Forever Bonded (BWWM Pregnancy Romance) (9 page)

“Uh-huh,”
Kelly said. “Well in that case, would you mind taking another look at the menu
for the Willis banquet? I found a few entrées containing peanuts, and one of
their daughters is allergic. It’s a liability waiting to happen.”

“Sure
thing,” Zoë said, shuffling through her filing cabinet to find the menu in
question. “I should have been more thorough. I’ll rectify it and have it on
your desk by the end of the day.”

“No rush,”
Kelly said. “Take your time. I’d like this version to be up to par with your
usual selections.”

“It
will be.”

Kelly
thanked her and started to leave, but she stopped in midstride and paused in
the doorway. “Are you sure everything’s okay?” she pressed. “You seem a little
down about something.”

“I’m
fine,” Zoë insisted, forcing a smile. “Never been better.”

Chapter seventeen

Zoë
rushed up the flight of stairs that led to her apartment, keeping the pharmacy bag
in her hand as hidden as possible beneath her purse. With her head hung low,
she fumbled with her keys to unlock her front door and froze when she heard a
familiar voice call out to her from down the hall.

 
“Looks like you ain’t dead after all,”
Aniyah remarked, giving her a slow once over. “I was really starting to think
you were. You know, considering you’ve been dodging my calls and texts for damn
near a month. Shit…if I’d known you’d be this upset with me for skipping out on
movie night I would have taken the bus.”

Zoë
shrugged off her friend’s words and turned to unlock her deadbolt. She didn’t
have time for this. There were much more pressing matters on her mind.

“What’s
this?” Aniyah questioned when she caught sight of the pharmacy bag pressed
beneath Zoë’s arm. “You aren’t sick are you? Because if you are…I’m gonna have
to go. I’m not trying to come down with something this close to my wedding.”

“I’m
not sick,” Zoë reassured her.

Aniyah
relaxed and followed Zoë inside her apartment, taking a seat on her sofa as she
responded to a text from Caleb.

Zoë
excused herself and entered her bathroom, locking the door behind her. With her
eyes steadied on her reflection, she shook the contents of the pharmacy bag
into the sink and tensed when two pregnancy tests came spilling out. She
couldn’t do this. Not alone, anyway.

“What’s
going on?” Aniyah questioned when Zoë tore into the living room, frowning at
the crazed expression on her face. “You look like you’re about to throw up.”

“I might,”
Zoë admitted, struggling to catch her breath. “I just…I need you to come with
me.”

 
“Come with you where?”

 
“The bathroom,” Zoë said as though it
was common sense, motioning for her to follow.

Aniyah
hesitated as she watched Zoë disappear down the hall, but her curiosity got the
better of her and she was quick to follow.
 
“I knew your ass was sick,” she said as she entered the
bathroom and took a seat on the edge of the bathtub. “If I’m not in perfect
health when I walk down that aisle, I’m blaming you.”

Zoë
sighed and turned to look at Aniyah for the first time since she’d entered the
bathroom. “You will be,” she said, picking up a pregnancy test and tossing it
over to her. “Last I checked, pregnancy isn’t contagious.”

Aniyah
gasped and brought her hand up to her mouth. “But how can you know for sure?”
she questioned after taking a moment to adjust to the idea. “I mean…there are
plenty of reasons a period can come late. Do you know how many pregnancy scares
Caleb and I have had that ended up being nothing?”

“Thus
the test,” Zoë clarified, nodding at it.

Aniyah
nodded and glanced down at the instructions. “Well you know what you need to do
next,” she said, handing the box back to Zoë. “Pull down them pants and get to
peeing. There’s no sense in holding off the inevitable.”

Zoë
hesitated before rummaging through her medicine cabinet for a cup. Once she was
ready to do the deed, Aniyah stepped out into the hall and waited on the other
side of the door for further confirmation.

“I
bought two tests,” Zoë called out to her when she was done peeing. “Do you
think I should take the other one too?”

 
“Duh,” Aniyah replied, stating the
obvious.

Zoë
sighed and reached for the second box.

 
“I think it’s been long enough,” Aniyah
called out after a full minute had passed without Zoë saying anything. She
reentered the bathroom to find her sitting on the lid of the toilet with her
head in her hands.

 
“I know,” Zoë said. “I just…I can’t
bring myself to look.”

Aniyah took
that as an invitation and snatched up both tests before Zoë could stop her.
When she didn’t anything, Zoë looked up at her and tensed when she caught sight
of the lackluster expression on her face. “Shit,” she muttered, rubbing her
temples.

Aniyah
set the tests back down and rubbed Zoë’s back in an attempt at comforting her.
“Let me guess,” she said, giving her friend a serious look. “It’s Nate’s?”

Zoë’s
silence spoke for itself.

“What
are you going to do?” Aniyah questioned.

Zoë
knew Aniyah was referring to Audrey and the very delicate condition she was in
as well, but she didn’t bother commenting on it. She was already well aware of
what a ratchet situation she’d gotten herself into. The very last thing she
needed right now was a lecture. “I don’t know,” she said instead. “I haven’t
thought that far ahead yet.”

 
“I figured,” Aniyah said. “I just don’t
want you thinking you don’t have any other options but to go through with this.
We live in a post-Roe v. Wade world. Besides, every woman’s entitled to one
good fuck up.”

Zoë
gave her friend a disapproving look. “You know how I feel about that,” she
reminded her. “I’d never judge you for your life choices. You know that. That’s
just…it’s not for me.”

