Chapter Eight

 

Gabriel

 

I wasn't sure how I was supposed to be feel about the situation. I had woken up that morning deliriously happy, but within a few minutes reality had settled in, and along with it came the guilt. I felt like I had betrayed Brent. Betrayed his memory. Even though I made that promise so many years before and he was no longer here, the weight of it still loomed over me. It was exactly what I had felt when Cherry told me her mother was ill and that they had been struggling to keep up with expenses. My sense of loyalty was immediately triggered, and I felt like it was my responsibility to help them. Now I felt that, in trying to help her, I put myself into a position where I could take advantage of Cherry.

But it didn't feel wrong. It felt like things had happened exactly like they were supposed to.

Cherry didn't seem fazed by it. The truth was that I had already gotten in touch with my lawyers and planted the idea that there might need to be some major changes made to the contract. The guilt I was feeling battled against the incredible attraction I felt for Cherry and the truly mind-blowing sex we had shared last night. I wanted to move forward, but I was ready to talk about going about it the old-fashioned way.

Cherry seemed like she was still set on IVF.

I felt tangled up in my own emotions. I supposed I should have been relieved that this was the way she reacted to what happened between us. There had been the possibility I’d show up for work the morning after and she would be hopelessly dreamy-eyed, expecting me to rip up the contract and run away and elope together. She could have thought that we had voided the agreement or that I had insulted her in some way. I should have been happy that she had gone the other direction and didn't seem at all concerned, and in fact, barely even aware, of what had happened between us.

She had even gone to lunch with that annoying mouse of a man.

That proved to be the limit for me. Cherry seemed insistent about doing IVF and I knew that I had to respect her and her wishes, but I couldn’t stand by and watch her date other people when she should concentrate on getting pregnant and delivering a healthy baby. Besides, she didn't need to. I was going to make sure she was well taken care of, and I hoped she would soon be far too busy to be thinking about anyone or anything else.

I left for the airport an hour before I needed to, somehow convinced I would be able to will the plane into arriving early. I was ready to get these three weeks of networking and negotiating over with so that I could get back here and move forward.

 

Cherry

 

"How much have you kept in contact with Gabriel Reed?"

My mother looked over at me from her recliner. I had helped her out of bed earlier and tucked her into the recliner with one of my quilts on her lap. Even though warm weather had finally settled in, she always seemed cold and I worried that with every chill she got, her health would worsen. Sometimes when I was sitting in the room with her, I felt like I could feel the minutes passing us by, like some giant timer was counting down. I didn't want to think that way. But when I looked at her and saw how extensively the illness had ravaged her, how much it had changed her, my heart ached. I never let her see how worried I was about her. I never wanted her to know how scared I was, or that I constantly questioned if everything was going to turn out all right. I needed to be strong for her. I sometimes felt like that was what she needed more than anything. She needed someone to be there and believe she was going to get through this. That she could beat whatever this was. My father had passed. My brother was gone. I was the only one she had left, which meant that I needed to be strong enough for the two of us. I needed to believe in her just as much as Brent and my dad would have.

I was desperate to feel like we weren’t fighting a losing battle.

"Gabriel?" She asked. "It's been a good while since I've talked to him. There was a bit of time when we stayed in close contact, but he got busy with life and that big company and everything, and I guess time just got away from us. Why? What has you thinking about him?"

"Actually," I said, putting down the quilt square I was working on and walking over to the table so that I could give her a glass of water. "I started working for him recently."

"For Gabriel?"

"Yes. You know I lost my courier job. Well, I couldn't just sit around forever and pretend that everything was going to work itself out for me. I had to go out and find it for myself. So, I interviewed for a position at his company and I got it."

"You sound just like your father," she said. I could still hear the misty emotion in her voice.

