“Exhausting. Like, really exhausting.”
He didn’t doubt it—she looked wiped, eyes dull and cheeks pink. Though now he thought about it, it wasn’t that windy today.
“I’m making dinner.”
She perked up some at that. “Are you? Let me guess—Italian casserole.”
“You guess right.”
“Well, good. I like your one recipe. I brought leftovers, but it’s only dessert, so that’s perfect.”
“You don’t look so hot,” he said.
“Thanks very much.”
“Can I get you something?”
“I dunno…” She unwound the scarf from her neck. “When’s dinner?”
“An hour.”
“I just want to lie down, I think. I’m all hot and woozy. I hope I don’t have the flu.”
How selfish is it that I hope maybe you do? If it was between that or being pregnant, he knew which one he felt prepared for. “Go lie down, then. I’ll wake you up when it’s ready.”
Only he didn’t. Laurel curled up on his bed and passed out, and he didn’t wake her when the timer dinged. He took the foil off the dish and let the cheese brown, then turned the oven on low. Heather had lent him a book, some novel about broke-ass college guys in the Northwest doing rowing back in the World War II days or something. He stretched out beside Laurel on the bed and stared at the first page and kept on staring, didn’t take in more than six words while he waited for her to wake.
At long last, a hmm, a yawn. A dozy groan and she turned onto her side, eyes blinking open to find him there.
“Dinner smells good. Is it ready?”
“It is.”
“What time is it?”
He looked to the microwave. “Ten twenty-one.”
“Whoa. What?”
“You were beat.”
She sat up. “Jesus. I napped for three hours?”
“Hungry?”
She looked down at her stomach as though conferring. “Very.”
“Good. Me too.”
Beyond hungry, in Flynn’s case. He’d only eaten a fistful of cheese and a few slices of sausage since before his workout. His gut was packed with butterflies, but they weren’t particularly filling.
Laurel moved to the couch and he loaded a couple bowls with dried-out casserole. He made it a whole minute before the clinking of forks drove him to blurt, “You buy a pregnancy test?”
Pausing mid-chew, she studied him with still-sleepy eyes. She swallowed. “No, I didn’t.”
“Not to sound paranoid, but when’d you get your period last?”
She frowned, thinking. “Oh—it was New Year’s morning. I remember I had a champagne hangover and that showed up on top of it.”
“That was almost two months ago.”
“I know, but like I said, sometimes they don’t come at all on the Pill, or just a mini one.”
That didn’t do much to slow his pulse. “Maybe I should go out and get one now. Just so we can rule it out.”
She nibbled her lip.
“Just ask me to. I don’t mind.” And I’m fucking dying inside. No news was not good news. Whoever’d come up with that saying was so full of shit.
“It’s after ten. And it’s snowing.”
“Someplace’ll be open. Star Market.”
“What, in Dorchester?”
“Wouldn’t you sleep better?” He would. He might sleep at all, in fact. “Seriously, it’s no big deal. I’ll get you some Nyquil while I’m at it, in case it’s the flu. I’ll go right now.”
“Maybe…”
“I’m going,” he announced, setting his bowl on the coffee table and reaching for one of his boots. “And I’ll grab tampons, in case it’s just PMS. And Kettle Chips.”
She smiled, seeming to surrender. “You know, there’s something surpassingly manly about a guy who’ll pick tampons up for you without batting an eye.”
“Your pussy doesn’t scare me, honey.”
“No, I daresay it doesn’t. I could come—”
“Nope, you couldn’t. Eat up. Stay warm. Back soon.”
She smiled and shook her head, watching him lace his boots and pull on a hat, something simultaneously soft and fierce about her expression. Or maybe that was a fever brewing.
Twenty minutes later, Flynn was unloading his basket onto the checkout conveyer belt. The young clerk passed his purchases stoically across the scanner—tampons, Nyquil, potato chips, pregnancy test, plus a bottle of red wine. It wasn’t until he handed over the plastic bag that the kid showed any sign of life, saying flatly, “Party time.”
Flynn was tempted to meet the snark with a verbal backhand, but he didn’t have it in him just now. Instead he muttered, “You know it,” and headed for the door.
Pregnant. Pregnant. The word had grown larger and larger over the course of the drive, thundering now, echoing and huge. He let it tumble around his skull as he started the trip back home, windshield wipers batting harmless fluffy flakes aside.
What if she was pregnant? He’d been preoccupied with the thought all day, but it changed now, with the test in his possession. With an actual answer at hand.
Plus that’s not really the question, is it?