Chapter 19

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"MJ! Are you nearly finished in there?"

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Almost, Mum," I called back over my shoulder.

I pushed myself up to my feet and flushed the toilet. My stomach turned again, but I took the couple of steps to the sink and rinsed my mouth with toothpaste and water from the tap. I wiped a towel over my mouth and unlocked the bathroom door.

"You look like crap," she said. She cocked her head at me in concern.

"Thanks," I said sarcastically. "I feel like crap." I hadn"t been able to keep anything down all morning. Not even a piece of dry toast.

"You"re calling in sick from work, aren"t you?" she asked. "No point taking whatever you"ve got to work and spreading it around." She kept a safe distance. As if gastrointestinal viruses were airborne.

"I"ll give it a few more minutes," I said. "It was probably something I ate. No big deal. I"ll be fine."

She looked sceptical, but didn't argue.

"You"re not pregnant are you?" she asked. "I"ve seen those boys of yours. They seem like…red-blooded men to me."

That was a roundabout way of saying she knew I was fucking them. She was another person Oliver and I were keeping the truth about our relationship from. Unlike just about everyone else, she wouldn"t be angry at me for keeping it a secret. She"d probably say she knew it all along. Maybe she did.

"Of course not," I said. "Do you need to use the bathroom?"

"Yes I do." She hurried inside and closed the door behind her. Sharing one bathroom with a house full of other adults got old a long time ago, but it was what it was. Someday soon, I"d move out, and Mum and Dad would have the bathroom to themselves.

I slipped into my bedroom and considered what she asked me. I was quick to dismiss it, but now I gave it more thought, I wasn"t so sure. Birth control wasn"t one hundred percent effective, even if you"re as careful with it as I was.

My head spun with the implications. What would any of my boyfriends think if I was pregnant? Oliver would be all right with it, but the timing wasn"t the best. As for Toby and Cole, I could only guess how they might respond.

How did I even feel about the possibility? I wasn"t ready to try to get my head around it. I needed to know for sure.

I should ask Oliver to take blood for a proper confirmation, but I wasn"t ready to go to him with this yet. Part of me was worried how he"d react, given we couldn"t even tell Cat about us yet, much less a baby.

"What a fucking mess," I said under my breath. And in the next one, "Calm down, Marley. It was probably just the chicken you ate yesterday."

In case it wasn"t, I grabbed up my bag and slipped out the door like I was doing something wrong. Like somehow my mother might follow me out, shaking her finger at me.

It was only a five minute walk to the shops to buy a pregnancy test before returning home. By the time I got back, my stomach had settled somewhat.

"Probably a false alarm," I muttered as I let myself back into the house. I"d worked for Oliver long enough to know sometimes people had symptoms for no obvious reason.

Still, I slipped into the now empty bathroom and quickly took the test. I lowered the toilet seat and sat down to watch the window on the plastic stick.

One pink line to confirm the test was working properly.

Two pink lines to confirm…

"Fuck."

"You look like crap." Eden slid into the seat opposite me.

"That seems to be the consensus today, yes," I said. "I"ll do my best to look less shitty from now on."

She dipped her head. "I"m sorry. I meant you look tired and you obviously need to talk about something. You sounded upset on the phone. Is everything okay?"

I exhaled slowly and ignored my twisting stomach. It wasn"t as bad now as it was this morning, but my anxiety was a lot higher. I"d ended up going to work, but Oliver was at the hospital, leaving the other GPs to work in the surgery. For once, that was a blessing. I didn"t think I could keep myself from blurting it out to him, and I needed to get my head around it first.

"I don"t know," I said slowly. "I mean, no, but I didn"t know who else to turn to."

She put a hand on my wrist and squeezed gently. "You know you can tell me anything, right? What are friends for? Whatever"s going on, I won"t judge you. Promise."

She might not make that promise if she knew the full extent of what was happening in my life. She might hate me instead, but I needed to get this off my chest.

"I"m pregnant," I whispered. Saying it out loud like that made it seem all the more real. Way too fucking real.

Her eyes widened and she started to smile. "That"s fantastic. Isn"t it?" Her smile faded to a concerned frown.

"I"m not sure," I admitted. "I haven"t told anyone else yet. I don"t know how they"re going to respond."

