Page 34 of Uxpectedly Ever After

I strip off my work clothes that reek of vomit and booze, take a shower, brush my teeth, then pull on my softest, most worn-in pajamas. The ones with the hole in the knee and the faded words across the chest. The ones Banks always smirks at when he sees me in them.

As if I don't have enough to deal with, now I'm thinking about his stupid smirk.

I need to bake. To work out what I’m going to do.

By the time I’m tired enough to sit down, I've got bread dough rising on the counter, a batch of chocolate chip cookies in the oven, and I'm elbow-deep in pie crust. My kitchen looks like a bakery exploded in it, and I keep having to wipe tears away with my forearm to avoid getting flour paste on my face. The apartment smells like vanilla and cinnamon and butter, but even the comfort of baking can't settle the tornado in my chest. I'mgoing to have to tell Banks that our onetime mistake is now an eighteen-year commitment.

I put the kettle on for ginger tea and sink into a chair at my kitchen table. I don’t even clean up after myself, which normally would make me itch in my brain until I fixed it. I try to imagine how the conversation might go, playing it out in my head from every angle over and over and over again.

But no matter how I imagine it going, it always ends in disaster.

For the next three days, I watch Banks like I'm seeing him for the first time.

I notice things I've been pretending not to see for weeks. Like how he fixes stuff around the apartment without being asked or expecting praise. How he leaves my favorite blueberry muffin on the counter with a stupid note that saysEat me, Freckles;). How he remembers I like extra cinnamon in my coffee and adds just the right amount every single time without me having to ask. The way his entire face transforms when he laughs at those ridiculous reality shows we've started watching together—his arm stretched across the back of the couch behind me, not quite touching but close enough that I can feel his body heat radiating toward me like a human furnace.

The terrifying truth slams into me during one of these quiet moments: I can see a future with him. A real one. Where we're more than temporary roommates or a one-night stand that resulted in an oops baby. Where this tiny person growing inside me has his laugh and my stubbornness and both of us to love them.

It scares the absolute shit out of me how badly I want that future. How possible it seems in these quiet moments when we're just existing together in a comfortable silence that makes this apartment feel more like home than it ever did before he moved in.

But nothing says "shit just got real" quite like a positive pregnancy test, and on the fourth day after discovering those two pink lines, reality comes crashing back when Kasen shows up at my door completely unannounced.

"There's my favorite sister!" he says, pulling me into a bear hug that lifts me off my feet.

My stomach immediately revolts. I swallow hard against the wave of nausea as he swings me around like I'm not growing a tiny human that really doesn't appreciate the motion. "I'm your only sister, dumbass."

He sets me down with a grin, then does that stupid complicated handshake-into-bro-hug thing with Banks that all guys seem programmed to do. It makes me roll my eyes so hard I'm surprised they don't fall out of my head.

"How's the roommate situation working out? Has she organized your socks by length and then color yet?" Kasen asks Banks, thinking he's hilarious.

"Every time I do laundry," Banks answers with that stupid smirk that makes my stomach do a series of gymnastics moves that have absolutely nothing to do with morning sickness (okay, constant all-day sickness). "But I've been secretly reorganizing her linen closet to get even."

"Which is a direct violation of house rule number eight," I point out, crossing my arms over my chest partly to look stern but mostly because I’m freaking out that Kasen’s going to realize something’s off, and I need the distance before the guilt eats me alive and I blurt out the truth before I’ve even told Banks.

Kasen looks between us, eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. "Huh. You two seem to be getting along way better than I expected."

There's something in his tone that makes my heart skip. Does he know something? Has Banks said something to him? Oh god, can he somehow tell I'm pregnant just by looking at me?

"So," I say quickly, desperate to change the subject, "What’s up? Please don't tell me you're asking for another favor, because I'm still recovering from the last one." I try to make it sound like a joke, but there's a sharp edge to my voice that even I can hear, and Banks tilts his head, those hazel eyes I’m weak for sweeping over me like he knows something’s off.

"Actually," Kasen says, dropping onto my couch like he owns the place, "I came to tell Banks the good news in person. His apartment is finally going to be ready next week.” My brother turns toward his best friend who’s taken the other side of the couch. “I ran into your landlord this morning while I was getting coffee, and he asked me to let you know."

The room goes completely silent. Like, hear-a-pin-drop silent. My whole body freezes as my eyes dart to Banks, who looks just as blindsided as I feel.

"That's..." Banks clears his throat, and I swear I see something like panic flash across his face. My own heart’s staging an absolute riot against my ribs at the thought of him not being here anymore and for some stupid reason my eyes prickle. "That's great. Thanks for letting me know."

"Figured you'd be stoked to get out of this tiny place and back to your own space," Kasen continues, completely oblivious to the fact that he just dropped a nuclear bomb in my living room. "Plus, I'm sure Clover's dying to have her couch back, right sis?"

I force my face into what I hope resembles a normal human smile but probably looks more like I'm having a stroke. "Yeah. Totally."

The conversation keeps going around me, but I'm not even there anymore. It's like I'm floating above my body, watching myself nod at the right moments while my brain screams one thing on repeat:

Banks is leaving in a week. Banks is leaving in a week. Banks is leaving in a week.

And he has absolutely no idea he's about to become a father.

I have to tell him. Soon. Before I lose my nerve completely.

I spend the entire next day rehearsing what to say. I practice in the bathroom mirror while brushing my teeth, with Mai Tai, the Pothos that lives on my bedroom floor, in the shower where no one can see me cry, during my Business Ethics class where I should be paying attention but instead, I'm writing and rewriting this impossible speech in my head.

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