Chapter Fifteen

Brooke

The next four weeks are bliss. After Cancun, Xavier and I settle into a routine, where he refuses to go two days without seeing me. He either meets me for lunch or dinner or takes me on a date.

He tries to have me stay over as much as possible, but I don’t want to be one of those girls who gets a new man and then abandons her friends. He is the same way, too, because we also hang out with the boys at his home or the clubs.

I notice that Xavier, among other things, is freakishly attentive; it amazes me how interested he is in what I say or do, and in a very short time, there’s almost nothing he doesn’t know about me.

Bonnie, Stella, and I met on a girls’ night out at Empire, where she gave us all the gossip I missed from the wedding. Apparently, so much more happened in those couple of days but because I was so wrapped up in Xavier, I didn’t realize.

Things are going extremely well , I think, getting out of bed and stretching cramped muscles. I feel a delicious ache deep in my loins. Xavier had been insatiable last night, ferocious in his need to have me repeatedly, and I was right there with him. He finally, and with difficulty, peeled himself from my bed at dawn to attend a video conference with a team from Canada.

I take a deep breath as I head into the bathroom and catch a whiff of spoiled bacon. Stella is going to give herself food poisoning if she carries on with this recent habit of hers.

When I emerge from my room I see Stella having bacon and eggs.

“Stella, that meat is off. I could smell it from all the way in there.”

“Sweetie, I keep telling you, you need your nose checked, it’s perfectly good. Does that mean you’re not having any—”

“Absolutely not, thank you.”

I move to the fridge, wrinkling my nose at the pan and fighting off a wave of nausea. I grab the quinoa salad I made last night. That seems to be the only thing I can abide in the mornings.

“You’re up early, though, for someone who spent the night out.” I peel off the Saran wrap and dig in.

“You wish,” Stella says, hiding a snicker in her coffee.

“What?” I stop chewing.

“You wish I didn’t witness the apocalypse that happened in your room last night.”

“Oh my God! You were in? You said you were spending the night with Luke.” Luke is a Calvin Klein model Stella met at a recent photo shoot.

“Nah, I changed my mind. We went out for drinks but I just wanted my own space, so I called it a night. And came home expecting some peace and quiet. But no, Quiet, you were not. Brooke was being bodaciously bad with her billionaire boo… Notice those alliterations? I’ve been practicing it to the beat of the banging headboard.”

“You’re disturbed is what you are.” My cheeks are flushed.

“Hell was I ever disturbed! If I didn’t know better, girlfriend, I’d think you were being murdered in there.”

I’m so embarrassed. “I’m sorry we kept you up.”

“Me? I slept like a baby. There’s no better lullaby than listening to your slutty best friend finally get off. Repeatedly. It’s been a long time coming, Brooke. I’m so proud of you.”

“Oh, God!” I groan. “That is so not happening here again.”

Stella chortled happily. “Don’t stop on my account. The neighbors might complain though…”

“Actually, it was my fault. He shouldn’t have been here at all yesterday.”

“How so?”

“Well, I sort of slipped up and said I love you.”

“Hold up. You love him?”

“I do Stella. God help me, I so love that man. I didn’t even know I said it. I thought I was saying goodnight or something, and by the time I realized what I said, it was too late. He, um, he overreacted.”

“Overreacted?”

“He got all blistering and macho, and next thing I know he’s at the door in the middle of the night demanding I tell him in person over and over again…”

“And then proceeds to fuck your brains out. Oh, Brooke, how freaking hot is that?”

“Well, yeah, in a nutshell. But Stella, you don’t think it’s too soon, do you? Am I being an idiot about this?”

“Uh-uh, you don’t get to second guess or sabotage this, Brooke. You blurted it out because it felt natural. I know you, however long it takes, you’d never say something like that unless it felt right.”

“But he didn’t say it back,” I say in a small voice.

“Oh, you mean he was too busy savoring it to say it back?”

“I mean, how hard can it be? It’s three words. If he feels the same way, surely…”

“I’ve seen that man around you and I can tell you he’s crazy about you. A man would not get that excited over you telling him something like that unless he’d been desperate to hear it.”

Hope blooms in my chest, along with a wave of nausea so strong I have to rush to the bathroom. I barely make it in time to lose my breakfast and then some more down the toilet. I’m still retching when Stella gathers my hair up and gently rubs my back.

When I stop heaving, Stella helps me up and takes me back to the kitchen, fixing me some sweet ginger tea. I’m sipping the tea with some dry crackers when I notice she’s hovering. And looking at me in a strange way.

“I must be coming down with a virus or something,” I explain, touching my forehead. “The same thing happened a couple of days ago.”

Stella shakes her head slowly. “I don’t think it’s a virus.”

I give her a questioning look.

“Brooke, for the love of God, tell me you and Xavier have been careful.”

Her meaning dawns on me. “No, come on, that can’t be. I’m on the pill.”

“Which means you’re not using protection.” Stella throws her hands up in exasperation .

“It’s impossible, I can’t be pregnant.”

“I think you better tell that to the half dozen test sticks I’m getting right fucking now.”

Thirty minutes and five tests later, I know without a shadow of a doubt I’m carrying Xavier’s baby.

“Well, there goes your date tonight for one thing.” Xavier is taking me on a doors-off helicopter ride tonight.

“But I still don’t see how. I’ve been regular.”

“Did you miss any pills?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What about Cancun?”

“Yeah, I ran two packs together to avoid having a period, so no miss.”

“What about when you went to Prudence? Oh, you hadn’t met Xavier then…”

And suddenly I know. I was meant to start a new pack on the day I went home, but I forgot the pack here. I had gone straight from Prudence to Boston to see Steve, so the new pack was delayed for… I count my fingers… three days. I met Xavier on that third night. I’d been so worried about the debt I must have had the days confused.

I look at Stella. “It was that first night I came back from Boston. I left in such a hurry I forgot my pills here…I didn’t start when I should have, and I had been off for a week before then. Stella, what am I going to do?”

“Tell your boyfriend, for starters.”

“I have no clue how to begin to tell him. I don’t even know if he wants kids. The issue has never come up.”

“Now’s the time to bring it up then. And he might take it better than you think. He adores his little niece, doesn’t he?”

I nod.

“He won’t freak out, okay; just tell him.”

God, I hope so .