Page 72 of The Moment You Know

There had been the most horrific silence, ever, as David tried to process what she was telling him.

“You’re positive?” he’d choked out, for a moment hoping she hadn’t actually taken a test, that she was just suspecting she was pregnant—

“Yes. I’ve taken two tests. I’m sorry. I don’t know how this happened. I take the pill religiously.”

He’d taken several deep breaths, as deep as he could given how tight his chest had felt and accepted what she was telling him. And in that moment—which was miles away different from when Paige had told him she was pregnant—several truths rained down on him, some of which were exceedingly unpleasant.

This baby was going to forever change the landscape of his life, irrevocably tying him to Ashley, whom he wasn’t in love with and didn’t want to marry. He also felt a certain amount of guilt, as if he was betraying Paige. And, even though he’d harbored no hope that they would ever be together again, this baby pushed him even farther away from her.

Not to mention … he’d only been divorced nine months.

“You’re pissed,” Ashley had said.

“I’m not pissed.”

“Well, you’re not happy.”

“You don’t seem happy, either,” he’d pointed out.

“I don’t know what I am, to be honest.”

“I don’t, either.”

“Do you want me to get an abortion?”

To David, the word abortion was one of the ugliest words in the English language. He knew he was no friend to feminists, because to him, terminating a pregnancy was killing a child, something he couldn’t live with. He knew that if Ashley aborted this baby, he’d wonder for the rest of his life what the baby would’ve been like and looked like; just like he did with the baby he and Paige had lost.

“No. I don’t want you to get an abortion.” The words came out without a second thought, sealing his fate. “But the question is, do you want to get one?”

“What if I said yes?”

“Then … I wouldn’t be happy,” he’d finally said. “But I know it really isn’t my decision. I can’t make you have the baby, just because I’m against abortion.”

“I don’t want to get an abortion,” she’d told him, sniffling. “But I’m scared, because I won’t be able to do this by myself.”

“And I wouldn’t let you. Jesus. What kind of an asshole do you think I am?”

“I don’t think you’re an asshole, but we’ve only been seeing each other for a couple of months.”

“I know. And it’s a shock, to say the least. But we’re in this together.”

As the bittersweet memory receded, David’s hand stilled and he leaned over to plant a kiss on Jacob’s head, lingering to breathe in the comforting scent of his baby shampoo. Jacob was the single most important thing in David’s life and when it came down to brass tacks, whether or not he’d been played didn’t matter.

However, that didn’t mean he wanted to get played again.

With resolve, David got up to begin his recon for Ashley’s birth control.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long to find her prescription in her designated drawer in the bathroom they shared. He thought he would feel guilty for basically invading her privacy, but he didn’t (at least not enough to stop what he was doing, anyway). He did feel like he was going to get caught at any moment, though, so he quickly pulled the pill packet out of its little storage ‘sleeve’ and almost fell to his knees in relief when he saw that some of the pills were missing. He knew that her last period had been two weeks ago and after examining the packet more closely, it appeared that the correct number of pills had been taken.

However, he remembered Evelyn’s warning that Ashley could be pretending to take her pills and then flushing them and his relief started to dwindle. He thought back over the past two weeks when she’d been all over his dick—they’d had sex almost every day, sometimes twice. So, if she was flushing her pills … all he could do was wait and see if she got her next period and pray like Saint Francis of Assisi that she did. In the meantime, though—until he knew one way or the other—he was going to make sure he didn’t actively do anything more to increase his chances of getting her pregnant.

As it was, he’d done plenty in the past two weeks.

Replacing the pills in the sleeve, he returned it to its place in the drawer. Then, like a soldier preparing for battle, he went to his night stand and took inventory of his condom supply, finding four. He would obviously have to buy more in the morning, but for now, he was golden. Then, trying not to think about Ashley possibly becoming pregnant, he lay in bed and waited for her to come home.

When she did, an hour later, he could see she was just shy of intoxicated, which wasn’t surprising since that was usually how she came home after being out with her friends. Spotting him in bed, bare-chested, with his hands behind his head, she gave him a predatory smile and he knew what was coming—Ashley plus alcohol equaled rough sex.

She held his gaze as she stripped out of her clothes, then straddled his thighs and began kissing him aggressively. It wasn’t too long before she was yanking the bedding off his lower body, then pulling his briefs down, taking his cock in her hand and stroking him with purpose.

---