Chapter 10
Sophia needed someone to talk to about her pregnancy. It was a hard conversation to facilitate. Thus far, Sophia kept it a total secret - she hadn't told a soul. No one aside from Dr. Martinez, Adam and Blake knew about her situation. She was too afraid of judgement. Marcy was the only real choice. Sophia thought maybe she could confide in Marcy, but what if Marcy freaked out when she learned the fantasy became reality? Marcy could say it was hot, but when it actually came down to it, down to a baby, how would she feel? Sophia longed for Marcy's comfort and support. After all, Marcy was of her closest friend. In fact, Marcy was the only friend she had outside of her old life.
Nervously, she invited Marcy over for dinner. Both women had careers for big papers and had little free time. Now that the holidays were coming up, they barely had any time at all as well. In addition to the ever-present weight of how she would break the news of the pregnancy and explain who the father was, Sophia also had to cope with the stress of what to buy everyone in her huge family and how to break the silence that they had maintained since she had kicked them out of her apartment.. All of the mounting pressure in her life was making her a nervous wreck. Sshe hoped Marcy could offer some sort of insight and support. The two women were finally able to find a day when they were both in the middle of the week.
“Wine?” Marcy called as soon as she entered the penthouse. “Oh, wow,” she stopped to admire the place.
“No, thanks, not for me,” Sophia said. Back in college, the two had bonded over drinking wine while studying together. They used to even smuggle bottles into the library and sneak drinks when no one was looking. They used to make a game out of it.
Marcy was surprised, and put out, that Sophia said no. “What? You never say no to wine.”
“You’re welcome to have some.”
“No, no, I need to know what’s going on with you first.”
“Well.” She sat down heavily.
Marcy sat across from her. “Something is up. Out with it.” While she was as snarky as usual, she also had lines of genuine concern across her forehead. She really was a good friend.
That helped relax Sophia a bit. She laughed nervously and forced it out. “I’m pregnant.”
“Get out!” Marcy jumped up, then sat back down, her mouth hanging open. “I thought…?”
“I thought so too. But I guess I'm fertile after all….”
“Wow!” Marcy then ventured, “So is this a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Well, I’m elated, obviously.” Sophia forced a smile. Then her smile slipped. “But things are very complicated.”
Marcy didn’t even need to ask. “You don’t know which one is the father, do you?”
Sophia was relieved that she didn’t have to explain.
“Exactly.”
“Oh, wow, that is a doozy. And do they know?”
“Well, yes. Of course.”
“How did that go?” Marcy was starving for info. She even leaned forward, her hands clasped on her lap with anticipation, the whites of her knuckles showing. She kept bouncing her leg, waiting for Sophia to hurry up and talk.
“Well…here’s the thing. And you might not understand. I don’t think anyone would.”
“You know that even if I don’t understand, I will be OK with it. Let me guess, actually. Both brothers know about each other and don’t care?”
“It’s even more than that.”
“Well, what the hell? What is it, Eve?”
Sophia gathered her breath. “OK. Well, a few weeks ago, Tony and my mom came over.” She then launched into a long-winded story, finally winding up at the point that she knocked on their door, ready to accept their invitation for a three way relationship.
“So you have been part of an ongoing threesome?” Marcy gasped. “Get out! This is the stuff of trashy romances! It can’t be happening.”
“But it is.” Sophia had to laugh at Marcy’s expression.
“So have you had that menage a trois yet?” was her first question. And then both women burst into laughter.
For the next hour, Sophia disclosed the dirtiest details of her new life. How she felt and how threesomes felt. Marcy hung on every word, clearly transfixed.
“Where can I find me some kinky billionaire brothers?” she asked finally, as she poured a glass. She started to offer Sophia one, then remembered with a little laugh. “Well, no wine for a few months, huh?”
“Closer to a year,” Sophia said with mock bitterness. She placed her hands over her belly. Not drinking wine was a sacrifice she was more than happy to make for this little one. Though she pretended to miss wine, really she did not mind giving it up at all. She was already starting to love this little child, even though she hadn’t even seen him on an ultrasound yet. Blake was sending her to Dr. James Sugarman, one of the top ranked OB-GYNs in the country, and the same doctor who had delivered each of him and Adam, and managed to get Sophia an appointment the following week. Sophia wanted to go to Dr. Martinez, but he was not an OB-GYN and also there was too much shame. Really, she was not sure if she could ever look Dr. Martinez in the eye again, or whether he would ever look at her in the eye either.
“How are you feeling about the baby, though? I mean, how does it feel to be pregnant?” Marcy had never had kids, only strings of short-lived romances with jerks and losers that she soon discarded. She was holding out for love and growing tired of waiting for it to arrive on her doorstep. Sometimes she liked to say that she was married to her career as an investigative journalist for an increasingly popular alternative news website. Though she was not bathing in opulence on her current salary, her job held the promise of growth with President Trump and the North Korea issue, and she was making just fine with a roommate. But it was clear she held some tingle of envy as she sat beside Sophia and rubbed her tummy with her.
“I feel pretty good. Not too much nausea anymore.”
“Have you been having really weird food cravings? I heard that happens.” Sophia could already tell that Marcy was going to become an expert on pregnancy and childbirth overnight and would be as involved as she could be.
“Not really. I was really wanting broccoli last night, though.”
“That happens. I heard broccoli is a common craving. You know I’m getting you that book, that What to Expect When You’re Expecting.”
“Sure,” Sophia shrugged. “Any help I can get. I’ve done a bit of research to create the perfect pregnancy diet. Blake and I still get coffee but I limit it to one a day. No soda. I’ve been doing well and staying active.”
