Page 50 of Friends with Benefits

And things had gotten so complicated.

No, I’d deal with this on my own for once. I’d have to.

I should have been studying, but I couldn’t concentrate on my notes if I tried. All I could do was picture the girls crying because my mother had abandoned them somewhere. I pictured my buddies at work getting a call and arriving at a scene, with my twins as the victims. Countless scenarios raced through my mind, each worse than the last.

It was midnight before I came to the conclusion that my mother wasn’t bringing the twins back that night. Wherever she was staying, she was keeping the twins to sleep over. Without any other option to turn to, I felt hopeless, listless. There was nothing I could do but wait to hear back from them or my mom. I just hoped it would be soon.

I threw myself into my bed and tried not to think about how theirs were empty down the hall. I almost wished I hadn’t moved them out of my room. Maybe they wouldn’t feel so far away.

My phone chimed with a notification. Hoping it was my mom, I sat bolt upright and turned on my bedside light. My stomach sank when I realized it was only a notification from an app. I almost turned my phone back off until I realized which application it was. It was the app I used to track my cycle. The one that told me when my period was due.

I unlocked my phone to go to the app when I realized what it was saying. I double-checked the dates and then checked them again because it couldn’t be right. There was no way.

But it was there.

I was late.

It had to be stress. Or the IUD I got before Chris and I broke up. According to my doctor, my cycle could be wonky for a few months. That was all. Maybe I’d gotten lucky like a lot of women and wouldn’t have a period at all.

Knowing I wouldn’t get any sleep until I had more information, I went to the bathroom where I kept a lone pregnancy test from a scare when Chris and I had first started having sex and before I got on the IUD. The minutes I waited after taking the test were almost as excruciating as waiting for news from my mom.

The timer I set on my phone dinged, and I picked up the test, my chest full of apprehension.

The digital readout saidpositive.

My knees simply gave out, and I fell to my butt right there on the bathroom floor. When I could breathe again, I checked the screen once more, and the wordpositivewas still there. It was the same on the two other tests I ran out to get. I had all the time in the world to watch my life go down the drain. If there was an upside, it was that my panic about the girls was obliterated—if only for a moment.

I was in too much shock to feel anything other than stunned disbelief.

No matter how much I didn’t want to believe it, there was no denying the results.

I was pregnant.

Fuck.

Chapter Twenty

Tripp

Ember didn’t answerher phone after I got out of practice, which didn’t concern me at first. We played when I came over by ear, so I didn’t really think anything of it. Much of our relationship—or lack thereof—consisted of ignoring how much of a relationship we actually had. I spent more time at her apartment than mine. We didn’t date or sleep with other people. When she wasn’t working, I was normally in her bed after the twins went to sleep.

Which made my apartment feel as quiet as a tomb in comparison. I knew she thought the girls were too much to handle, and they certainly were a handful, but that didn’t mean I didn’t enjoy them. They were two of the sweetest kids I’d ever known, and, having been in their lives since they were babies, I felt an incredible kinship toward them. Like a mixture between uncle and older brother. I couldn’t imagine a future without them in it.

These thoughts and more revolved around my thoughts as I heated up a frozen dinner instead of making myself a meal. I didn’t really see the point when there was no one else to enjoy it. My mother had instilled in me a love of cooking, and one of my favorite things was to cook meals for my own personal judgment panel, but it simply wasn’t the same without my girls.

That’s what the three of them were.

My girls.

And I wouldn’t be giving them up without a fight.

I finished my pitiful frozen dinner and daydreamed it was the filet mignon we’d grilled at my parents’ house during spring break. While the rest of my classmates headed down to the beach to exchange saliva and STDs, we’d taken the girls to a water park and ate too much pizza. The weekend before school was back in session, we’d packed up the girls and hauled them to my parents’ house for the weekend. Ember grilled steaks and made baked potatoes and a salad. My mom gave her tomatoes and cucumbers from their backyard garden. They’d talked for hours while the girls, my dad, and I had taken turns jumping through a beach ball with a built-in sprinkler.

My dad surprised us all with baseball gloves for the girls. Call me a fucking chick, but it made my chest hurt to see them throwing a ball around with him. Molly could only make it halfway to him, but she caught like a champ. Tillie, however, might have a little Wilder in her because she could throw the ball with a bit of heat behind it. My dad and I had shared a glance. Maybe I could talk Ember into signing her up for ball next season. The girls could use more extracurriculars, and they’d liked playing catch.

I fell asleep on the couch, daydreaming about teaching them how to play.

I still hadn’t heard from Ember.