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All the right words are coming from his mouth, but it doesn't stop me from blaming myself. I was the one who told Alec about Easton's former drug addiction. I basically gave him a Trojan horse. If Easton is lying, if he relapsed, that's just as much my fault as it is anyone else's.
“I'm going to take this, and then this will all be put to rest,” he tells me. “Okay?”
I nod and he presses a kiss to the top of my head before going to the bathroom with Knox in tow. Amelia goes over to Zayn and sits on his lap. He wraps his arms around her and breathes in the scent of her hair. She looks up at me.
“He's right, you know,” she says. “You didn't cause this.”
I wish I could believe that.
Walking over to the couch, I sit down and let myself get lost in my thoughts. This whole time, I was being so selfish. I should've told Alec that there was no future between us the second he mentioned the possibility of one. He saw Easton as competition he needed to sabotage because of me. Because I didn't have the balls to tell him no. That I'm not interested. That I don't want him.
A few minutes later, Easton and Knox come back out with a cup full of piss. Easton puts it down on the coffee table while Knox pulls on a pair of gloves. He carefully opens the cup and dips a card with multiple strips inside of it. After twenty seconds, he takes it out and places it on a piece of cardboard ripped off a pizza box.
Seconds pass like hours as we wait the five minutes for the results to show. No one says a word. Easton scrolls through his phone like it's just another day, his other hand resting on my leg. He runs his thumb back and forth in a soothing motion. Finally, the timer goes off, and Knox bends forward to read the results.
“Oh, thank fuck,” he says in relief, falling back onto the couch. “It's negative.”
The feeling that floods through me is so much more. It's reassuring. It's a weight lifted off my chest. It's everything. Not only did he not relapse, but he had the ability to and he resisted. He had the drugs in his hand, and he overpowered the part of him that craved them.
He fought his demons and he won.
“I told you it would be,” Easton says, unfazed.
Zayn looks like he's finally able to breathe again. “Can you really blame us for questioning it?”
E opens his mouth to say something, but then clamps it shut again and shakes his head.
“Hey.” Z gets his attention again. “I'm proud of you.”
Knox reaches over and pats his shoulder. “You're stronger than we give you credit for.”
“I thought about it,” he confesses. “Taking them.”
“What stopped you?” Amelia asks.
He looks over at me and puts his hand on my belly. “My family.”
I'm shocked into silence as he gives me the same smile that made me fall for him in the first place. It's a patient one, like he could spend all the time in the world just looking at me. The one that shows his vulnerable side just enough to draw me in, but not enough to make him seem less manly. And if I wasn't so busy blaming myself for all of this, I might have kissed him.
Tilting his head to the side, his brows furrow. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie with a small grin to make it believable. “The baby is just making me uncomfortable, and super tired. Stress and pregnancy don't mix well.”
He runs his knuckle down my cheek. “Why don't you go take a nap in my room? We'll order lunch, and I'll wake you up when it gets here.”
I think it over for a second, but then a yawn pushes its way out. “Okay, yeah. A nap sounds good.”
Getting up from the couch, I slip by Zayn and Amelia and head up the stairs. As I do, I can hear them still talking about exactly the topic I'd like to avoid now.
“If you didn't do the coke, what did you do with it?” Z asks.
“I flushed it, baggie and all.”
I get to the top of the stairs and slip into Easton's room. Every inch of it smells like him, like his cologne, and it relaxes me in a way nothing else can. I climb into his bed and inhale the scent of his pillow.
It's fine.
Everything is fine.
