As it turned out, having the day off was definitely going something that was necessary. Thank goodness that I had bumped into Lila when I had run into the drugstore to buy alcohol. She had been indisputably correct about me needing to take some time off and just have a good time getting to know that vodka bottle.

Unfortunately, I hadn't quite listened to her advice on making sure that I took the aspirin to deal with the epic hangover that the whole bottle of vodka was currently causing. My head was pounding, and I hung onto the toilet for dear life and my stomach rebelled against the terrible actions I had committed against it over the past 24 hours.

After another round of throwing up, I closed my eyes and reached blindly for the toilet paper to wipe my mouth off. Apparently, I was too hungover for even that simple act, because the toilet paper fell and right back out. With an audible groan, I picked up the paper and thrust it back into the trash can, ignoring the painful slice that went through my head as I did so.

At the moment that my hand connected with the trash can, it turned over and hit the floor. Several tiny pieces of plastic fell out and smacked the ground as the trash can hit the floor.

That was odd. What kind of tiny plastic applicators were going to be in our trash can?

I scrambled over to the plastic pieces that had fallen on the floor. Most of them were long, rectangular pieces of plastic that didn't look like anything to me at all. But I frowned at them, because they looked very familiar somehow. It wasn't the kind of familiarity that I should recognize from past experience, I didn't think. But somewhere in the hazy corner of my mind, I knew that they should still look familiar to me.

It wasn't until I picked up the one that still had a noticeable pink plus sign that it registered exactly what I was holding. The moment of clarity produced enough of a jolt that I immediately sobered up more than I had been in the past 24 hours.

In my hand, I held pregnancy tests. The one in my left hand, still showing a plus sign, demonstrated a positive result.

My mind immediately jumped to the only conclusion possible. There was only one person who could possibly have been in this house and been taking pregnancy tests.

I was going to be a father. Eric was pregnant.

The conclusion came readily enough, but that didn't mean that I knew what to do with that information. I sat there, dumb founded on the bathroom floor, looking at the positive test result.

Is that why he had ran out of here so quickly? Eric being pregnant definitely explained the overly emotional aspect of his personality that had been so troubling and confusing. Suddenly the month that I had spent walking on eggshells and trying not to upset him seemed utterly delightful. It had been a loud sign that I was having a child with the man that I wanted nothing more than to build a future with, even if it had been a sign that I hadn't understood.

I couldn't help but feel regret over that choice. Had Eric left because I'd been too irritated too often? The words he'd shouted at me, about my job and about his job, simply didn't make much sense. But the idea that maybe I had been too aggressive or lacked the sensitivity that he needed during his pregnancy was definitely something I could understand.

It took a lot of effort to push myself up off the floor, but I had a good reason to do so. I needed to shower, to help myself sober up, and then I needed to get down to the arena where Eric was -

No! I thought in horror. He couldn't still be going through with it. He couldn't honestly intend to go and fight in the match, could he?

It was a horrifying thought, and one that had me scrambling to get up off the floor even more quickly. But my stubborn ... boyfriend? fiancé?... whichever he was, he was stubborn and the other father of my child. He was also in a highly emotional state, and I had no doubt that he would go ahead and try to fight in this state. If for no other reason, he would be determined to prove himself when there was utterly no need for that.

I had the urge to run down there as I was, but a quick glance at the clock confirmed that I had enough time to get dressed properly. That was fortunate, because I didn't want to show up and have this important conversation with Eric while I was looking like a hobo.

My head continued to pound as I got into the shower and as the water came down on top of me. Was I getting so old that I had forgotten entirely how hangovers worked? I seemed to remember being able to stand in the shower and wash at least 50% of my hang over down the drain. Was that just something I had made up? The continual feeling of having a semi crash into my forehead at one hundred miles per hour hadn't faded, despite the fact that the water was on hot enough to turn my normally beige skin bright pink.

I closed my eyes again, letting the water wash over me. Maybe it was a simple consequence of getting old.

I allowed myself to remember how Eric and I used to joke, just after we'd been reunited, about how we were going to have to start a family soon because I was getting too old to put it off for much longer. The memory gave me a soft, aching pang in the center of my chest that I tried to push away.

This was all a misunderstanding, I tried to convince myself. It was a simple misunderstanding that could easily be cleared up once I talked to Eric.

Well, that was probably overselling it. "Easy" and Eric's current temperament did not go well together these days. But it was something we could work through, of that I was convinced. After all, we were going to have a baby.

We were expecting a baby.

Despite how miserably my head ached and how sore all the rest of my body was from the hangover, I couldn't help the utter feeling of joy that the idea of having a baby brought me. I had wanted to be a father for a long time, even longer than I had known Eric. Once I'd agreed to marry him the first time, I had certain that he would be the right omega to help build a family with, but then he'd left.

After he had come back, the old familiar certainty that I was going to have a family with this man had grown louder and louder. The day that we had collapsed on the couch and promised to create a life together, sworn that we would spend the rest of our years together, and decided to give our relationship a second try had been a day that I'd gone to bed wondering what our child would look like.

Midst the sharp pounding behind my eyes as I leaned down and turned the water off, I began to think about that future child all over again. Would we have a girl or a boy? Would they grow up to be an alpha or an omega? If they were an omega, I hoped desperately that they could learn the kind of self-love that Eric had never had. I was sure that two loving parents could assure that for him or her.

When I tried to picture the baby, I saw someone with a fuzzy head full of Eric's dark blond hair and his bright blue eyes to match. I couldn't wait to get to meet that person.

But in the meantime, I had to get out, get dressed, and call a taxi. I couldn't possibly drive there myself. I was in no condition to drive downtown, and the simple fact of the matter was that I probably would have crashed due to my excitement even if I hadn't been recovering from a hangover.

I munched on a breath mint as I got into the taxi. In my pocket, I held the positive pregnancy test.

"Where are we headed?"

"Downtown, to the pay-per-view arena," I said excitedly. "Please, get me there as fast as you can. I have to get there before the HIT match starts."

"Ah, you are a big MMA fan?" the old man asked.

He looked old enough to be my father and there was plenty of gray in his hair. I wondered if I needed to start going gray naturally now that I was going to be a dad. That seemed like something that a good dad should do, let his hair grow naturally and show his children how to age gracefully.

On the other hand, I looked pretty damn good most days of the week, and the kids could be proud of their handsome alpha dad walking into their school or birthday parties.

So maybe I'd continue to dye it.

"Sir?" the driver called to me, and I realized with a start that I had been very rude.

"Sorry," I said immediately. "Yes, absolutely. I love the sport."

It wasn't the truth, but right now, I was beginning to understand exactly why Eric had been upset. I thought about how I was going to sneak in and talk to Eric without upsetting Kamal. Kamal was a good solid man, who I respected most of the time. I knew he cared about the men he put into the ring.

That meant that I also knew that there was no way he was willing to put Eric into a ring while he was pregnant. He wasn't going to put either the baby or Eric into jeopardy . As much as Kamal had made Eric go through so many physicals that he had hated with his entire heart in order to prevent being held liable and in order to take care of his men as much as possible, there was no way that Kamal would allow Eric into the ring.

That meant that HIT didn't know what was going on with Eric. That was why he'd been so overly stressed out, and I'd been nothing more than a convenient outlet for that frustration.

We could talk about that later. In the meantime, I had a fight to stop and a boyfriend to win back over.

As we drew closer to the arena, I could feel my heart start to pound almost as loudly as my head. I was pulling the money out of my pocket to give the driver before we even got to the curb. I made sure I left him a sizable tip and a thank you before I got out and ran towards the door.