Page 57 of Creed

I stare at my bag, which has the unopened pregnancy test in it.

Panic brews as I pace the dorm room. The notification of another text from Creed sounds, grounding me for some reason and easing my rising panic.

Angel. Please

The memory of the heartbreak etched on his face when I left him comes back with a vengeance with those words. My hands shake as I type.

I need your help

Anything

I need to take a test

I don’t want to take it alone

I watch as he receives the cryptic yet loaded message and reads it. Immediately, the three dots appear.

I’ll be there in ten

He understands the subtext of what I said. No questions, only a commitment to be here for me.

He didn’t tell me to fuck off, especially after I’ve ignored his persistent daily efforts to reach out to me and am only doing so now because I might be in a jam. A jam, like being a single mom.

You’re my good girl… You’re my angel… You’re mine…

Those words of the past rattle me right to the cellular level.

Gripping my phone, I hold it to my lips. I’m not sure just what exactly I’ve done.

Chapter 18

Creed

Our meals have justarrived, but when I jump up from the table, Andro grins and spears the steak off my plate to add it to his. “Go get your Minnie, brother.”

I race out of the restaurant and across the street to my Ferrari. Greer, a Santoro Ventures Inc. security team member from our local crew, steps away. “Thanks, Greer. Go join Andro and order whatever you want.”

I gun the engine and peel into traffic like I’m re-joining a Formula 1 race after a pit stop.

I can’t focus on what lies before me once I arrive at my destination. Or that my angel—my soulmate—has finally responded to me. Or that she needs totake a testand doesn’t want to take it alone. I just focus on getting to her as fast as humanly possible without killing myself or anyone else in the process.

Sophie dropped a pin where she wanted me to pick her up off campus. She’s waiting for me on the corner and quietly gets into the car when I stop at the curb.

Staring at her and inhaling her honey scent is all I can do as my hands grip the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles turn white.

“Thanks for coming.” Her voice is so soft, and her eyes are downcast. I ache to haul her into my arms, to chase away the sadness that clings to her like a shrouded veil. “And thanks for picking me up off campus.”

I suspect she doesn’t want to be seen with me, to have a known link to me that her family can find out about.

The fact that she responded today after fifty-nine days of agonizing silence…

I know it’s because she feels she’s in a jam and not because she’s changed her mind about us. But I’d be a lying sack of shit if I denied that the possibility of her carrying my child isn’t absolutely fucking with my head in the best way possible.

I want that so badly, even if this is horrible timing and not the circumstances I dreamed about if we’d ever be expecting a child.

I want it, not because it would tie her to me or that I would force a marriage on her, but because she’s the only one I’ve ever envisioned that future with. The only one I’ve everwantedthat with.

Drivers are getting pissed off because I’m in a no-parking zone. When a driver blares the horn in frustration as they pass, Sophie glances at me.

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