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“Yes and no. The fight came after I said I was leaving.”
“So why did you?”
Rose looked out the window and stared at the cars coming and going all around her, at the children holding their parents’ hands as they walked into the restaurant or down the sidewalk in front of it. A little blond girl tugged at her father’s arm and pointed excitedly at a dalmatian on a red leash across the street.
“I realized I made a huge mistake,” she said. She heard Morgan inhale.
“I could just start listing them, but that might take a while, so you might as well tell me.”
“You do know this isn’t the best time to give me shit, right?”
Morgan sighed. “I know. I’m sorry, I just keep expecting you to say something really bad and I’m not sure how to handle it.”
There had been a time when Rose never would’ve imagined that she’d be calling her sister with this type of news. There had been a brief period when they hadn’t spoken through no real fault of their own; when Morgan had gotten pregnant and had been kicked out of their parents’ home, Rose had been young enough to be grounded whenever her parents had caught her trying to talk to the daughter they’d still been furious with—or they’d tried to ground her, but since she’d been in college, it had only really worked when she’d been home, so she’d started coming back less often. Rose didn’t know whether they’d actually gotten less overbearing since she’d moved out permanently or whether they’d just realized there wasn’t much they could do without her living in their house, but she’d spent her last few years in college rebuilding her relationship with her sister, and now, it was hard to imagine calling anyone else, except maybe Lenore. Given what Morgan had been through, Rose knew she was the most likely to empathize.
“I never should’ve broken things off with Luke,” she said.
“Luke? I don’t even remember the last time you talked about him.”
Rose felt herself starting to blush for what had to be the tenth time over the past twenty-four hours, and she glanced on reflex back toward Luke’s office as she mentally cursed herself for it. “I was with Alex. What was I supposed to do, tell you I never stopped loving my ex?”
A beat of silence followed. “Well, yeah, if that’s how you really feel.”
“It is. I love him, Morgan.”
“What about Alex?”
Rose fidgeted in her seat. “I care about him. I really do. He’s one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and I don’t want to lose him, I just… I don’t love him that way anymore.”
“Then I’d say you made the right decision.”
A bit of the tension radiating through Rose’s body relaxed. “Thank you.”
“But what brought it on?”
Rose swallowed. She still didn’t know the best way to give this news—her opportunity to tell Luke had been taken away from her. Now that she had the chance to tell her sister, her throat was tight, her pulse rapid.
“I’m pregnant.” The words still felt wrong, like her lips wanted simultaneously to reject them hard enough to spit them out and to close and trap them inside in denial.
“I… did not see that coming.”
“Wow. Insightful.”
“Well obviously I’m thrilled for you.” Morgan’s pleasant tone supported her words. Rose knew her well enough by now to know when she was lying, and at the moment, she was being genuine. “It just seems like a difficult time to take on the added stress of two ridiculous men.”
Rose laughed, and the sound cracked through more of her worries. Her sister didn’t seem to be judging her and hadn’t demanded she turn around and go back to Alex.
“Does he know?” asked Morgan.
“Which one?”
“I never thought we’d have to ask that question with you, but either.”
Rose felt her blush deepen. Her sister’s tone was teasing, but a bit of her guilt had returned with the words. Luke and Alex were the only two men she’d ever slept with. She’d waited almost a year after her engagement had ended to accept Alex’s offer to take her out for dinner, and the two of them had taken things slowly, despite the rumors that had circulated that they were dating long before that. They had been close friends, yes, and they had still hung out like nothing had changed, but the trip to the Chinese restaurant a few streets over from her parents’ home had been the first official date. She supposed she hadn’t been completely sure whether she’d been ready to pursue another relationship so soon after losing Luke, but she’d felt comfortable around Alex. It had been easy to let things progress after she’d decided she was willing to, and they had been together ever since, until now. Rose knew she should probably feel worse than she did about having sex with Luke so soon after leaving Alex, but she was finally sure of what she wanted, and she was ready to have it and to undo the damage she’d done to her relationship with Luke all those years earlier. She couldn’t lie to Alex and pretend that she felt something she didn’t.
“Luke knows,” she said. “Which doesn’t make any sense, because I hadn’t told…” Rose’s eyes widened as she remembered where she’d left the pregnancy test: the trashcan at her apartment. She felt as though the breath had been crushed from her lungs. “Alex found the test. That’s the only way Luke could’ve found out. I didn’t think about it because I was too busy trying to explain why I hadn’t told Luke sooner, but—oh, shit.”
Her pulse quickened, her heart beating so hard and fast against her ribs that she had to pause to take a few long, deep breaths.