No matter how many years passed, it was always obvious she still missed and longed for my father. They were each other's first and only love. When I was a child it was hard to imagine the two of them not being together. I didn't think that one would be able to exist without the other. If I’m being honest, I didn’t think Mom was going to make it when he passed. There were days when I felt like she was slipping away from me and I had started to mentally steel myself for life without both of my parents, but she pulled through. She always said that she had to, because of Brent and me. She couldn't bear to leave the two of us behind to fend for ourselves. Not yet. We were all that she lived for. Gradually she started to come out of the darkness and I could see little glimmers of her old self again. She was mostly better now, at least in that respect. But thoughts of my dad were never far from her mind or her heart.

I knew she was right. I did sound just like him. He had taught me a lot about being an adult in the brief time he was here, and one of those things was that you couldn’t just wait around. You couldn’t have a thought in your head and sit back, expecting it to happen for you just because you wanted it to. You had to go out and find a way to make your dreams happen because the longer you sat around and did nothing, the harder it was when you eventually realized life had passed you by and you never took part in it.

I tried not to obsess over my mom’s condition. I tried not to think that she might be in pain or experiencing anything negative. I reminded myself that soon she would have everything that she could possibly ever need. Knowing that she could live the highest quality of life while receiving the best possible medical care was worth any trouble I had to go through. It really was.

"I didn't actually know it was Gabriel's office when I applied for the position," I said.

"Well, that's a surprise."

"What do you mean?"

"I saw the way that you always looked at that boy, Cherry. Don't think that you were able to hide it from me. But he was too old for you then. I was glad he never chased after you. Then after your brother died, he just totally fell apart."

It never ceased to amaze me how easily my mother was able to talk about Brent. I still felt my voice catch in my throat and my heart freeze whenever I thought about or said his name or talking about his death. But she was able to do it so smoothly, so effortlessly.

"How do you talk about him like that?" I asked. I’ve never been able to bring myself to ask that question, but I suddenly felt like I needed to. It was a compulsive question, but now that it was out there, there was nothing I could do about it. "How do you talk about Brent so easily?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's still hard for me. It still hurts. I don’t ever want to say his name or use the past tense when I talk about him. Or acknowledge that he isn't here anymore. But it doesn’t seem like it bothers you as much. It just comes so easily to you. You're able to just talk about him like it’s not a big deal."

"It bothers me, Cherry. Don't you think for a second that my heart doesn't break every single time I think about your brother. He was my boy. My baby. I brought him into this world and I was sitting right there beside him, holding his hand when he left it. I can’t change that he isn’t here anymore, but I can sure as hell stop him from being forgotten. Everything is different now. Everything will always be different. I can't hold him. I can't give him a kiss or make him his favorite dinner. I can't give him a present for his birthday or even just sit with him. But I can say his name. I can remind myself, and everyone around me, and the entire universe, that Brent was real. My son lived. He mattered. He might not be here with us anymore, but he didn’t just disappear from existence the day he died. I'm going to carry him with me every day until I'm with him again. Just like your daddy."

I walked over to my mother and wrapped my arms around her. She felt frail in my arms, but I knew that she was far from fragile.

I sat with her the rest of the afternoon and we talked about Gabriel. I didn't tell her about the contract or my feelings for him. But I listened. I listened to her tell me about struggles I didn't even know he had faced after Brent died. I knew it had been hard on him. They were extremely close, and the suddenness of my brother's death was a devastating blow. But I didn't realize how far it had spiraled out of control. I had been so deep in my own despair that I hadn't even noticed just how out of touch Gabriel had become. After he left, I was so hurt and embarrassed that I avoided any reminder or mention of him. I didn't want to know what he was doing or where life had taken him. Now my mother filled me in on all his risky choices, the wild lifestyle he led, and seeming total lack of regard for life in general. It hurt me to hear about it and to think of everything that he had gone through. He had been trying to self-destruct just like I had.

He was so worried about me when he found out about what I had gone through in recent years. He said he should have been there for me, that he should have helped me, as if he thought he was responsible for saving me. Yet, I had never thought about saving him.

