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Rowan was on baby duty today, having taken paternity leave as soon as Ana was born. It had made evenmyovaries pulse to see the gruff, muscled man absolutely melt with a baby in his arms.
Apparently, it kick-started the fucking things.
Nora was a natural mother, despite her fears that her anxieties might get the best of her. She glowed with motherhood, not showing any dark circles or general signs of exhaustion. I guessed life with a newborn was different when you had a man who really stepped up and took care of their kid.
Not to mention Rowan’s entire family, who were back and forth from the birth.
Nora had lucked out in the mother-in-law department.
I was glad for her.
I knew better than anyone what a fucking nightmare it could be. The mere thought of it made me shiver. Technically, the second time around, I had lucked out in the mother-in-law department, too, but it wasn’t permanent, so it didn’t count.
“Is it something with Kip?” Nora demanded. “Has he done something?” Her normally placid and sweet voice had a bite to it now. Rowan had lifted up various parts of my normally shy and timid best friend, including some impressive new claws.
I had to snort at that.
“Yeah, he did something,” I said. “Or his sperm did something,” I corrected.
Nora’s eyes bugged out, getting my meaning immediately. Whatever she had been imagining, this was not it.
“What?” she shrieked. “You’repregnant?”
I gaped around the bakery. Nora had yelled loud enough for the whole place to hear. And we lived in a small town full of people who fucking loved to gossip. Luckily there were only a handful of customers, most of whom were tourists. Our one local had headphones on and was tapping away at a keyboard.
Tina didn’t say anything at the coffee machine, merely raised an eyebrow. The bitch had probably already guessed it. I normally went to her and Tiffany’s place and got shit-faced with them at least once a month, and I’d made excuses this month.
“Say it louder, why don’t you?” I snapped, grabbing Nora’s arm and dragging her out the back to the kitchen.
“You’re really pregnant?” she asked once we had somewhat of a sound buffer.
Unfortunately, Nora had just baked cookies.
My stomach turned again.
Working in a bakery apparently wasn’t so great if you were discovering you had morning sickness.
“Apparently,” I said with a shrug, incredibly uncomfortable with this conversation.
Sure, the missed period, the positive tests, and the raging hormones were all tangible signs that I was, in fact, knocked up. But it was something else entirely having the conversation with my best friend.
It made it really real.
I had to stop myself from vomiting again.
This time it wasn’t from morning sickness.
It was from bone-deep fear.
“Does Kip know?” Nora asked.
“Fuck no,” I replied, paling at the mere thought of having this conversation with him.
Her face turned pensive. “This wasn’t planned?”
“No,” I scoffed, pacing the kitchen. “This wasnotplanned.”
“You didn’t talk about children?” Nora asked gently.
