Mari

A small golden conch shell digs into the palm of my hand Tuesday morning just after sunrise. Up ahead, a man jogs along the shore, growing closer until he comes into focus, and then I realize ...

It’s Alec.

My heart quickens, and I swallow the nervous lump in my throat.

It’s just the two of us on this beach—at least for now.

This is my chance.

It’s now or never.

Spotting a couple more shells, I bend to pick them up, biding my time as he grows near. The sea laps across the shore, washing the sticky sand from the soles of my feet, but I feel nothing.

“Mari,” he says, breathless as he stops before me. He places two fingers against his neck, his bare chest glistening with a light sheen of sweat and sea mist. “What are you doing up so early?”

“Wanted to take a walk,” I say, smiling. The words are right there, on the tip of my tongue, and it’s all I can do to keep from blurting them all out at once. A big string of word vomit that’ll forever change this man’s life.

Or maybe not.

I’ve tried to get to know Alec these last couple of days, and I still feel like I’m barely scratching the surface.

He seems nice. That’s about all I’ve gathered.

“I’m going to head in, hit the shower,” he says after an awkward minute of silence. “See you at breakfast?”

He gives a quick wave before jogging off toward the house, and I watch my opportunity pass me by.

“Alec, wait,” I call after him, my voice carried off by a breeze.

He doesn’t hear me, so I chase after him.

“Alec,” I say again, louder this time.

He turns, slowing down, but he’s still walking. We’re maybe fifty, sixty feet from the back of the house at most.

“I have to tell you something,” I say, slightly winded.

“What’s up?”

He forges ahead with long strides, not stopping. The house grows closer.

There’s no easy way to do this, so I decide to just put it out there. “I’m pregnant.”

I expected him to stop, but he keeps walking. I don’t know if he heard me.

“I’m pregnant,” I say again.

We approach the back steps to the wraparound deck and he climbs them two at a time.

“Alec, say something,” I say, nearly pleading.

He stops, turning to me. “Congratulations?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Is that why you and Hudson are in such a hurry to get married?” He laughs. “God, you guys, it’s not the fifties.”

“The baby’s yours.” I cross my arms over my chest, looking away.

“Wait … what?”

Glancing up, I take a deep breath. “You know that one-night stand we had? Where you used a fake name and then deleted your Tinder profile?”

My hand moves to my lower belly, his moves to his sweaty mop of sandy blond hair.

“Fuck,” he says, his eyes flicking from mine to my stomach and back. “How far along are you?”

“Almost nine weeks,” I say.

He takes a step closer to me. “What are you going to do about it?”

I scoff. “What am I going to do about it? What? Like this is my problem?”

“Your body, your choice,” he says, and my defensiveness ratchets down a notch. “I mean, are you going to, you know, take care of it?”

“Take care of it as in raise it? Or take care of it as in …?”

He inhales, glancing over my shoulder toward the water. Dragging his hands down his face, he turns back to me.

“I don’t want to be a dad, Mari,” he says. “At least not at this point in my life. And not in this way. And no offense, but not with you. You’re engaged to my fucking best friend.”

“Well, I’m keeping it,” I say. “If you don’t want to be a part of the baby’s life, that’s your choice.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m some piece of shit, deadbeat dad.”

“You’re certainly not father of the year.”

“We used a condom,” he says. “And you said you were on the pill.”

“We did. And I was.” I shrug. “Shit happens.”

“How do you know it’s mine?”

My blood heats beneath my skin. “Are you fucking serious, Alec?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

My eyes water. God damn it. Pregnancy hormones.

“You’re saying all the things I hoped you weren’t going to say.” I wipe away a fat, soggy tear before it has the chance to roll down my ruddy, wind-burned cheeks.

His hands fall to his sides. “What did you expect me to say? Let’s raise the baby like some happy fucking family and live happily ever after?”

“No!” I raise my voice. “Just … don’t be a douche about it.”

“Tell me what you want me to say, Mari.”

“Just say you’ll be there if I need you. And that you’d love to be a part of the baby’s life,” I say. “This baby … it’s half yours. And I don’t want it to grow up thinking it wasn’t wanted or constantly feeling this void in his heart when he wonders why his father never came around.”

“It’s a boy?”

“I don’t know,” I scoff at him, looking away. “It’s too fucking early to tell.”

“I don’t know anything about babies or pregnancy or any of that shit,” he says.

“And you think I do?”

“I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to be there for you through this, Mari.”

“Just decide if you want to be involved and we can figure everything else out later,” I huff. I’m so fucking annoyed with him right now. “I’m kind of taking things one day at a time anyway. I have no clue what I’m doing. And aside from my best friend, you’re the only other person who knows about the baby now.”

“I fucking knew it.” The Potomac Ice Princess appears at the railing, her arms resting on the ledge as she wears a proud smirk. “I knew you were fucking pregnant. But my brother? Now that’s a plot twist I didn’t see coming.”

She moves to the stairs, taking them one at a time as she comes closer.

“Brilliant, Mari. Really. Get my brother to knock you up, get Hudson to raise it as his,” she says. “Talk about a lifetime of financial security.”

“It’s nothing like that,” I say, lips curling into a sneer. My hand grips the railing to keep me from ripping her hair out extension by extension.

“Don’t say anything to Hudson,” Alec says, turning to his sister. “We’re still trying to figure this out.”

Her mouth pulls at the sides and she lifts her hands to her lips. “Wait, what? Hudson doesn’t know about this?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Pushing past the two of them, I head inside to find Hudson.

I have to tell him first.

I have to tell him before Audrina does.