The rest of the day was as peaceful and relaxing as I could’ve hoped, with the potential of pregnancy gnawing away at the back of my mind whenever my thoughts had a chance to wander.

Still, nature and being away from the city worked in tandem to calm me down, and most of the symptoms I’d been dealing with stayed in check. I’d even managed to convince myself that it really was nothing more than stress after all.

After a little more driving through the beautiful scenery, Bryce took me back to the house. Once there, the four of us relaxed and drank tea and chatted, spending the afternoon doing nothing in particular—a very nice change of pace for me and Bryce both.

Once the early evening rolled around, the four of us climbed into Bryce’s father’s SUV—he insisted on driving—and headed into Portland. The city was alive with Saturday night vitality, and once Steve had parked, we walked, both couples arm-in-arm, through the wide boulevards of downtown.

Dinner was lovely, the four of us getting along like old friends as we enjoyed a great meal at what had to be one of the nicest brewpubs in the city. However, during the meal I noticed that Bryce received more strange texts from…someone, his face scrunching up upon reading them in the same way it did at breakfast.

And halfway through the meal he actually got up to take a call.

“Who was that?” I asked when he sat back down.

“Ah, no one,” he said. “Just someone who doesn’t know better than to call me on a Saturday night during dinner.”

The rest of the dinner went by uneventfully, and we finished off the evening in the city with a quick stop at a local ice cream parlor.

On the way back, I was actually happy that Steve was driving—it allowed me and Bryce curl up in the back, my head resting on his shoulder as I drifted between the sleeping and waking worlds. I was out by the time we got back home, the rich food and the ice cream having done me in.

Bryce woke me up for long enough to get me inside and into the bedroom. Once there, he shimmied me out of my clothes. As I stood there in my bra and panties, a sudden burst of energy took hold of me, and I decided that I suddenly wanted to do something else other than go right to bed.

“Want to tuck me in?” I asked, my coy smile not leaving any hint as to what I was talking about.

A brief expression of consideration flashed on Bryce’s face.

“Sounds enticing, but my mom and dad are waiting for me downstairs. Last thing I’d want is for them to come looking for me.”

“Oh, boo,” I said.

Then I felt weak in the knees, the fatigue catching up with me again. My eyelids went heavy, and I let them shut as I stood in front of Bryce. I let my head loll forward, coming to a rest on Bryce’s solid chest.

“OK,” he said. “That means bedtime. Here, hold on.”

He ducked down and pulled something out of his bag. I opened my eyes to see that it was a thick, lambswool cable knit sweater.

“Arms up.”

I complied, and he dropped the sweater over my body. It was warm and thick and toasty and, best of all, smelled like Bryce. He lifted me off my feet—it was such a turn-on how effortlessly he could scoop me up off my feet.

He slipped me under the covers and pulled them over my body, stopping them just below my chin.

“Night, darling,” he said.

Then he kissed me softly, turned off the light, and left. The taste of him lingered on my lips as I drifted off to sleep.

The next morning I awoke to nausea like I’d never felt before in my life. I burst out of bed and rushed to the bathroom, making sure to shut the door carefully and slowly behind me, as not to wake up Bryce. Once over the toilet I let it rip, puking up whatever was still in my gut from last night.

Once I’d voided my belly, I collapsed into a heap on the floor, giving my body a chance to recover. As I did, I listened carefully for any hint that Bryce had heard me. Luckily there wasn’t one.

Back in the bedroom, I arrived just in time to see him gently rouse awake.

“Morning,” he said. “You already up?”

“That a surprise?” I asked.

“I guess not,” he said. “Just expected you to sleep in a little longer, I guess.”

I plopped onto the bed next to him, my stomach feeling better. But anxiety over my situation replaced the nausea.

“What’s the plan today?” I asked.

“Breakfast with the family and then back to San Francisco. Why, you have a better idea?”

“No,” I said. “Just been enjoying the peace and quiet, is all.”

He leaned in and kissed me softly.

“Come on,” he said. “I’m starving ,and I managed to talk my mom into making pancakes this morning.”

We headed down to the kitchen where, sure enough, Barbara was in the process of making a pancake breakfast, the smell of cooking batter mixing with the slight trace of sweet syrup scent in the air. My mouth began to water.

The four of us ate, enjoying our pancakes and coffee. Once we were done, Bryce and I both showered and got our things together, ready for our trip back to California. Before too long we had the car packed, Barbara and Steve watching us from the porch.

“Chelsea, it was so nice to meet you,” said Barbara, throwing her arms around me and pulling me in for a tight hug. “I couldn’t be happier that you’re marrying my boy.”

“He picked a good one,” said Steve, giving me a polite kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you so much for having me,” I said. “I can’t wait to come back and see you both again.”

After we said our goodbyes, Bryce got into the car and drove off, waving to Steve and Barbara as we did. Three hours later, after a drive to the airport, the flight home, and the drive back, we were at the apartment. I collapsed onto the couch as soon as we stepped in, exhausted from all the traveling.

