Page 25 of Best Friends

The pregnancy test sits on my bathroom counter like a tiny white bomb, waiting to explode our world into something completely different. Malcolm paces behind me in the small space, his nervous energy filling the room with an almost electric tension.

“How long has it been?” he asks for the third time in two minutes.

I check my phone again, my hands trembling slightly. “One minute, thirty seconds.” My voice comes out rougher than I intended. “We still have another minute and a half.”

He stops pacing and comes to stand behind me, his chest pressed against my back. His hands settle on my shoulders, warm and solid, and immediately some of the tension in my body starts to ease. This close, his scent wraps around me like a security blanket, and I lean back into his warmth.

“Whatever it says,” he murmurs against the back of my neck, his breath sending shivers down my spine, “it’s fine.”

I nod, not trusting my voice. My reflection stares back at me from the mirror above the sink—pale, wide-eyed. Malcolm’s reflection appears over my shoulder, his blue eyes meeting mine in the glass. There’s love there, and worry, and something that might be hope.

“Are you scared?” I whisper.

His arms tighten around me. “Terrified,” he admits. “But also... God, C., I keep thinking about what it would be like. A baby. Our baby.”

My heart does something complicated in my chest, a mixture of panic and longing that makes it hard to breathe. “We haven’t been a couple very long,” I say, voicing the fear that’s been eating at me since I started feeling nauseous last week. “What if we’re not ready? What if—”

“Hey.” He turns me around in his arms, his hands cupping my face gently. “We’ve known each other our whole lives. We’ve been best friends forever. The romantic part might be new, but us? We’re solid.”

I search his face, looking for any sign of doubt, but all I see is Malcolm—steady, reliable Malcolm. “You really believe that?”

“I know it,” he says firmly. “And if you’re pregnant, I don’t want you to worry about when after the baby comes either. I know you still want to work and I support that a hundred percent. We’ll hire childcare, okay? My mom also said she’d love to babysit anytime we need her.”

“Thank god or your mom. Mine is so far away and she’s not the best with kids anyway.”

“We’ve got it covered. We can have everything we want, C. No limits.” He kisses the tip of my nose affectionately. “So long as we’re together, I feel kind of unstoppable.”

Despite my nerves, I laugh. “How come you’re so sure everything will be great?”

He shrugs. “I’ve always felt that when I’m with you. Even when we were kids.”

I smile but then the timer on my phone goes off, and we both freeze. The sound seems impossibly loud in the small bathroom, echoing off the tile walls. My heart starts hammering against my ribs, and I can feel Malcolm’s pulse quickening where his wrists rest against my neck.

“Okay,” I breathe, turning off the alarm. “I… I guess we should look at the test result now.”

“Absolutely.”

But neither of us moves. We stand there, wrapped around each other, both staring at the test like it’s a grenade.

“On three?” Malcolm suggests.

“On three.”

“One...”

My palms are sweating, and I wipe them on my jeans.

“Two...”

Malcolm’s grip on me tightens.

“Three.”

We turn together, and there it is. Two pink lines, clear as day, impossible to misinterpret.

Positive.

The silence stretches between us, thick and heavy with implication. I stare at those two lines until they blur, my mind struggling to process what this means. A baby. Malcolm’s baby. Our baby.

“Holy shit,” Malcolm whispers, his voice full of awe.

“Holy shit,” I echo, and suddenly I’m laughing, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep in my chest.

“We’re having a baby, C,” he mumbles, and then he’s laughing too, the sound rich and warm and full of joy. He grabs me in a bear hug and we both laugh harder.

His eyes are bright with unshed tears. “God, I love you,” he says, framing my face with his hands. “I love you so much, and I’m going to love this baby so much.”

“I love you so much,” I mumble, my eyes filling with tears. “I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else, Malc.”

“Me neither,” he says solemnly, then breaks into that grin that’s been making my heart skip since we were kids. “Why are we so serious? We’re having a damn baby, C.! This is a fucking joyous occasion.”

I touch my stomach and laugh through my tears. “I think I’m in shock.”

“We need to call our moms.” He picks up the pregnancy test. “We should frame this.”

“Probably not. It has urine on it.”

He quickly sets it down again and wipes his hands on his jeans. “Oh, yeah.”

“We also need to call Chey.” I blow out a shaky breath and grab my phone off the counter.

“She’s going to be so happy for us.” He grins.

I meet Malcolm’s delighted gaze and my heart squeezes.

