Page 112 of Daddies' Holiday Toy

Without the stress of my business potentially going under, I let myself return to turning up our music too loud, push back my sleeves, and teach her how to pipe neat borders while she dumps way too many sprinkles and glitter dust on everything.

It’s easy.

It’s so damn good.

And for the first time since all of this started, I believe life might actually stay this way.

That is, until the nausea starts.

It comes out of nowhere one Tuesday.

I’m mid-sentence, leaning over Mallory’s shoulder to show her how to get clean snowflake lines without the icing bleeding over, when my stomach flips so violently I nearly pass out.

The piping bag slips from my hand, forcing me to grab onto the counter before my knees buckle and decide they’re done holding me up.

At first she laughs in that light, easy way she does when she thinks

I’m being dramatic, but then her face shifts when she grabs my shoulder and pushes me back to get a good look at my face.

“You okay? Whoa. You don’t look so good.”

“Yeah. Just…dizzy for a sec.” I force my voice to stay steady even as sweat prickles the back of my neck when another wave hits me. “Probably just hungry. Guess I need to eat something.”

“Yeah, maybe it’s low blood sugar.”

I choke down half a cranberry muffin, the sugary tang coating my tongue.

After an hour, I’m feeling better and chalk it up to a one-time thing to be cautious about the next time I get too over involved in teaching my best friend that I forget to eat.

But then it happens again the next morning.

And again the day after that, each incident growing worse than the last.

There are no warning signs, just a sudden heat rushing up my neck, and a tight, sour knot in my stomach that tells me I’m seconds away from throwing up.

By Friday, I barely make it through the late-morning rush before I’m bolting for the bathroom and dropping to my knees in front of the toilet, clutching the cold porcelain while I dry-heave until my eyes water.

When I finally pull myself together enough to call my best friend to ask her to give me a ride to the doctor’s, she shows up twenty minutes later with a look on her face that tells me she’s already made up her mind about something and is just waiting for me to catch up.

“That’s it,” she says flatly. “We’re getting you a pregnancy test.”

I laugh. Or try to, anyway.

Instead, it comes out choked, both from throwing up and from disbelief.

“I’m notpregnant.”

Her eyes narrow.

“Are you on anything? Birth control? Have you been using condoms?”

I open my mouth, ready to deflect, but nothing comes out.

Just silence and the faint sound of the toilet’s chamber filling back up.

Her expression changes instantly, suspicion hardening into certainty.

“Holly.Tell meyou’ve been careful.”