Mom had started to get drowsy, so I helped her back into the bedroom and tucked her into bed. I touched the quilt folded at the foot of the bed as I walked by. My grandmother had made it during her engagement to my grandfather. It had been on their bed until the day my mother married my father. It was my grandmother who taught me how to quilt when I was still a little girl. It seemed like such an old-fashioned skill, but as an adult, I was glad that I had it. I didn't use all the same techniques as my grandmother did and my style was brighter and more vibrant, than the soft classics she had created, but I still felt connected to her every time I worked on piecing a square or stitching a final layout. I knew I was creating something beneficial and that I would someday be able to pass it down to my children.

That thought lingered as I left her house and made my way back home. I contemplated the reality of having a baby and what it would be like. I still wasn’t sure how much my life would change after the baby came. It was something I hadn't spent a lot of time thinking about, even in the week and a half since Gabriel had left on business. He had checked in a few times, but the conversations were brief and related to official business only. We hadn't thought about the reality of what our relationship would be like when I was pregnant, much less when the baby came. The contract was very dry and straightforward about the specifics of parenting itself. It delineated the specific choices and responsibilities that each of us had and outlined protocols for how to handle any confusion or disagreement. It even put into place preparations for where the baby would go to school and how its finances would be handled. Before now I didn't even realize that babies had finances.

What we hadn't talked about, though, was actual life. It didn't tell me what I was supposed to feel or think. It also didn’t detail what life was going to be like when the baby was an actual little human rather than an abstract concept written out on paper. If I had learned anything in my life, it was that nothing could ever really be expected. There was never a guarantee, no absolute promise that things were going to work out exactly the way you thought they were. Much less the way you wanted them to. I liked to think of the universe as a living, breathing entity, blissfully ignorant of our existence. This is why it dictated things how it wanted to, changing courses on a whim. Though we could do our best to be prepared, things changed, and you never actually knew what was going to happen or how you would respond, until you were there right there living it. Then you find your heart telling you what your mind could never have predicted.

I glanced toward Jess's building as I entered the complex, checking to see if her car was parked in its usual spot. The buildings didn't have assigned parking spots for the tenants, but she somehow managed to always get the same prime spot right at the entrance to her building’s breezeway. I often wondered if she made herself a stencil and painted "Reserved" across the spot in sidewalk chalk to keep it locked down when she wasn't there. The nose of her distinctive purple compact was visibly sitting just where I expected it to be. Her car – much like Jess – was just a little bit off normal. It was one of the things I loved about her. I reached for my phone, tempted to call her and see if I could stop by, but I hesitated. I hadn't talked about any of this with her yet. I knew I would need to soon. She was my confidante, the rock that kept me going when I struggled, even if she might not seem very strong to others. She was also my unexpected voice of reason and logic. Talking through things with her always helped me to see the situation in another perspective and come to the right conclusion.

That was part of why I tucked my phone away and headed to my apartment. I didn't know what she was going to say about all this, and I felt like this time, I needed to do it on my own. Before she could tell me why I shouldn't.

 

The next week and a half seemed to drag by, but by the morning of my doctor's appointment, I wished I had some of that time back. I was starting to feel nervous and knowing that I was going to see Gabriel after so long didn't help. We never talked about our night together and I was wondering if the window for that conversation had passed us by and things would just be awkward between us now. I couldn't decide if that was the way that I wanted it to be, or if I actually wanted to talk about it.

But if he did want to talk – what would I even say?

I gripped the bar on the elevator wall and closed my eyes, taking a breath to settle the nervous churning in my stomach.

"Are you okay?" Gabriel asked.

I nodded.

"I'm fine. Just anxious. I don't like needles. Or doctors. Or doctor's offices, really."

"You probably should have mentioned that at the beginning of all this, Cherry."

"Would it have changed anything?"

"No, but at least I could have prepared something to try and make you feel better."

"Well, you know now. Make me feel better."

Gabriel thought for a second before he started jumping up and down, shaking the elevator car.

"Earthquake!"

I gripped my stomach and held up my hand.

"Stop!" The elevator stilled, and I felt relieved. "What the hell was that, Gabriel?"

"An earthquake," he said.

