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For Heaven’s sake, they’d been on one date! The fact that they’d had a fling first and the night of the date as well was more backwards than anything, and of course it was her pregnancy that had precipitated all this.
For all that she kept telling herself to stop worrying and go back to work, it never really took. She could focus for a moment, and then an hour later she realized she was staring into space. Again.
When Miriam knocked and reentered her office, Ashley was beyond relieved that she could give up her pathetic attempts at working while fretting so. "Talk, miss thing," Miriam snapped at her as soon as they were alone in the elevator.
"In the car. Not on camera." That much Ashley would hold to. It had been bad enough that her pregnancy had been revealed to Rafael while he was visiting her at work. She would not add to it by giving the security guards something to snicker over. Miriam practically dragged her to the car. Ashley figured it was probably best to just do as she was told for the moment. It wasn’t like she wanted to be driving tonight, not in the state of mind she was stuck in. The instant her friend was in the car, Ashley let the words tumble out. "I’m pregnant."
For all the air her friend had inhaled to begin nagging, not a word came out. Miriam just stared at her for a moment that stretched into an hour. "Oh my god! Congratulations!"
Ashley actually jumped when the words burst from her friend. "Thanks," she said, trying to smile, but knowing it probably shook.
"Then what was… oh. Is he not the father?"
Ashley quickly shook her head. "No! No, he is. I just hadn’t figured out how to tell him yet, and at this point it was quickly becoming a secret I wasn’t ready to share. It just all sort of fell apart when he brought me soup." She was shocked to find tears already breaking free to run down her cheeks. She was never this emotional, but the day had shaken her. "He was being so sweet, and I should have just told him as soon as I saw him." She swallowed hard, the guilt that she hadn’t done so a lead weight in her upset stomach. "I didn’t."
That seemed to shut her friend up for a lot longer, to the point where eventually Miriam turned and started the car, gesturing wordlessly for Ashley to buckle up as Miriam did the same. They left the parking garage in silence, with Miriam’s hand moving to hold Ashley’s once it wasn’t needed to put the car into drive. The solid warmth of her friend’s hand helped, but she was going to need more than just a hand squeeze if she meant to get through everything that was weighing on her conscience.
It was as they pulled into Miriam’s apartment garage that Ashley realized it was her conscience that had taken the hardest hit. Even without knowing much else, she knew she should have told him. Why did that make it so hard to apologize? Even having thrown him out of her office earlier, it was more for her sanity’s sake than because she thought he was in the wrong.
Miriam opened the passenger car door at Ashley’s side, making her blink and jerk to see her friend already out of the car and holding open the car door. "You looked like you were getting lost in what if-ing yourself. C’mon, I’ll open a bottle of… uh, maybe I shouldn’t. I’ll find you something, and I’ll have a drink."
"I can have a glass. I looked it up online and it said that while it’s on the label as a concern, it seemed like different people were of different minds about alcohol. Moderation was recommended most."
"Okay," Miriam agreed, beckoning. "Then we’ll both have a glass. You can sit down while I cook and tell me what really went down."
Ashley sighed but did clamber out of the car. She winced and put a hand on her stomach, feeling as unsettled now as it had earlier. She pulled the crackers Raf had bought her out of her tote bag. "I’m going to stick to saltines and water first, I think. I’ve… sort of lost my appetite again after everything."
Her slightly taller friend wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I’ll make something gentle. How does chicken and dumplings sound? That’s what my mom always made when she needed comfort food." Miriam moved them into the elevator and then up and into the apartment.
"I can wrap my head around chicken and dumplings. Thanks." Ashley let her friend move her to a position at the kitchen island on a tall chair, taking it and dropping her purse and shoes on the floor under the little ledge.
"You sit, huh? Let me find you a glass of water, and then I’ll find a bottle of wine for us to have with dinner. Probably safer all around that way, right?" Miriam nodded at her own question. "Right. What happened at the office earlier, Ash?"
Ashley found tears threatening again and sniffed them back, wiping her eyes perfunctorily. "I’d said I couldn’t go to breakfast with him this morning because I was feeling sick. I was, but it was morning sickness. Started on and off a couple of weeks ago, that was when I had a feeling I might be pregnant."
"How far along are you?" Miriam smiled at her. "Do you know?"
A sour laugh broke free before she could stop it. "Oh, I’m positive. I’ve had sex twice in the last year, both with Rafael Brantley. Once was last week, once was five weeks ago, the same night I finally got the Apptec contract signed. I know the fucking date." She put her face in one hand, embarrassed at herself. She wasn’t one to drop the f-bomb lightly, but she was tired and not thinking before she spoke.
Miriam’s eyes had widened slightly, but to her credit, her usually talkative friend knew to let Ashley speak with little added input. The woman filled a glass from the receptacle on the door of the fridge, then placed the chilly water in front of her guest.
"Thanks." Ashley sipped from the glass, pleased with the icy chill that flowed down her throat, cooling her insides somewhat and distracting her. But she couldn’t put this off, and telling her friend all her fears would take the crushing weight off her a little. So she told Miriam exactly what had happened, down to every last word. His misogynistic view about "taking care of her" and how he’d said that they could decide if they wanted to get married later, after he uprooted her life and moved her into his apartment. Some of the retelling helped clarify in her mind that she did, in fact, prefer to have him involved, and she hadn’t meant to keep knowledge of his child from him. But that was about as far as she could give herself the credit. At that point it had all been her fears running the show.
Miriam cooked as the tale unfurled, and then they sat down with a glass of wine each and a plate of chicken and dumplings. "You may want to apologize sooner, rather than later," she said after holding her peace for so long. "He’s probably pissed, and if you don’t try to ease his fears, they may rule him just as well as they did you."
Ashley chewed on her lower lip. "Damn and double damn. I think I knew that’s what you’d say, but I wasn’t ready to admit it yet. That was some pretty high-handed bullshit he was spouting."
Her friend reached over and squeezed her shoulder. "I would not judge him based on his first reaction, Ash. Men are never very good at emotions. Children are a big deal. That his first response was wanting to care for you and not questioning if the kid was even his says a lot about him." She was calm, but her eyes didn’t let Ashley offer anything but blatant honesty. "Would he still be at work, do you think?"
"Maybe. Yeah, I expect so. Or at the club, but I don’t think he’d go there in that mood."
"I’ll give you a ride there and wait for you to talk to him so you have an escape route, but I should make you find your own way back to your car." Miriam raised a single eyebrow and Ashley snorted. Her friend was less than impressed with her behavior, clearly.
As soon as they’d finished eating and loaded the dishes in the dishwasher, they drove back into downtown Denver and to Raf’s building. "I’ll be right back. I doubt we’ll manage to have a very long conversation, but we can at least settle a time to have a more thorough discussion. I do owe it to him to see him in person, not just wimp out with a text message." Ashley had to coach herself just to get out of the car and take the elevator up to the floor where the receptionist for the company was. "Excuse me, is Mr. Brantley still in?"
"Yes, ma’am, is there something I can help you with?"
Ashley shook her head. "No, thanks. I’ll just go up and talk with him if that’s okay." The receptionist’s nod was all she needed, though when the woman reached for the phone, she added, "I’d rather you didn’t tell him I was coming. We had an argument earlier, and… well. I think this will go better if he hears my apology before anything else."
