Page 14 of Risk (Gods #3)

A t the sound of the buzzer, letting me know someone is at the main door, I clamber off the sofa, my legs stiff from sitting in the same position for too long, and stagger over to press the button to open the main building door without asking who it is because I know it’s Lo.

I’ve been sitting here since I hung up with him, staring at the wall, trying to hold all my emotions inside so that I won’t freak out and start panicking.

Because I know that freaking out won’t do me any good. It’ll just make things worse. My feelings and emotions will heighten, making my situation seem bleak. So, I just sat and waited for Lo to get here, trying to quiet all the thoughts and fears in my mind. I could also be in a state of shock.

But it’s okay because Lo is here now, and he’s a great listener. After I talk to him, then I’ll be able to rationalize it all in my mind. I’ll be able to get all my thoughts in order and know what to do.

Well, that’s the hope.

I unlock the door and open it, waiting for Lo to appear.

And he does a moment later. He comes bounding up the stairs. His dark hair is overgrown and messy, and he looks like he’s wearing yesterday’s clothes—and knowing my twin brother, he probably is.

How my baby brother is ever going to comb his hair, dress himself in a suit every day, and go to court to defend people once he passes the bar is beyond me.

It still boggles my mind that my laid-back, chilled-out brother is going to officially be a lawyer soon.

“You look awful,” he says to me, stepping through the open door and wrapping me in a hug.

I sag into him. The scent of my brother is like home, and it’s the only place I want to be right now because my brothers equal a safe place where nothing and no one can hurt me.

“Thanks. You too,” I mutter, my voice muffled by his jacket.

He chuckles as I release him and shut the door.

“You want something to drink?” I ask, ever the polite host.

“No, I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”

I stare at him for a beat, and then I go over to the coffee table, pick up the pregnancy test, and walk it over to him.

I hold it out for him to take, which he does.

He stares down at it and then back to my face. “This yours?”

“No. I found it on the street and brought it home.”

He lifts an annoyed brow.

“Of course it’s mine.” I sigh.

“So, you’re…pregnant.”

I exhale another breath and wrap my arms around my midriff. “Apparently so.”

He looks down at the pregnancy test he’s still holding. “Did you pee on this?”

“Of course I did.”

“Fuck’s sake, sis. Gross.” He walks over and drops the test back onto the coffee table, and then he goes in the kitchen and washes his hands.

“God, it’s just a little pee. Not like you’re going to get pregnant from it. Speaking of that, can we please focus on that fact? Because I’m about five seconds away from freaking the fuck out!” My voice rises an octave with each word.

Lo finishes drying his hands on the kitchen towel. “Are you sure you’re pregnant?”

I give him a look. “We both looked at the same test,” I say in a droll voice.

“Yeah, I know it says you’re pregnant, but there was this girl at Penn State who thought she was knocked up by one of my buddies, Brody—you remember him.”

“No.”

“Sure you do. You met him a few times when you came to stay with me. The football player. Dark hair. Had a total hard-on for Ares—”

“Stared at my tits every time he spoke to me.”

“That’s the one,” Lo goes on. “Well, anyway, this chick he was banging from one of his classes told him she was pregnant. Had a positive test and everything. But when they went to the doc, they tested her, and she wasn’t pregnant. They said that could sometimes happen.”

“A false positive.”

“Yeah. Brody was relieved as fuck.”

Hope lifts inside me like a balloon inflating in my chest.

A false positive.

I mean, it could be possible.

It’s a small chance, and I don’t want to get my hopes up that I also have a false positive test. I can’t imagine that it happens often, but…

“You think I should do another test?” I ask Lo.

He shrugs, placing his hands on the kitchen counter. “Won’t hurt anything to do another test. You want me to go to the store and grab another one?”

“You’ll go get one for me?” Emotion wells up inside me at his thoughtfulness.

“Sure. I’m starving. Didn’t get a chance to grab anything to eat before coming here, so I’ll get some food while I’m out.”

I know he offered to go to the store because he’s hungry, but it’s still sweet that he said he’d go get the test.

“You want anything to eat?” he asks as he heads for the door.

“No.” I can’t bear the thought of eating anything right now. “But can you get a different brand from the one I already used?”

He stops at the door. “Which brand is that one?”

“Uh, I don’t know.”

“Where’s the box it came in?”

“In the bathroom. One sec.” I run and grab the box and bring it back out to him.