"Why would you do that?"

The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open.

"It made you not think about the doctor for a minute, right?"

"That was just so comforting. Thanks." We walked out of the elevator and toward the waiting room. "What's the plan if you ever need to make me feel better about an actual earthquake?"

"Throw you in the shower and call it a hurricane?"

Our eyes met, and my heart skipped a beat thinking about being in the shower with him. It certainly was as powerful as a hurricane.

"Cherry Spencer?"

I looked toward the door that led into the back of the office and saw a nurse waiting for me. I looked at Gabriel.

"I didn't even check in."

"I called ahead," he said.

"Does everyone, not only your staff, do exactly what you tell them to?"

He leaned down over me and whispered in my ear.

"You’re the only who dares to disobey me, Cherry Spencer.”

I didn't know why, but that sent a tremble through me.

The nurse ushered us into an examination room and gave me a gown to put on, instructing me to take everything else off. I thanked her, and she left the room to give me privacy. I waited for Gabriel to leave, but he didn't. He dropped down into one of the chairs at the side of the room and seemed to settle in for the experience. Even though Gabriel and I had seen each other very naked recently, I didn’t appreciate the thought of him watching me take off my clothes and change into a sterile hospital gown in this unflattering fluorescent lighting. I glared at him and pulled the privacy screen out to separate us, making the awkward shift between my clothes and the less-than-elegant lavender and powder blue gown as quickly as humanly possible. Once my gown was on, I opened the screen, and got up on the table.

The doctor came in and glanced over at Gabriel. I knew he had carefully chosen the medical team that would take care of me during the pregnancy. I wondered how much they all knew about the situation. Considering the extent of the arrangements he had already made, I assumed they were well-informed. She gave me a brief overview of what she would be examining today and had me lay back. Gabriel came to the side of the table as she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm and started asking questions. She chatted with him as she jotted down the results of each vitals tests and I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with his presence in the room. I didn’t know he was going to be so involved. I knew that it was his baby and that he had the right to know what was happening at each stage of the process, but I felt removed from it all.

Having him in the room was at once too personal and not personal enough. Gabriel had touched and awakened my body like no other man had, and yet in that moment, I felt like no more than an incubator to him. I felt like a piece of machinery that was being serviced before heading to work. It was a reality of the arrangement that I hadn't considered before, and I knew I would have to find some way to work through it. Finally, she had made her way through the basic tests. I even survived the nurse drawing what felt like an ungodly amount of blood. The doctor lowered the back of the table and asked me to put my legs up in the stirrups and I shot another glare in Gabriel's direction.

He stared back at me blankly as if he couldn't possibly understand that I wanted him to leave the room. The doctor finally seemed to catch on to my discomfort and looked his way.

"Mr. Reed, why don't you go ahead and take a break and leave us girls for a little chat?"

I would probably have put it somewhat differently, but Gabriel complied, and I felt myself relax.

"Thank you," I said.

"Not a problem," she said. "Now let's see what we can find out."

I stared up at the ceiling during the examination, trying to not think about how awkward it was. It was taking much longer than I had anticipated and worry began to creep into my mind. It never occurred to me that the examination might uncover anything problematic. I hadn't even thought about the fact that this might not work out before we even got started.

"Is everything okay?" I finally asked.

"When was your last period?"

"Um. About three weeks ago? Two maybe."

"You don't seem too confident about that, Miss Spencer."

"I've never been that great at keeping track," I admitted. I never had to before three weeks ago. "I know my last one was pretty light though."

"Lighter than usual?"

"Yeah. It didn't last as long either."

"I might have an explanation for that," she said. "Let me go grab something and I will be right back."

I was even more worried than before and starting to regret having Gabriel kicked out of the room. Even though I didn't necessarily want him to be witness to this, I also didn't want to be alone if I was going to get terrible news. A few minutes later, the doctor came back into the room with a small machine on a cart. She picked up a wand from the cart and I realized she had gone to find an ultrasound machine.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Please relax," she said. "I just want to check on something." A few moments later she made a sound like she was affirming something to herself before turning the screen toward me. "That bleeding wasn't your period," she said. "That was implantation."

