Page 24

NINETEEN

DAYNA

I’m buried under the duvet, contemplating whether I can disappear into the mattress if I will it hard enough.

Dash bought my migraine excuse without blinking, which is good because I need the night to spiral. Getting through both of my shifts was torture. All I could think about was the huge fucking secret growing inside my uterus.

Nausea swirls through me. I cannot be pregnant. I can barely take care of myself.

I burrow deeper into the blankets, pushing away the bone deep panic settling inside me. How the hell am I meant to have a baby?

There’s a knock at the door, and I unravel my burrito nest.

I don’t want to answer it, regret making the call because I’ll have to face the truth, but I need to spiral in company.

When I open the door, Katie looks me up and down like she’s scanning for wounds.

“Did the biker break your heart? Because if he did, I’m going to rip out his spine.”

“I’ll be second in line.” Ivy folds her arms over her chest.

I wasn’t sure whether I should call Ivy, considering I’m going to ask her to lie to Riot, but she was my fucking friend before she was his fiancée and I need them both.

I herd them inside, and wait until they are sitting on the sofa before I start pacing the floor.

“Dayna? What’s going on?” Ivy asks.

“I was just joking about Dash breaking your heart,” Katie adds. “He hasn’t, as he?”

I shake my head. “No, he’s been… amazing.”

“Are we going to need wine for this? Because maybe we should do that first and then get into whatever’s wrong.”

“Well, as much as I would love to drink a glass of wine, hell, the whole fucking bottle I can’t.”

“Sure, you can. You’ve got ten hours before you have to be back at work?—”

“I’m pregnant.” I blurt it out so fast that it jumbles into a nonsense sound.

“You’re what?”

“Pregnant,” I repeat, slowly this time. I glance at Ivy.

“And I need you to promise you’re not going to say a single word to Riot about this, which is a shitty thing for me to ask, considering the man is about to become your husband, but just remember I know things about you that go back to when you were very, very young and I’m not afraid to use it to blackmail you. ”

Ivy’s mouth is hanging open like it unhinged from the jawbone. “You’re pregnant?”

I wave this off. “Apparently so. You see, my, um, doctor usually sends me a reminder when I’m meant to go and have my birth control injection, but they had some sort of system failure, which meant those messages never went out.

I’ve been walking around barely in control of my life as it is thinking it’s fine.

The message will tell me when I need to go.

Only the universe has a weird sense of humour, and so for seven weeks, I’ve been under the illusion that I’m having the safest sex of my life when in reality it’s been a conception party in there.

Eggs and swimmers just hanging out and going crazy. ”

I sink onto the chair in the window, burying my head in my hands. The weight of everything presses down on my shoulders and a sob erupts out of my mouth before I can stop it.

Ivy moves to sit in front of me, her hands resting on my knees. “It’s okay. I know it feels like the end of the world, but it’s not. We’ll help you get through this. We can have play dates. Our kids will be pretty close in age and?—”

I lift my head to look at her. “Play dates? I can’t keep this baby, Ivy. I can’t even afford to pay my own bills.”

I didn’t mean for that to slip out. “What do you mean?”

“I work two jobs just to keep the lights on.” Shame washes through me.

“But you’re out partying every weekend,” Katie says. It’s not accusatory or judging, just curious.

That shame gets worse, because now, I’m going to have to admit something I’ve never said out loud.

“I don’t pay for anything when I go out.

It’s pretty easy to get men to buy drinks for you if they think you’re going to sleep with them, and a lot of the time, I do follow that through, so…

they put out. Don’t judge me, even though you should. I judge me.”

“No one’s judging you here,” Ivy assures me.

“Dash is the father?” Katie pulls a pillow over her stomach.

“I haven’t been with anyone else since the night we got together.” My head is pounding, and my jaw is so tight I can barely unlock my teeth. “I don’t know what to do.”

Katie touches my shoulder gently. “What do you want to do?”

