Page 77 of Dash

When I open the door, Katie looks me up and down like she’s scanning for wounds.

“Did the biker break your heart? Because if he did, I’m going to rip out his spine.”

“I’ll be second in line.” Ivy folds her arms over her chest.

I wasn’t sure whether I should call Ivy, considering I’m going to ask her to lie to Riot, but she was my fucking friend before she was his fiancée and I need them both.

I herd them inside, and wait until they are sitting on the sofa before I start pacing the floor.

“Dayna? What’s going on?” Ivy asks.

“I was just joking about Dash breaking your heart,” Katie adds. “He hasn’t, as he?”

I shake my head. “No, he’s been… amazing.”

“Are we going to need wine for this? Because maybe we should do that first and then get into whatever’s wrong.”

“Well, as much as I would love to drink a glass of wine, hell, the whole fucking bottle I can’t.”

“Sure, you can. You’ve got ten hours before you have to be back at work?—”

“I’m pregnant.” I blurt it out so fast that it jumbles into a nonsense sound.

“You’re what?”

“Pregnant,” I repeat, slowly this time. I glance at Ivy. “And I need you to promise you’re not going to say a single word to Riot about this, which is a shitty thing for me to ask, considering the man is about to become your husband, but just remember I know things about you that go back to when you were very, very young and I’m not afraid to use it to blackmail you.”

Ivy’s mouth is hanging open like it unhinged from the jawbone. “You’re pregnant?”

I wave this off. “Apparently so. You see, my, um, doctor usually sends me a reminder when I’m meant to go and have my birth control injection, but they had some sort of system failure, which meant those messages never went out. I’ve been walking around barely in control of my life as it is thinking it’s fine. The message will tell me when I need to go. Only the universe has a weird sense of humour, and so for seven weeks, I’ve been underthe illusion that I’m having the safest sex of my life when in reality it’s been a conception party in there. Eggs and swimmers just hanging out and going crazy.”

I sink onto the chair in the window, burying my head in my hands. The weight of everything presses down on my shoulders and a sob erupts out of my mouth before I can stop it.

Ivy moves to sit in front of me, her hands resting on my knees. “It’s okay. I know it feels like the end of the world, but it’s not. We’ll help you get through this. We can have play dates. Our kids will be pretty close in age and?—”

I lift my head to look at her. “Play dates? I can’t keep this baby, Ivy. I can’t even afford to pay my own bills.”

I didn’t mean for that to slip out. “What do you mean?”

“I work two jobs just to keep the lights on.” Shame washes through me.

“But you’re out partying every weekend,” Katie says. It’s not accusatory or judging, just curious.

That shame gets worse, because now, I’m going to have to admit something I’ve never said out loud. “I don’t pay for anything when I go out. It’s pretty easy to get men to buy drinks for you if they think you’re going to sleep with them, and a lot of the time, I do follow that through, so… they put out. Don’t judge me, even though you should. I judge me.”

“No one’s judging you here,” Ivy assures me.

“Dash is the father?” Katie pulls a pillow over her stomach.

“I haven’t been with anyone else since the night we got together.” My head is pounding, and my jaw is so tight I can barely unlock my teeth. “I don’t know what to do.”

Katie touches my shoulder gently. “What do you want to do?”

That’s a question I don’t know how to answer. I haven’t had enough time to process the fact there’s a part of Dash growing inside me, let alone work out my life plan for the next eighteen fucking years.

“He’s going to be angry.” I voice the thing that I’m most scared of. “And then he’s going to leave. I can’t let him go.”

“Honey, what makes you think he’s going to leave?” Ivy asks.

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