Page 33 of Sweet and Wild

I roll my eyes and turn back to Zadie before picking up my menu. “So, what’s good here?”

“Girl, you know everything is good here. You’ve been away too long.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lemon

Eighteen years old

Ipace the floor of my tiny bedroom and stare at the object in my hand. Positive. I squeeze my eyes tightly closed and sit on my bed.

“Lemonade?” Wyatt bursts into my room. “Mama says …” He frowns, staring at the expression on my face and then his eyes slide to the pregnancy test in my hands.

“Oh, fuck!” For a minute he just stands there and stares, and then I start to cry and he closes my bedroom door and comes to sit by me on the bed. “What’s it say?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Holy shit.”

“I’ve barely finished high school. I got plans for college.”

Wyatt frowns and pulls away. “What?”

“I got a scholarship for art school in New York.”

Wyatt shakes his head. “You’re leavin’? Since when? Do Mama and Daddy know about this?”

I shake my head. “No one does. I didn’t even know how to tell Colt.”

“But … you’re not leaving now, right? I mean, you can’t move to New York now that you’re pregnant.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know, Wyatt. I don’t know what the hell to do.”

“Lemonade?” Colt calls from the stairs, and Wyatt jumps to his feet.

“Shit. What do you want me to tell him?”

I wipe the tears from my cheeks and stash the pregnancy test under my pillow. “Nothing. He’s gotta find out sometime, right?”

“Wait, you’re gonna tell him with Mama and Daddy on the front porch?”

I roll my eyes. “I’m not stupid, Wyatt.”

“You’re righ—”

“Lemon?” Colt calls from the other side of the door and opens it wide. His smile dissolves instantly. “Darlin’, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Let’s just go.”

“Lemon?”

“Bye, Wyatt.” I jump up off the bed and grab Colt’s hand, leading him down the stairs. “Come on, before Daddy changes his mind about letting us go to the fair.”

We head out to Colt’s truck and I pull him toward the vehicle before Daddy can stop us for another lecture. As if he can read my mind, my father calls, “Not a minute after ten.”

“Eleven,” I counter.

“Lemon,” he warns.

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