That’s a question I don’t know how to answer. I haven’t had enough time to process the fact there’s a part of Dash growing inside me, let alone work out my life plan for the next eighteen fucking years.

“He’s going to be angry.” I voice the thing that I’m most scared of. “And then he’s going to leave. I can’t let him go.”

“Honey, what makes you think he’s going to leave?” Ivy asks.

“Let me think… we’ve been dating five fucking seconds, Ivy, and this happened because I messed up.”

“Or here’s a novel idea,” Katie says, “maybe tell Dash that his super biker sperm knocked you up and see what he says.”

“Have you ever known a single man on the planet to be like, hey girl I just started dating less than two months ago. I’m so delighted that you’re having my baby?” I bury my head in my hands, groaning. “Though at least it’ll piss my mother off if I become a single parent.”

“I don’t think Dash is like that,” Ivy says slowly. “He doesn’t seem the type to leave you to do this on your own.”

I want to believe her. I want to believe her so badly that it’s an ache inside my chest. “And what if he does walk away and I’m left holding a baby I can’t afford?”

“Right, because of the two jobs. Since when have you had two jobs?” Katie sounds a little wounded at being kept in the dark.

I wince. “For months. Living alone is expensive.”

The silence hangs between the three of us, thick in a way that makes my stomach twist. “You should’ve told us it was that bad, babe.”

“I’m really scared,” I admit between my tears. “I don’t wanna lose him, and I feel like he’s going to walk as soon as he finds out I caused this.”

Ivy and Katie hug either side of me, and I sob, trying to calm my hiccupping breaths, but I can’t. Because for once my life felt like it was going in a good direction and, of course, I completely fucked it up.

Ivy orders food. She also pays for it. I don’t argue.

I pick at the food, my stomach in knots.

It’s just after ten-thirty when there’s a knock on the door. My eyes snap towards it, terrified it might be Dash. I don’t have the strength to lie to him right now.

Ivy places a hand on my shoulder. “It’s just Nate.”

She stands and walks to the door, opening it.

The relief that I felt briefly that it wasn’t Dash is doused when he steps into the room.

He’s not wearing his kutte, just a green hoodie with his jeans.

He sweeps the room with his eyes as if searching for monsters hiding in the corner, but it’s the little girl clutched in his arms that has my attention.

Seren isn’t his, not by blood, but it doesn’t matter. The way he holds her like she’s stitched into his DNA has my eyes filling with tears.

What would Dash look like holding our child? I quickly squash that thought. We’re not Ivy and Riot. They had a history before they so much as kissed. I’m barely a footnote in Dash’s life.

Riot pulls Ivy against him, his hand on her neck, the baby between them as he kisses her. It’s quick, and yet there is so much yearning behind it that it makes my chest ache. I miss Dash. I wish he was here. I wish I knew everything was going to be okay.

“You girls alright?” he asks, looking between us. The solemn mood sticks to the walls.

Ivy takes her daughter from him, crushing her to her chest with such an ease, I can’t help but feel jealous.

Her daughter was conceived under horrible circumstances, and yet she loves Seren.

My baby was created with joy and happiness—and sometimes tequila—so why can’t I be in this a hundred per cent?

“All good,” she says. “Let’s get this little princess home and into bed. We’re dropping Katie off on the way.”

“Already assumed that was happening.”

Katie just smiles at him. Then she steps up to me and hugs me so tight I feel like my bones might shatter. She whispers into my ear, “Tell him.”

It’s quiet when they leave. Too quiet. I don’t like the silence.

It gives me too much time to be in my head, and right now, that is the worst thing I could possibly be.

I don’t know how I feel about anything other than terrified.

I don’t know how to plan for a future when I don’t have security.

I don’t know how to raise a baby without support.

I press a hand over on my stomach, staring up at the ceiling over my bed. The choices I face yawn before me, and I have no idea which path to pick.

I know which one I want, but what if he doesn’t want that with me?

I tap my fingers over my belly. “You’re not meant to be there,” I whisper, “but now that you are… I wish I could keep you.”

And then I let the tears fall.