"Implantation?" I asked.

She pointed at the screen. I didn't see much but a dark circle and a little bright speck.

"You see that?" she asked.

"I think so."

"That's your baby. Congratulations. You're pregnant."

I couldn't possibly have heard her right. I came in here expecting to be examined to make sure I was healthy enough to undergo the IVF process, not to find out I was already pregnant. My mind was spinning so quickly that I barely even noticed when the doctor stepped out of the room. She mentioned that the baby was measuring at five weeks, which meant that I conceived three weeks before. I thought back to the night in the rain and realized that the condom we used must have failed. He came into the room and walked up to the side of the bed. I didn't even care that my legs were still up on the stirrups.

"Is everything okay?" he asked. "Dr. Larkin gave me a weird smile when she walked by but didn't say anything. Did the examination go alright?"

He sounded like he was starting to feel the same nervousness that I had, but I was still too shocked to say anything. I held out the photo printout the doctor had taken from the ultrasound machine and Gabriel took it.

"What's this?" he asked. "What am I looking at?"

"Our baby," I finally murmured. "Your baby."

 

Everything that happened after the appointment was a whirlwind. And two weeks later, as I stood in the middle of the living room in my apartment, watching an incredibly efficient moving crew whisk my belongings into the truck waiting outside, I still couldn’t believe what was happening. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I was pregnant.

"I can't believe you're leaving," Jess said as she came into the room from the kitchen, clutching an oven mitt to her chest. She had lit that same mitt on fire making brownies just a few months earlier. "What am I going to do with you so far away?"

"It's not that far," I reassured her. "Mom needs me to be with her, and besides, it's a lot more space. You can come over and we can have sleepovers."

"You know me, Cherry. I'm an adult," she said with a sniff. "I don't do sleepovers."

"So, you'll bring the popcorn?"

"Regular and kettle."

She walked out of the apartment and I smiled wistfully. It was sad leaving my apartment, but I knew the house that was waiting for Mom and me was going to be vast improvement. Gabriel had purchased and furnished a new home for us just as he promised. In fact, we would be settled in by the end of the day. Besides, I had more to think about than the nostalgia of leaving my home for the last few years. I still hadn't told Jess or my mother about the pregnancy and I was wondering when I would find the right moment.

Gabriel and I had gone back to the doctor the day before and had another ultrasound done. I was astonished at how much the image had changed in such a short amount of time. In only two weeks, it had gone from a tiny bright speck, that I could barely differentiate from the rest of the blurred image, to something that resembled a happy little Tic-Tac. Gabriel held my hand tightly as we stared at the screen, taking it in, both of us completely amazed by the miracle that had happened. This morning he presented me with a modified contract, bringing me back down to Earth. I knew I needed to tell them. They were two of the most important people in my life and would be the ones I would turn to during this whole experience, but I still hesitated. For now, Tic-Tac, Gabriel, and I were the only ones who knew, and I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. When I told the two of them, everything would be real. Not just the baby. Not just the pregnancy. But the transaction. I would have to justify it to them. I had no doubt what I was doing was the right thing. For both Gabriel and myself. Everything was going to work out. But I wasn't quite ready to hear how it was going to affect my loved ones around me.

 

Another month passed, and I was almost accustomed to the new house. I had managed to convince Mom that I had arranged with the Reed family to live in a property they managed. It was a lie. A complete and utter lie. Even though she was never particularly close to Gabriel's family, she knew them well enough and trusted them as much as anyone else. She was immensely grateful to them, particularly when she learned she still owned the house where I had grown up. It had been difficult for her to live there in those aging surroundings with all the memories, but it wasn't something she was ready to let go of yet.