Aniyah
looked momentarily wounded by Zoë’s words, but she was quick to recover. “Of
course,” she said. “I mean, it’s not like you’re not equipped to handle this.
You’re not a teenager like I was. You’d be fine with a kid.”

“You
think?” Zoë questioned, obviously skeptical.

“Of
course,” Aniyah replied. “And Nate—”

“Nate’s
got enough problems as it is,” Zoë interrupted. “I’m not about to be his next
one.”

Chapter eighteen

“It’ll
be fine,” Zoë reassured herself, exhaling a deep sigh when she realized she
didn’t sound all that confident. She was standing in front of her bathroom
mirror refreshing her make-up for Aniyah’s rehearsal dinner, but her eyes kept
darting down to her stomach. The chiffon blouse she was wearing did its part in
disguising her slight bloatedness, but pretty soon no amount of silk in the
world would be that forgiving.

Zoë
would have been a liar if she didn’t acknowledge that part of her reluctance in
attending this dinner had to do with Nate. After a long day of work and trying
to fight off the many symptoms of her condition, she simply wasn’t in the mood
for a night full of awkwardness. Which was why it came as a huge relief when
she entered the ornate banquet hall where the dinner was being held to find him
nowhere in sight.

Zoë
stood back and took a moment to study her surroundings. The tables in the
center of the room were packed with guests immersing themselves in high-priced
hors d'oeuvres, and the sound of clanking wine glasses seemed to echo off the
walls. Zoë breathed out a silent sigh of relief when she was sure Nate was
nowhere to be found amongst the crowd. Holding her head high, she stepped
forward from the shadows and settled into the empty chair beside Aniyah as she
worked at catching up with the conversation.

“The
food looks great,” Zoë spoke up when she noticed Aniyah eyeing her for an
explanation for her tardiness. “I’m glad to see you went with my recommendation
and got Endive to cater. Tia would kill me if she knew I was saying this, but
they’re the best.”

“They
really are,” a robust woman Zoë didn’t recognize spoke up from the other side
of the table. “I got them to cater my rehearsal party as well. Best thousand I
ever spent.”

Zoë
smiled at her as she spread a fine layer of butter on a piece of garlic bread
and bit into it. High-carb foods were just about the only thing she could
stomach these days, but if this pregnancy had taught her anything, it was that
her cravings could change at any given moment.

Zoë
looked across the table in acknowledgment of the other guests as Aniyah and
Caleb made the introductions. It never ceased to amaze her that they’d been
together since their freshman year of college and still managed to make things
work. She wasn’t bitter, at least she didn’t think she was, but she couldn’t
act like she hadn’t hoped for a similar outcome for her and Nate.

Zoë
grimaced at her internal dialogue. She knew she shouldn’t have been making the
comparison. She and Nate weren’t Aniyah and Caleb. They were different people
entirely, and it was ridiculous of her to expect their lives to follow the same
path. Sometimes things just happened, and there wasn’t any rhyme or reason for
it. Zoë couldn’t deny that when she had the proof sprouting to life beneath her
blouse.

Just as
Zoë was putting an end to her pity party, the door to the banquet hall swung
open and Aniyah jumped up to greet whoever was about to saunter through it.

“Sorry
we’re late,” Audrey said as she entered. “Traffic was terrible. I guess there’s
some big sporting event going on?”

“Yeah,
it’s just the Super Bowl, no big deal,” Nate said in a sarcastic tone. His
expression, however, gave way to the fact that he hadn’t had a goodnight’s
sleep in weeks.

“Oh…well…you
know I don’t follow sports,” Audrey said, taking a seat beside him at the
table. “Anyways, this spread looks amazing. Aniyah, you and Caleb have really
outdone yourselves here.”

“Thanks,
but Zoë’s actually the one you should be giving the accolades to,” Aniyah said,
nodding at her friend. “She got me a discount with this great caterer.”

Audrey
glanced over at Zoë and was quick to change the subject. “I actually tried to
make crepes like these for Nate and I a couple days ago,” she said, beginning
to serve herself. “It didn’t go all that smoothly though. In fact…I almost set
his kitchen on fire. Who knew cooking was so complex?”

Caleb
looked over at Nate and started laughing. “You didn’t tell me that when we were
at the bar the other day,” he said, nudging him in the side.

“That’s
because I was trying to forget,” Nate joked, but Audrey didn’t appear all too amused
by the remark. One snide look from her was all it took to make him fall silent
again. He'd learned how to pick his battles with her a long time ago.

Zoë
rolled her eyes and tried her best to make herself invisible, but every few
seconds she’d look up from her food to find Nate staring at her as though he
was trying to read her mind.

“So how
have you guys been?” Aniyah questioned once the conversation she was having
with a few other guests began to taper off.
 
“I feel like I haven’t heard from you in ages. Any
ultrasound pictures to share?”

Nate
hesitated. As asinine as it was, he hadn’t thought about that until now. Ever
since Audrey broke the news about her pregnancy to him, he felt as though he’d
been living in a sort of trance. He’d done the honorable thing by allowing her
to move back home and live with him, but there wasn’t a single part of him that
was anticipating parenthood with her. It struck him as the sort of gig you
signed up for with the person you really loved, and Audrey most certainly was
not that person to him.

When
Audrey didn’t say anything, Nate glanced over at her and frowned when he
noticed the anxious expression on her face. She looked as though she’d been
cornered.

“Uh,
not yet,” Audrey spoke up, fidgeting in her chair. “I…I haven’t had a chance to
find a good ob-gyn here yet.”