Page 32 of Daddies’ Holiday Toy (Kissmass Daddies #1)

HOLLY

The next few weeks blur together in a strange, sweet rhythm.

I move through the same quiet rituals every morning, finding myself in a better place than I have been in months.

Between the flyers I’ve been handing out outside of the shop and the word of mouth that somehow keeps spreading faster than the flu, my December calendar is finally stacked with orders.

Cakes, pies, dozens upon dozens of cookie boxes flying out my door.

For once, I’m not panicking about whether I can pay the bills or not.

Jack still slips in sometimes after hours to visit me, leaning against the doorway with a warm cup of tea in his hand to help wind me down for the night, looking like there’s no place he’d rather be but here.

He escorts me back to my apartment those nights, keeping me safe while walking the quiet, empty streets with me, our hands brushing together until our fingers link.

Liam drops by on his lunch break, always with a paper bag in hand and two sandwiches tucked inside, claiming he just happened to be in the neighborhood, though somehow he always shows up exactly when the shop is empty.

We sit on stools behind the counter, our knees brushing together, the sound of passing traffic just a faint background hum.

Reece is the worst at pretending like this is just a casual arrangement.

He doesn’t bother with playing games, just sends me a text to ask if I’m available and shows up twenty minutes later, all easy charm and shameless grins.

He’ll lean over the counter to swipe up a stray cookie before I can set them back in the display case, then he’ll make himself comfortable like we’ve been doing this forever.

I try my best to tell myself this is all just casual.

I tell myself I’m not catching feelings, and that this arrangement is just convenient and self-satisfying for all of us.

We’re all getting what we want out of it with no strings. But every time one of them leaves, I catch myself glancing at the door hoping they’ll turn right around and come back to me.

Silver lining: for the first time in months, I’m not drowning in stress.

No more sleepless nights staring at the ceiling, wondering if I’ll make rent.

No heart-dropping panic when the bills land in my mailbox. The weight that’s been crushing me for weeks has finally dissipated.

When Mallory comes in after work to help decorate cookies, our special tradition, we fall into our old rhythm without trying.

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 not pregnant .”

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 me you’ve been careful.”

My lips press together before I can stop them. Guilt burns in my chest.

“You’re not serious.” She groans, dragging both hands down her face like she’s physically trying to wipe away my stupidity. “Oh my god. You’ve been sleeping with three guys and you didn’t even wrap it?”

“I…they pull out.”

“ When?”

My lips press together again.

She slaps a hand over her face, groaning into it again. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I really don’t need this right now,” I snap, pushing up off the floor.

The room around me spins for a dizzying moment, forcing me to grab onto the doorway to steady myself.

Pregnant.

It’s too ridiculous to even think about, let alone entertain.

I can’t be pregnant. Even if I?—

My head shakes, ridding the thought instantly.

“Well, you need to take a test. Just to be sure,” she fires back, following me to my tiny office.

Oh, god. I can’t do this.

My stomach rolls again, the truth landing in my gut like two stones slamming into each other.

Not just from the possibility of it being true, but at the sheer stupidity of it being possible in the first place.

I can’t believe I’ve been that careless, or reckless, to think I’m above something like this happening.

Actions always have consequences.

“Holly.”

I snatch my purse off of my desk and shove past her. “Come on.”

We close the bakery early, both of us silent as I lock the door.

The short walk to the pharmacy feels like trudging toward a verdict I already know is coming.

My boots crunch over patches of half-melted snow while the prickly wind chill slices against my cheeks.

Every step causes my chest to tighten a little more, the air quickly becoming too hard to pull into my lungs.

Through it all, there’s one single, looping thought that won’t quit: if it is positive…

Whose is it?

At the pharmacy, I don’t even bother scanning all the options.

My eyes dart to the first box within reach.

The cardboard feels too light in my grip when I lift it from the shelf and bring it up to the front counter.

How can something this flimsy be able to decide my entire future in less than five minutes?

My hands are shaking before we even make it up to the cashier. I can barely swipe my card, mumbling a quiet “ no ” when I’m asked if I want a bag.

What I really want is just out .

On the walk back to the shop, my heart is a relentless drumbeat in my ears.

The longer I’m left to my own thoughts, the faster the spiral starts spinning with these terrible, uninvited flashes of all three of them finding out and then telling me this isn’t what they signed up for and leaving.

God…what would I even do in that situation?

If I decide to keep it, would I go after them for child support?

Try to work it out and see if the father would be up for helping me take care of the baby?

How badly will this fracture the arrangement we all have together?