"Do you know…" She looked like she was trying to think how to finish that question.

"Exactly who the father is?" I asked. "No, I don"t. I don"t know how any… Either of them will take it." For now, I had to let her believe I could only have Toby or Cole"s baby growing inside me. That situation was complicated enough as it was.

"How do you want them to take it?" she asked.

"I—" I hadn"t thought about that. How did I want them to respond? Obviously, I didn"t want them to freak out and run away. That would be the worst thing they could do. They"d made it clear they wanted to be with me, but this might change everything.

"I want them to be happy about it," I said finally. "I want them to want to be with me the way Cat"s boyfriends are. I want them to accept this baby as their own, no matter what. But if they can"t do that, I"ll have no choice but to understand and let them go."

My heart ached at the possibility.

"Then you need to tell them," she said. "Give them the chance to figure out how they feel and what they want to do going forward. They have a while to figure it out, right?"

"I guess so. I can"t be that far along." If I was, there"d be no doubt over who the father of my baby was. Before Toby and Cole, there was only Oliver. That would certainly have simplified the matter, but I was almost certain that wasn"t the case.

"So sit them down, and tell them," Eden said, like it was the easiest thing in the world. "They both care about you. They"ll probably be ecstatic. Why wouldn"t they be? This is exciting. I"m so happy for you. Just think, your baby and Cat"s can grow up together. I bet they"ll be as thick as thieves."

"Yeah, I"m sure they will be," I said. Ironic that Oliver and I were talking about that just a couple of days ago. I could be carrying her sibling as we spoke.

"Of course they will," Eden said. "I think we need to celebrate over a cup of coffee. Can I get you one?"

"Maybe just juice," I said. I"d have to cut down on coffee for the next few months. That was going to suck. Although, right now, that was the least of my worries. "Thank you." I managed a watery smile.

"Of course." She pushed her seat back and stood. "Anything for our newest mummy." She grinned before slipping away through the tables towards the coffee shop counter.

"Mummy," I mouthed to myself. I kept my hands on the table to keep them from straying to my belly. Nothing would give me away faster if someone I knew walked through the door. That didn"t stop my mind from straying. Growing inside me was a tiny life that would someday call me Mummy. I"d have to get all of the baby things at some point. A stroller, baby clothes, everything.

No part of this felt real

I dropped my face to my hands and shook my head. This could all very easily become overwhelming. I was starting to understand what Oliver meant when he said that no one was ever ready to have babies. I certainly wasn"t.

"You okay?" Eden set a glass of juice down in front of me and slipped back into her chair to sip her coffee. The smell made my stomach turn.

I lifted my face. "I don"t know how to answer that question. I"m mostly okay but partly completely terrified." I thought about that for a moment. "Actually, I think that"s the other way around. I"m partly okay but mostly terrified."

"You wouldn"t be human if you weren"t feeling a lot of conflicting emotions," Eden said. "This is a lot to process, but you will. It seems like a lot now, but when the guys know and you"ve gotten used to the idea, you"ll start to get excited."

"Are you sure you"re not a therapist?" I teased. "You"re very good at knowing the right things to say."

She smiled. "I watch a lot of those talk shows. Sometimes they make sense."

"You mean the ones where people argue over who might be the father of someone"s baby. Then they do a DNA test. Then people start throwing chairs." I grimaced.

She laughed. "Something like that, but your life will not turn out that way. Besides, I can"t imagine Toby and Cole throwing chairs at each other. They seem to get along pretty well."

"They do," I agreed. "At the moment they do. What if I tell them and everything changes between them? They could end up hating each other because of me."

If that happened, it would break my heart. I cared about them and I knew they cared about each other. To see that end would be devastating. To know I was the cause of it, I wasn"t sure if I"d be able to forgive myself. Would they forgive me?

"Do you really think that"s likely?" she asked.

I picked up my juice and took a sip. "I suppose not, but that"s another thing to worry about until I can talk to them. They may decide they don"t want to share."

Oliver in particular might decide that. Sharing me was one thing. Sharing a baby was another. It was almost funny how I thought the situation was complicated before.

My whole life felt like a ticking time bomb, ready to explode. I wasn"t sure what would happen when the dust started to settle. Would it settle? I hope it would, otherwise I"d be raising this baby by myself.