spent over an hour in Walmart was bringing home a haul.”
“Jeez, was I in there that long?” she asked, hugging him.
“Wow, look at all this deliciousness,” he said, holding up a half gallon of Moose Tracks ice cream.
“Yeah, I saw it and your name crossed my mind. I forgot how many other flavors I bought. We might take some of this to your father’s house because we won’t have the room.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Dave said, looking through the bags. “You forgot something.”
“What?”
“Where’s your girl stuff?”
A hot flash swept over her, remembering the empty box for the pregnancy test would be in there somewhere. Pretending to tease him, she grabbed the bags.