He takes it from me and tucks it into his jacket pocket.

“Take my key so you can let yourself back in.” I pick it up from the small table by the door and hand it to him.

He leans down and plants a kiss on the top of my head. “I’ll be back. Don’t stress and drink water while I’m gone.”

“Why?” I ask, opening the door for him.

He gives me a dumb look. “So that you need to pee by the time I get back.”

I totally deserved that dumb look. “Water. Got it. See you soon.”

I shut the door behind him and go straight into the kitchen. I grab a glass, fill it with water from the faucet, and start chugging it down.

I’m still standing in my tiny kitchen area, three glasses of water in, when Lo comes back with a grocery bag in hand.

He puts my keys and the grocery bag on the kitchen counter. He pulls out a couple of prepackaged sandwiches, a large bag of chips, a carton of orange juice, and then two different brands of pregnancy tests.

“I got two, just in case,” he tells me.

I give him a weak smile. “Thanks.”

“Think you can take one now?” he asks me.

I pause to pay attention to my bladder. “Probably.” I stare at the tests. “Which one should I use?”

“Do them both,” Lo says.

“At the same time?”

He rips open one of the sandwich packs, takes the food out, and takes a huge bite. “Sure. Why not?” he says through his mouthful.

I stare at him for a beat. “Okay. I’ll do both.” I scoop them up and carry them to my bathroom.

Closing the door behind me, I open the test boxes and read the instructions for both. I’m pretty much delaying the inevitable here.

“You done them yet?” Lo hollers from the living room.

“No!” I holler back. “Give me a minute!”

Muttering to myself, I get back to the task at hand, peeing on both the sticks, which isn’t as easy as you’d think. I had to have one in one hand and the other in my other hand, ready to go. But I somehow manage to pee on both tests and set them on the bathroom counter.

I flush and wash my hands and go out into the living room.

Lo is leaning against the kitchen counter, now eating the bag of chips. Both sandwiches gone.

“Just have to wait three minutes,” I tell him.

“You set a timer?” he asks.

I shake my head.

He lifts his arm and taps his Apple Watch a few times. “I’ve set one.”

He puts another chip in his mouth and offers the bag to me. I shake my head again, wrapping my hands around my stomach.

We both wait in silence, waiting for the timer on his watch to go off. The only sounds are the low hum of traffic noise outside and Lo crunching on his chips.

It feels like it’s been an hour before the timer beeps on his watch.

We look at each other the instant the beeping starts.

Lo puts down his chips and stops the incessant beeping on his watch. “Ready?” he asks me.

I swallow. It was hard enough when I checked that first test, and I was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure that it wasn’t going to be positive.

But knowing it’s now the reverse or possibly even slimmer odds of being negative, the thought of even looking at them makes me want to hurl, and the only thing I have in my stomach is water.

“No.” I shake my head for emphasis.

“Want me to check them?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Come on.” He takes me by the hand and leads me in the direction of the bathroom.

“What are you doing? I thought you were gonna look.”

“I am.” He squeezes his big frame past me when we reach the open bathroom doorway, leaving me standing there. “But I’m not yelling the results to you from here.”

“Oh, right. Makes sense.”

“I always do.”

I have no comeback because my only focus is on the two tests sitting side by side on the counter and making sure that I don’t look directly at them. Like the sun. Because if they’re positive, I know for a fact that they’ll burn my retinas, and then I’ll be blind and definitely pregnant.

“How do you want to do this?” Lo looks at me, unsure.

“Just look at them and tell me what they say.”

“Okay.”

“Wait!” I yell, startling him.

“What?”

“I don’t know. I’m just…not ready.”

“You’ve done this once already. You already think you’re pregnant. It can’t get any worse than this.”

“Jeez. Thanks for the pep talk.”

“I’m gonna look at them and then just say it.”

“Okay.” I press my palms to my eyes. “Do it.”

It’s silent for a beat.

I hear Lo take a deep breath, and I know the answer before he says, “They’re both positive.”

And that’s when I start to cry. Real tears because there’s no doubt at all that I’m pregnant.

I feel Lo’s arms go around me, wrapping me in a hug.

“It’s going to be okay,” he tells me.

But I’m not sure it’s going to be.

I’m pregnant, and the father is a man who doesn’t want me. Ergo, I’m raising this baby solo.

And that thought makes me cry harder.