“Good, good. And emotionally?”
Sophia couldn’t resist the smile cracking through her worry. “I’m really excited, honestly.” She looked at Marcy with a tender smile and Marcy melted. “I guess I shouldn’t be. But I have always wanted to be a mother.”
“Why shouldn’t you be happy? You’re not alone, it sounds like. The guys said they would help, so you have nothing to worry about. You should be over the moon.”
“Yeah, that’s not the issue. It’s my family. I shouldn’t be so happy. I know that I should be panicking. I mean, what am I going to do about my family?”
Marcy gasped and her eyes widened with understanding.
“They just won’t understand. My mother will be devastated. They will be so mad I got pregnancy out of wedlock and the fact I don’t know the father….well, they’ll flip out. They can’t know about the Franklins, though, they can’t.”
“Then don’t tell them,” Marcy suggested with a casual shrug, as if that was the obvious solution. “Just say you don’t know who the dad is. They might get mad and think you’ve been a slut, but let them think that. You’re a grown woman and it doesn’t matter what they think of you. You really don’t have to tell them about this menage thing. Because I agree, they would probably disown you over that. They won’t disown you over you being a slut, but fucking both Franklin brothers? Yeah, no.”
Suddenly Sophia gasped. “But Tony saw me with Blake!” The memory flooded back of him glaring at her with his piercing dark eyes as she pecked Blake good-bye at the elevator before greeting them at her door. All of them had seen her and viewed her with such searing judgement!
“What? He did?” Marcy exclaimed. “How did he see that?”
“Yeah. When he came over and taunted me the way I told you, you know that day he came over with my mother and Angela. Well, he saw Blake and me walking and then I pecked Blake bye to make him jealous. So now he’ll know exactly who I’ve been with.”
“OK, so say it’s Blake’s.” Marcy still acted as if this was so simple. Obviously she couldn’t put herself in Sophia’s shoes, but Sophia just wished that she could understand more. Could anyone in the world understand? Had anyone ever been in her place in life? She felt so alone.
“But that will hurt Adam,” Sophia argue. “He will hate having to pretend it’s his brother’s when really it’s…it’s all of ours. I can’t just choose one or the other, or it will hurt all of us.”
Marcy sucked in her breath and swilled her wine. “Well, I can see that, I guess. But if they really care about you as much as they say, they will do what it takes to keep your family at peace. I mean, your family needs to be involved. You want your kid to know them, right?”
“Oh, of course. My mother has grandkids already and it’s so sweet seeing her play with them. But I’m her only daughter. She really wanted me to have kids with Tony. It would break her heart never having a relationship with her grandchild. So she needs to know this little one. It will mean a lot to all of us. I can’t cut my family off just because of this.” Suddenly, Sophia burst into tears. “I don’t want to lose my family! But this is who I am! I can’t change and I won’t for them!”
Marcy seemed a bit confused about what to do. She finally set down her wine and crouched over Sophia, patting her back awkwardly. “Are you going to be OK?” she asked, genuinely worried.
Really, Marcy meant well. But she had no more answers than Sophia did. Sophia was the one who had to do this and all of it. She had make the decision about how to handle the family issue. All she knew was that she couldn’t lose them and they would disown her if they learned about her…deviant lifestyle. Not that it felt deviant to her. But everyone else would certainly think that. Her mother certainly could never know or she would lose her mind! Forget her normal drama, this would be the end of everything!
Sophia finally composed herself. “Sorry,” she said, ashamed and avoiding Marcy’s eyes. Marcy had never seen her lose control of her emotions like that, not even after she had caught Tony cheating.
“It’s fine, girl. You have one hell of a situation here and you know you can cry on my shoulder any time.” Marcy settled back into her seat, still looking concerned. “I just wish there was more I could do to help you. I really don’t have any answers.”
Sophia nodded. “I have to figure this all out on my own.”
“Maybe you should call Dr. Phil,” Marcy joked. “I bet you would get right onto the show. He would love to puzzle this one out.”
Sophia managed a wan smile. “Right. Though I bet he couldn’t even fix this mess.”
“Do you even have an idea what to do?”
“I was just thinking I would claim it was some stranger’s baby. Let them judge me for that. Maybe I will say it Adam’s, or something. I don’t know. They have already seen me with Blake.”
“But didn’t you just say that might hurt one of them?”
“I know!” Sophia cried out in despair. “I want to stay with Adam and Blake and they want to stay with me. But if the three of us stay together, sooner or later the truth will come out. I just don’t know what to do.”
Marcy looked as optimistic as she could muster. “We'll figure it out.” As she sipped her wine, she fixed her eyes on the wall, clearly unwilling to look at Sophia. She knew as well as Sophia did that there was no way this was going to end easily or well.
Sophia could not sleep that night. Her meeting with Marcy had only made her feel more confused. If only some sort of answer might present itself. She prayed to God but felt guilty doing it. Would God even help her, when she had violated His word so thoroughly? Did he even still love her, considering her sexual exploits of late? She felt very far from her faith considering what she had been up to lately. The fact she was pregnant made her feel even worse and further from God.
“Please bless this baby,” was the final thing she said in her prayer. This was no longer just about her. It was now about another little person, a person she did not even know the name of yet. She was certain it was a son and she planned to name it something cute, like maybe Arden.
She decided to distract herself by calling the Franklins and talking about baby names. Though they lived almost next door, she wanted to just stay in her place alone. But it was fun to plan for the baby with them. They planned to help her transform the room adjacent to hers into a nursery. They hoped to continue their current living arrangements for now, and maybe consider a nice house in the suburbs later on.