She pinched her arm and cursed when all she ended up with was a red mark and the twinge of pain that told her this was all too real. There would be no waking up from this. There would only be the consequences of her decisions.
In all her life, she never thought she’d be one of those girls that ended up pregnant accidently. She’d thought she was smart, untouchable. She’d been on birth control not only to regulate her periods, but because she damn well liked sex, and had since she was seventeen. She always used condoms except with Border and Jake. And when the freaking condom had broken, she’d told herself her birth control would handle it so she hadn’t even looked into the morning-after pill.
Because of her lack of planning and poor decisions, she would be having a baby in nine months, and she still didn’t know where she stood with the two men in her life.
Maya knew there were other options to take care of this. Adoption and abortion, for sure, but honestly, she knew that neither of those were for her. She couldn’t end this pregnancy because she was out of sorts. If she’d been younger, unsure of herself and her position in the world, that might have been an option. The same could be said of adoption at that point.
But she wasn’t some twenty-year-old college student without options. Just because she didn’t know who the father was or how Border and Jake would react, didn’t mean she had to make rash decisions.
And yet, as she put her hand on her stomach once more, she knew she couldn’t give this up, couldn’t stop what had come to her and changed her so quickly. She was going to have a baby.
What she would do with that? How she would cope? She had no freaking clue.
The sound of a door slamming brought her out of her thoughts, and she sucked in a breath. She scrambled up, the pregnancy tests scattering across the floor. She cursed and tried to gather them up, but she’d been an idiot and had taken too many. The guys couldn’t find out now, couldn’t find out this way. Tears finally slid down her cheeks, and she didn’t bother to wipe them away. There wasn’t enough time. She never had enough time.
She threw four of the tests away and was about to pick up the other three when the bathroom door opened. Fuck her for not locking it, but she’d been in a state and numb. Not to mention, this was her freaking apartment.
“What’s up, baby?” Jake asked before he froze. His gaze landed on the multiple tests in her hands and the others sticking out of the trash. She was kneeling on the floor, tears running down her face, her hair disheveled and panties dangling around one ankle since she’d been a little stressed during the last few rounds of tests.
He called me baby, she thought. Baby. Oh, there was a baby all right, and it wasn’t her. And maybe if she hadn’t been having a panic attack or stroke at the moment, she’d have said something like that to diffuse the tension. Instead, she opened her mouth like a fish and tried to suck in air.
It didn’t seem to be working too well.
Border slid in behind Jake and looked down at her state before meeting her gaze. She blinked, trying to come up with words, but couldn’t seem to think of anything to say.
“Maya,” Border whispered. “Take deep breaths, honey.” He knelt in front of her, taking the tests from her and handing them to Jake.
“I peed on those.”
Oh, yes, classy. Of all the things to say in this situation, mentioning her urine ranked right up there with a lobotomy.
Jesus, she needed to get her mind in the game or she’d break. Though she wasn’t sure she hadn’t broken yet.
“I think that’s how these things work,” Jake croaked. “You got her?” He seemed to be talking to Border just then, but Maya wasn’t sure what she was seeing. In fact, she couldn’t see through her tears at all.
Border nudged at her ankle, and she sighed so she could slip on her panties. Classy, she thought again. Oh, so classy. He slid his arm under her knees and around her shoulders before picking her up to his chest. She let out a squeak and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“I’m too heavy,” she rasped.
“It seems you might be getting a bit heavier shortly.” He said the damn words so calmly that she wasn’t sure what he was thinking. That was the case with Border, though. She was never sure what he was thinking. Why weren’t the guys freaking the hell out as she was?
That thought dried up her tears, and she was finally able to focus on what was actually going on around her. Jake stood in her living room, her tests clutched in his hands. The veins in his forearm stood out, and on any other day, she’d have thought that was sexy. Yet right then, all she could see was the strain.