Bryce sat down next to me, taking me into his arms. For a time neither of us said anything, the two of us instead watching the sun dip down lower into the sky.

“How’d I do?” I asked.

“Well, you didn’t get wasted, you didn’t cry at my dad saying he thought astrology was for airheads, and you didn’t spend the majority of the trip trying to refresh Twitter on your phone. So, at the very least, you did better than Felicity.”

I chuckled. “OK, so I didn’t hit rock bottom. But do you think they liked me?”

“I know they did. You really impressed them, and me too. Now I just have to meet your parents.”

“We’d have to pull them off the beach to make that happen,” I said.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, with both Bryce and I preparing for the week of work ahead. We ordered some Mexican for takeout and were in bed at an early hour.

The next morning my eyes shot open, my first thought that today was the day I’d find out I’d was pregnant or not. Probably find out, I reminded myself—they did say it might take until Tuesday. I wanted to call the doctor’s right then, to see if by some chance they had the lab results ready. But I thought better of it, not wanting to slip into total hysteria.

Bryce and I got ready for work and were in the office by eight. I had plenty to keep me busy, and I was glad for that—the idea of whittling the hours away waiting for the doctor to call, checking the phone over and over again like some lovestruck college girl hoping her boyfriend would text her, didn’t seem at all appealing.

Finally, after I got back from a quick lunch with Bess, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out so quickly that I nearly launched it out of my hand and across my office.

It was them.

I pressed “accept” and held the phone to my ear. Moment of truth.

“Hello?”

“Is this Chelsea Lane?”

“It is.”

It was Nurse Stafford. She quickly introduced herself and let me know where she was calling from.

“I know you’re probably eager to hear the results, so I’ll get right to it.”

A moment passed that seemed to stretch into forever.

“The results are positive—you’re pregnant. Congratulations!”

I slumped against the wall behind me, letting my body sink down until I was in a seated position.

I couldn’t believe what I’d heard.

I was pregnant.

I was going to be a mother.

“There’s no chance that the test is wrong, right?”

“Not a chance. You’re one-hundred-percent pregnant.”

I didn’t know what to say. I opened my mouth to speak but just kept opening and closing it like a fish out of water.

Nurse Stafford must’ve picked up on the fact that I was speechless, because she kept talking without waiting for my response.

“You’re about five weeks pregnant. The next step is going to be your first prenatal, which we normally do around week eight. Of course, you’re welcome to use your own doctor, but we have a great OBGYN on staff. If you’d like, I can get you penciled in for three weeks from today. There we’ll do the ultrasound and all that good stuff. How does that sound?”

“G-good,” I said.

“Perfect,” she said. “I’ll be emailing you some basic information on what to expect at this period in your pregnancy, and of course, if you have any questions or want to come in and see us, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.”

“OK,” I said flatly.

The rest of the conversation, what little of it there was, was a blur. I hung up and let the phone drop out of my hand and onto the floor.

I had no idea what emotion I was supposed to be feeling. Part of me was overjoyed, another part of me was terrified, and a third knew that this bizarre arrangement with Bryce had now gotten somehow even more complicated.

So, I did what I always did when I felt overwhelmed—I worked.

I threw myself into planning the upcoming week, setting up appointments with representatives of various construction companies, doing what I could to make sure that the next phase of the development was going to be ready as soon as the site was clear.

And before I knew it, the time to leave had come. Now it was time to see Bryce.

I didn’t know how to handle telling him the news. The idea of keeping it to myself, if only for a little while, occurred to me. But I realized that this would be totally pointless—I’d be showing soon enough.

I realized that I’d gotten so wrapped up in the news of my pregnancy that I hadn’t noticed that Bryce hadn’t been in touch with me. Normally he’d text me throughout the day, but my phone was clear.

Something about this struck me as odd.

Then, as if on cue, my phone buzzed in my hand—it was Bryce.

A text that simply read, “Come to my office. It’s important.”

My stomach tightened, some instinct telling me right away that something was wrong. I shot him back an affirmative text, grabbed my things, and headed toward his office.

Once there, I nodded to the secretary as I opened the door.

Right when I laid eyes on Bryce I knew that my suspicions were correct—something was very, very wrong.

Bryce was seated at his office chair, as usual, but his posture was strikingly different. Instead of his proud, confident—maybe even slightly arrogant—way of carrying himself, his head was slumped down, his eyes locked onto some undeterminable point on his desk. There was no music or noise of any kind playing. He was silent and still and shocked.

“Bryce,” I said, walking slowly toward the desk, my steps so careful you’d think I was worried about setting off a mine. “What’s wrong?”

More silence and stillness from Bryce. I stood a few feet in front of his desk, not sure what to do.

Finally, he spoke. “It’s my dad,” he said. “He’s gone.”