The house itself was exquisite. It was more like two houses attached by a screened breezeway than one house. It featured everything I could have ever possibly imagined I would want in a home and more. I was overwhelmed with happiness when I saw I had my own laundry room. Not just a washer and dryer shoved into a closet, but an actual room devoted entirely to a sparkling new smart washer and matching dryer, a long counter for folding, and a bank of cabinets I would never be able to fill up for the rest of my life, no matter how hard I tried.

The clawfoot tub Gabriel had installed in my master bedroom actually brought me to tears. I told myself it was my first rush of pregnancy hormones, but I knew that it was actually because I had told him about the tub in my apartment only once and was sure he had forgotten. But not only had he remembered and put value in what I said, he made sure I had one in my new home. It meant more to me than I could have ever anticipated, and I was beyond thankful for it. I was even more grateful for the oversized tub during the cool baths that were the only way to battle the fierce nausea that took over right after midnight and faded by noon. This baby apparently took the idea of morning sickness very seriously.

By the third month, I felt better and knew it was safe to start telling people I was expecting. I knew that Gabriel planned to tell his father as soon as we cleared the first trimester, so if I didn't want an official public announcement to be how my mother and Jess found out, I needed to go ahead and take the plunge. I went to work the morning I was officially twelve weeks along, feeling optimistic and happy. I didn't realize I had been so worried or anxious during the beginning of my pregnancy but waking up and realizing Tic-Tac and I had gotten through the first three months safely brought a sense of relief and excitement. The milestone made the pregnancy and the baby that much more real. I knew that it would still be several weeks until I was able to feel the baby moving but knowing I had gotten to this point and carried it this long felt like a tiny victory in itself.

I stopped by the coffee shop that had become my obsession in the last several weeks, buying my usual cinnamon roll and decaf peppermint tea. The thought of that flavor combination would have made my stomach turn if I wasn't pregnant, but now it was something I thought about all day. Sometimes I would even get out of bed super early in the morning just so that I had time to get it. That morning I grabbed an extra cinnamon bun and a cup of the plain black coffee that Gabriel loved. I didn't know how I was going to justify this as part of the healthy lifestyle that he wanted me to maintain while I was pregnant, but I felt like we needed a celebration. The baby had been our secret for so long. It was something that was just ours and that only we knew about. Sometimes we would exchange glances during the day and I knew he was thinking about the precious little treasure growing within me.

Our relationship was getting stronger and I felt myself beginning to rely on him more as we got closer. He would often come over and bring food and we'd spend the evening watching bad TV and talking about what we think the baby would be like. We went back and forth between thinking it was a boy and a girl. There were days when I was absolutely positive I was carrying our son and started envisioning tiny suits and the same little smile as his father. Other days my body autopiloted into the baby girls' section of the clothing store and I would lose the afternoon cooing over little pink bows and sweet ruffled dresses.

We had kept each other at a distance after we found out about I was pregnant. The closest that we got to each other was sitting on the couch and occasionally falling asleep against each other. I still wanted him. My body trembled when he was near me and even now, I craved the taste of his kiss. But it felt like we were where we needed to be, and I didn't want to do anything that might change it.

That morning I walked into the office and grinned at the security guard like I did every morning. Her eyes went to the coffee shop bag in my hand and then to my midsection before waving at me.

"Good morning," she said with a knowing smile.

It was the first time that someone seemed to notice a change to my body. I walked directly from the elevator to the bathroom. Putting the bag and cups on the vanity behind me, I stood in front of the huge mirror and turned to the side, pulling the blazer I wore back so that I could look at my profile. The black shirt I wore clung to my body and I noticed a slight swell. It wasn't much, just enough to make me look like I had gained a few pounds packing in the cinnamon buns, but I knew it was something else. I ran my hand down it, spending a few more seconds admiring the tiny bump before gathering the cups and bag and hurrying toward Gabriel's office.

I knocked on the door, but he didn't answer. I held a cup in each hand, so I had to use my pinky to put in the code to open the door. When I did, however, I found the office empty. I walked out and headed toward the small lounge where Gabriel would sometimes go in the morning to grab a piece of fruit or second or third cup of coffee. A cluster of ladies who seemed to only exist in the lounge, were gathered around the coffee machine, sipping at their cups like they contained their lifeblood. I heard them giggle conspiratorially as I walked in.

