Page 27 of Tap In

Her eyes were misty. “Yeah, that’s six months, and yes, you’re the father.” She dropped her head for a second. “I know you might not believe me, but we can take a test.”

“I believe you,” I confirmed. “What I want to understand is why I’m just now finding out? Furthermore, I had to find out from someone that wasn’t you. That’s what blows me about this situation. Were you going to tell me?”

One of her shoulders lifted. “I mean, yes. I had planned to tell you at some point. There was a lot going on with the terms of our not-relationship. Plus, you live in Vegas and?—”

“Stop playing with me, Jacobia. I hear a lot of bullshit excuses on why you didn’t tell me about my baby. I don’t give a damn what we had going on. I deserved to know from the moment that stick said you were fuckin’ pregnant.” I didn’t want to hear the stupidity that she allowed to come out of her mouth. “As far as me living in Vegas, you act like I don’t own a home here. Let’s not act dumb.”

She held her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay! I was scared to tell you. Is that what you want to hear me say? You had just told me that we were cutting ties, then boom, I’m pregnant. Do you know how that looks? It looks like I trapped you or some shit.”

“There you go again with spitting dumb shit out of your mouth.” I shifted to face her. “Jacobia, how the fuck did you trap me when I came over here unexpected and fucked you raw? It wasn’t a mystery of whether or not you were on birth control. We established a long time ago that you weren’t, hence why we always used condoms.”

Jacobia had a horrible reaction to birth control when she was younger, so she opted not to use it. That night wasn’t the first time that we had sex unprotected. It was the first time that we had unprotected sex, and I didn’t pull out or she didn’t take a Plan B pill.

She sucked her teeth, pulling my thoughts back into the room. Her brow lifted. “From the way you say that, it sounds like you trapped my ass.”

FOUR MONTHS EARLIER…

“Lark,if you think you’re pregnant, then take the test or go to the damn doctor. You act like you’re scared when you and that man are trying to get pregnant.”

This girl was getting on my nerves. We were sitting on the stools at my kitchen island, and she looked like she wanted to jump out of her skin. From what she told me, Chance had been blowing her back out because he wanted a baby. Now she was acting scared like she didn’t know unprotected, no birth control sex equaled pregnancy.

Lark cut her eyes at me. “Shut up. I’m going to take the test. You see me reading the instructions don’t you.”

All I could do was give her a blank stare. “Bitch, take the stick out the pack, open the top, pee on the stick, put the top back on, then sit it on the counter until the window reads pregnant or not pregnant.” I shook my head. “How old are we?”

“Girl, hush. Come on and take one with me. I don’t want to do it alone,” she said. Before I could say no, she grabbed my hand, pulled me off my stool, and dragged me down the hallway to my downstairs bathroom.

When she reached the pregnancy test out to me, I snatched it from her. “You’re lucky I love your ass. We need to go upstairs so we can take them at the same time.”

My master suite bathroom had two toilets in private rooms. It was like a his and her type of thing. We both went into the separate rooms to take our test. Unlike Lark, I didn’t need to read instructions. Minutes later, both of us were out of the rooms, with our test on a paper towel on the counter and washing our hands.

“Alright, I’ll read yours, and you read mine,” Lark suggested. That was cool with me. “What you think yours is going to say?”

I turned my nose up at her. “The hell you mean, what do I think mine is going to say? My shit is going to say not pregnant. Don’t play with me.” We stared at each other for a beat before we chortled.

The timer went off, and we both picked up each other’s test. My smile exploded on my face when I read hers. “Yes, I’m going to be an auntie-god mama!” I jumped up and down.

“Well, bitch, it looks like I’m going to be an auntie-god mama too,” she said with peaked brows.

Her words stopped my jumping. When she turned the test around so that I could see the result window, I snatched the test from her. “What the fuck? This must be a damn defective test. There is no way.”

Lark stepped closer to me. “Jacobia, there’s nothing wrong with those tests. We just brought them. When was the last time you had sex?”

“Lark, I haven’t had sex since…” My head dropped back. “Fuck! This can’t be life right now.” I had tears in my eyes when I lifted my head. “The last time I had sex was the morning after your wedding, with Joston. This test has got to be wrong.”

Lark’s eyes softened. “Best friend, did y’all use protection?”

I shook my head. “It was a spur of the moment fuck.” I put the test down. “Nah, that test has got to be wrong.”

“If it’s not wrong, what are you going to do?” she asked. “The likelihood of this test being wrong is slim to none. Let’s step out of denial city for a moment. You’re pregnant with Joston’s baby.”

This had to be a joke. The universe was a whole bitch for this. Fuck me.

* * *

BACK TO THE PRESENT…

After I got confirmation from my doctor that I was pregnant via a blood test, I had a lot of decisions to make. One of them that I did make almost immediately was not to tell Joston yet. I had to swear my best friend to secrecy. Her ass loved to pillow talk with her husband. If she told Chance, there was no doubt that he would tell Joston. I stopped going around Chance when I started showing. Lark fussed at me weekly about not telling Joston.

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