Page 22 of Maple Sugar Mix-Up
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said in annoyance. “I can’t find my toothbrush or… oh!” He smacked himself in the forehead. “Ugh. I packed up an overnight bag after our date, in case I stayed at the cottage. I must have left it there.”
“Do you have an extra toothbrush? Was anything in the bag important?”
“I’ve got an extra somewhere. It isn’t the end of the world, it was just…” He trailed off and his face paled. “Oh fuck. No. No!”
“What?” I cried in alarm.
Ashton sagged against the counter with another curse. “My pills…”
“What pills?”
He looked at me, eyes wide in horror. “My birth control pills! I take them at night! I didn’t take them the night after we… we… Gods, how did it slip my mind? An entire fucking week!”
Now I knew why he was panicking. “You were in the hospital,” I said, hoping to calm him down before I freaked out too. “You had a lot to think about.”
“Still… shit.”
“How um… how long can you miss them before…”
“I don’t know…” He reached into his pocket. “No phone.”
I pulled mine out. “What are they called?”
Ashton limped over to me and I handed my phone to him. After a minute of staring at it, he groaned. “It says if you miss a dose you should take it as soon as possible and shouldn’t have sex without another method of protection for 72 hours.”
“We just did it once though,” I said. “The odds are…”
“Slim, I guess. I just… Gods, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. At all.”
Ashton sighed. “What if…”
“Then we’ll… we’ll figure it out. Okay? First, why don’t you focus on recovering.”
I settled him into bed and headed home. I did my best to act like I wasn’t internally freaking out, but I was. What if I had gotten him pregnant?!
Chapter Seven
Ashton
Over the next few weeks, Jace and I started an extremely casual relationship. Almost like a friendship, aside from some sex; this time with condoms, as I was advised not to start my pills again until I knew if I was pregnant.
Things with Jace were great. He was obviously uncomfortable not making much money, but he honestly didn’t seem like he was upset I was wealthy. He had yet to ask to borrow even a cent and had declined a couple of my offers. We found cheap dates to go on and once in a while he let me buy dinner.
But now…
“Well?” he asked, hovering over my shoulder.
“You see it too,” I said, indicating the single pink line on the display. “We still have a minute to go.”
My heart was pounding as I waited, eyes flicking from the pregnancy test to the stopwatch on my phone.
I was just starting to think we had dodged a bullet, when Jace sucked in a breath. My eyes darted back to the test and my throat closed up. A second pink line was appearing.
“Oh no,” I breathed. I turned to Jace, horrified. “Jace… I feel fine. Normal,” I said, still reeling. “I don’t feel pregnant.”