"Looking for Mr. Reed?" one of them asked.

"Um, yeah, actually."

"I wouldn't expect him to be in any time soon," another added.

"Why?"

"The museum gala was last night," the first said. "That's always a long night for him."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

I hadn't even heard Gabriel talking about the gala.

"What is his record?" one of the women asked the others. "Three in one night?"

"Three women?" I asked.

I was trying not to sound like it bothered me. I didn't want them to know it meant anything to me, but I was starting to feel like I couldn't breathe.

The ladies giggled again and sipped their coffee.

"Don't worry," one of them said. "You'll get used to working for a playboy. At least none of them have wandered in here in the last few months."

I managed a shaky smile and started back out of the lounge.

"She really needs to get herself together," I heard one of the women mutter as I left. "Edna always knew what he was up to."

What he was up to.

Those words reverberated through my mind as I tossed the cinnamon rolls onto Gabriel's desk and left the coffee to get cold. Then I scribbled a note that I was taking a personal day, stuck it on my desk and rushed out of the office. And as I splashed cold water on my face and willed myself not to cry, I chastised myself for the way I was feeling. Those words cut into me deeply and unexpectedly, but Gabriel had never made any promises to me. We never ever discussed his sex life. This was just a contract. Nothing else. And it controlled my body, not his. He could do anything he wanted.

I was still struggling with the thought of Gabriel going to the gala without telling me and possibly bringing one or more women home with him when Jess came over that evening. Just as she had promised, she was carrying two large boxes of popcorn and had gotten a jumpstart on the sleepover by wearing her pajamas.

"What's wrong?" she asked when she saw my glum expression.

"Gabriel might have gone to the museum gala last night with another woman."

"Another woman?"

"Or three."

"A museum gala on a Thursday? Don't galas usually happen on the weekend?"

"That is not what I meant for you to focus on in that story," I pointed out.

"You're right. I'm sorry. You're upset that he didn't invite you?"

I sighed and reached for a handful of popcorn as she poured it from the bag and into a bowl.

"It's not just that," I said.

The freshly popped corn was delicious and I grabbed the entire bowl.

"You might want to slow down a bit," she said, her eyes tracing down to where my tight tank top accentuated the little bump that had given me such happiness earlier in the morning. "I didn't want to say anything but...bikini season is coming."

"So is my second trimester."

She stared at me blankly.

"What?"

I sighed again, taking the bowl with me as I made my way on a walk into the living room that was considerably larger than my entire apartment had been.

"I'm pregnant," I said.

I was relieved the moment the words came out of my mouth, but I also felt a rush of emotion.

"You're pregnant?" she asked. "How could you not tell me? Is Gabriel the father?"

"Yes," I said. "But it's not what you think. Well, actually, it's exactly what you think. But it's not. Sit down. I have a story to tell you."

Jess was still holding the same piece of popcorn when I finished. I couldn't tell by her expression what she was feeling.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me," she finally said.

Her voice was even and calm, not the squeal I had expected. I realized in that moment how much I had hurt her.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I know I shouldn't have waited this long."

"You lied to me, Cherry. You've never lied to me before."

"I'm sorry," I repeated. "I didn't know what you would think or say. I didn't want to change the way you look at me."

"You're my best friend. I love you. Nothing would ever change the way that I look at you. But you should have trusted me. You can't go through this alone." She gathered me in her arms and I hugged her tightly, so thankful for her existence in that moment. After a while, she eased me back and looked directly into my face. "And you're right. Don't get wrapped up in him, Cherry. A man like that isn't going to cause you anything but pain."

"Maybe," I said.

"No, not maybe. If he's still seeing other women and hasn't changed how he feels about you when you are carrying his child, it's a contract. That is it. It’s business. It doesn't mean you can't be friends and that you can’t raise an amazing child together. But you can't think about anything else. Don't give him more than he's willing to give you."