I wouldn’t say coming out has been exactly easy, but it also hasn’t been as awful as I feared.

Some people, like Harlan and Jeremy, were jerks about it—but then, they’ve always been jerks.

Our families were the most surprised, but they were also supportive.

Most people at work barely blinked when Malcolm and I let them know we were a couple.

Apparently I seriously overestimated people’s interest in my private life.

Malcolm puts his hand on my stomach. “This is one of the best days of my life,” he says quietly.

I smile. “Yeah?”

He nods and says somberly, “Obviously the best day was when you moved in next door to my house when we were kids.”

“I guess it was a good thing my mom never wanted me underfoot.”

He smiles as if remembering something from back then. “The day you moved in, and after the movers had gone, you were sitting on your front porch. You were wearing blue overalls, and you were glowering at a stuffed giraffe you were holding.”

“You remember what I was wearing?”

He nods. “Oh yeah. I remember every detail of that first meeting. I recall that, despite how grumpy you looked, I had an overwhelming urge to talk to you. So I rode my bike over to you and I introduced myself.”

I laugh. “I remember. You said, ‘I’m Malcolm and we’re going to be best friends.’”

He grins. “That’s right. You looked super suspicious and you said, ‘I don’t have friends.’”

Chuckling, I say, “And you said, ‘You don’t need friends . You only need me.’”

He groans. “Yeah, I guess even back then I was a needy son of a bitch. I wanted you all to myself from the minute I laid eyes on you.”

My smile slowly fades and I lean in to kiss him. It’s a gentle, loving brush of lips, designed to show him what he means to me. When I pull back, I whisper, “But you were right, Malc. You are the only person I need.”

He looks emotional as he responds, “Back at cha, C.”

****

“I swear to God, why does Hernandez have to eat an egg sandwich every morning? Can’t the guy eat a granola bar once in a while? Just thinking about that egg sandwich makes me want to lose it all over the dashboard,” I groan, rolling down the passenger window of our patrol car.

“Don’t you dare barf in the car. That smell is impossible to get out. We’ll have to set the car on fire and tell the captain it spontaneously combusted.”

I laugh weakly, inhaling the outside air. It helps a little, but not much. I’m only two months along, but ever since my pregnancy, everything smells too strong, too intense. Even Cheyenne’s subtle floral perfume makes my stomach roll.

“Maybe you could ask Hernandez to eat at home,” Cheyenne observes, taking a sip of her coffee.

“I can’t ask him to change his entire routine because I’m pregnant.” I sigh. “Besides, he’s friends with Harlan and if he tells him I’m complaining about feeling nauseous in the morning, I’ll just be giving Harlan ammunition to make fun of me more than he already does.”

Cheyenne scowls. “Harlan is such a douche. Being pregnant is a completely normal biological process for an omega.”

“You and I know that, but jerks like Harlan already think being an omega is a handicap. Not to mention a bisexual omega.” I touch my stomach gingerly. “This pregnancy is like a gift to him.”

“Man, I wish he’d transfer to another precinct.”

“From your lips to God’s ears.” I sigh. “And I’m not even showing yet. Can you imagine the bullshit I’ll have to put up with once I am?”

“They’re all idiots,” she says firmly, turning onto Fifth Street for our patrol route.

“You’ve been a real trooper dealing with morning sickness.

You haven’t missed a single day, and yesterday you chased down that purse snatcher for three blocks without breaking a sweat. I’d like to see Harlan do that.”

“Yeah, I’m a real superstar. Unless of course you count that I had to stop eight times during our shift to pee. Oh, and just FYI, I’m as constipated as if I drank cement this morning, instead of coffee.”

She laughs.

“Sorry,” I smirk. “Was that TMI?”

Cheyenne snorts. “Please. I have three sisters. Nothing about pregnancy is TMI to me.” She glances over at me with a grin. “Though I have to admit, watching you turn green every time someone eats anything with onions is pretty entertaining.”

“Glad my suffering amuses you,” I grumble, but I’m smiling too.

It’s a relief to have someone I can complain to without feeling guilty.

Malcolm tries to be understanding, but every time I mention feeling tired or nauseous, I can see the guilt flash across his face.

He starts hovering, asking if I need to sit down or if he should call the doctor, and I end up reassuring him instead of getting any actual sympathy.

“Malcolm seems over the moon excited about the baby.” Cheyenne smiles.

“Oh, yes. He’s super excited.” I pause, trying to find the right words. “He’s also kind of annoying.”

“Is he?” She laughs.