I don’t want to lose any of them, but the possibility of forcing one of them to step up is a terrifying reality.

One that may break their friendship apart.

And that’s not even counting what will happen once my dad finds out.

Getting back to the bakery, I realize I can’t take the test here. I don’t want to. So we slip into Mallory’s car, where I clutch the box in both hands, feeling like it’s something closer to a grenade waiting to detonate than a few pregnancy test kits.

The drive to her apartment feels like forever and no time at all. She keeps glancing at me out of the corner of her eye, but she doesn’t say anything.

In a way, I’m grateful for the silence because I can’t handle meaningless conversation right now and I definitely can’t handle discussing anything serious.

By the time we get inside her apartment, my nerves are so fried they’re almost humming.

Her bathroom is small with bright wallpaper, smelling faintly of eucalyptus soap that makes the nausea worse.

I tear into the box with clumsy fingers, almost dropping the contents onto the tile.

Two tests. Two chances to decide my fate.

God, I hope she’s fucking wrong.

I do what I have to do, then set the stick down on the counter, the little screen turned away from me like I can trick it into staying blank.

Mallory stands just inside the doorway with me, arms folded over her chest in the same stiff posture she’s had since the bakery.

Neither of us speaks for a long time.

“How long do we have to wait?” I whisper, my throat dry.

“Three minutes, usually.”

Three minutes…might as well be three years.

I pace the narrow strip of floor between the sink and the door, sitting on the edge of the tub and bouncing my knees, I stand again and stare at the sink without looking at what’s on it while hoping when that result finally pops up, it will be negative.

“So… what are you gonna do if it’s positive?” Mallory’s voice is quiet, but it slices right through me.

“I…” My mouth opens, but the rest of the sentence refuses to exist.

I don’t fucking know.

All I know is that I am not ready for whatever comes if that test does turn out to be positive.

How the hell am I going to run a bakery while pregnant?

How am I supposed to raise a child when I don’t even know who the father is?

Will Liam, Jack, or Reece be willing to take a test to figure out whose it is?

And if we do find out, will the responsible father step up…or just walk away?

The questions whirl through my head, loud and unrelenting.

She sighs through her nose.

“I really don’t know what you were thinking. You should’ve thought about that before you started this whole sugar daddy thing with your dad’s best friends. What’s going to happen when he finds out?”

That’s the one thing I absolutely don’t want to think about.

“Stop. We don’t even know if I’m pregnant yet. It feels like you’re jinxing me.”

“Holly, come on.”

“You think I don’t already hate myself for not being smarter about it?” I snap back at her.

I don’t mean to, she’s only trying to help, but I can’t stop. The panic is already spilling over into anger.

Not at her, but at myself. At every single reckless moment that brought me here to begin with.

This was all supposed to be fun.

A way to act out my dark fantasies with three men who were more than willing to indulge me.

Now here I am, stuck without them in my best friend’s bathroom, figuring out if I’m about to implode everything.

When the little chime from the timer on my phone goes off, I can’t move. Mallory steps forward, and picks up the stick, turning it around to face her.

Her face says it before her mouth does.

As her eyes flick to mine, they’re filled with pity, or maybe fear, I can’t quite tell. “Oh… It’s…”

When she flips it around to show me, my heart sinks, already knowing.

Positive .

The word blurs on the tiny screen as my vision floods.

My breath catches, making my throat burn. I press both hands to my face, but it doesn’t stop the sound—that raw, ugly sob that tears out of me before I can even think to bite it back.

My knees give out and I plunge to the ground.

The tile feels cold and hard beneath me, grounding and cruel all at once. I fold in on myself, but then Mallory is there, sinking down without hesitation to circle her arms around me.

She pulls me into her chest, her fingers weaving into my hair, holding me.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers into the crown of my head, the words muffled by my own ragged breathing. “I’m so sorry, Hol.”

I cling to her like I’m drowning and she’s the only thing keeping me above the surface.

I’m twenty-four.

My business has just begun standing on its own legs again.

I’ve only now started coming into my own and figuring out where my future is headed.

And now…

Now I’m…

The word won’t come, even in my own mind.

If I say them out loud, or even think about them, it becomes real in a way I can never take back.

Pregnant .

Which one? Would any of them want this? Would any of them stay?

Mallory rocks me slightly, her palm smoothing over my back in slow circles. “You’re not alone. I’ll be right here with you. No matter what you decide. It’s going to be okay.”

I wish I could believe her.

But right now, all I can feel is the terrifying truth settling into my bones: this isn’t something I can undo.

This is happening.

And I don’t know how to survive it.