Page 42 of The Best Worst Thing

The Box

November, Three Years Ago

Nicole? Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer him.

She just stood there.

Shaking, colorless, silent.

It was a Tuesday morning—early, quiet. Maybe half past nine.

And from the strange internal maze that led Porter Sloane’s hundred-or-so employees to restrooms, a too-small mailroom, and a storage closet that stocked little more than a couple of cases of expired craft beer, there wasn’t even a hint of natural light.

No sign of the cold, gray November sky. No sign of that first California rain.

Just a few dozen yards of navy carpet, ad-bespeckled white walls, and a water fountain that never worked.

“What’s going on?” Logan said, coming a step closer. “Are you okay?”

She closed her eyes and tried to speak.

“I … I don’t think so.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. Nicole barely felt it.

She could barely feel a thing—except for the scraping, cramping howl that sliced from deep inside her stomach to straight between her legs.

He placed a second hand on her shoulder.

His folded face, a blur. The hallway, bright and dull and indistinct.

The last ten minutes, surreal. The whole morning, not happening.

This wasn’t happening.

Ten months of waiting. Two weeks of bliss.

And now, this.

“Please tell me what’s going on,” he said.

“I’m—” She grabbed her stomach and writhed in pain, an involuntary reflex that shut her eyes, clamped her jaw, and bent her body without warning. When the heave ended, the wad of paper towels she’d shoved into her underwear pooled with what she already knew was more blood.

“Nicole,” he said, his eyes frantic. His brow, skewed. “You have to talk to me.”

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

He closed his eyes for a second, then nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “And what’s happening right now?”

Another cramp—deep and hot and painful. Nicole scrunched her face and threw her hands back on her stomach. As if it mattered now.

“I’m bleeding,” she said. “It just started. I can’t make it stop.”

“Did you talk to your doctor? Is Gabe on his way?”

Nicole winced again. “I can’t reach him. He’s in a meeting, I think.”

“Your doctor? Or Gabe?”

Nicole hugged her arms around her elbows. “Gabe.”

“Okay,” he said, pulling out his phone. “Do you want me to call Mari? She can come get you.”

“She’s getting ready for New York, she’s—”

“I’ll go to New York,” Logan said.

Nicole shook her head. “That’s crazy. I can just drive myself. Gabe will call soon. I’m fine.”

“I have to go next week anyway,” he said, swiping rapidly through his phone, then pressing it to his ear. He paced in place, keeping an eye on Nicole, who could barely hear it ring. “Might as well get it out of the way.”

“No, really, I—”

“Hey,” he said into the receiver. He leaned against the wall, one hand hooked behind his neck. She’d never seen him this serious. “Change of plans. Can you actually come to the office? Nicole needs you. It’s, um … it’s not about work.”

He shook his head while Mari’s voice—muffled, imperceptible—garbled back. “No big deal. Send me the schedule, and I’ll find a flight, okay? I’ll scout, and you can go next week and meet my top three. I trust you.”

They each said a few more words, then Logan hung up and ushered Nicole down the hall, into the elevator, through the lobby, and across the breezeway.

They sat on the curb of the parking lot in silence, the overhang above—an unfinished slab of concrete supported by two sleek steel beams—shielding them from the cold, unglamorous rain.

The drops, gray and exhausted and confused, fell to the faded asphalt like they’d already given up.

Like they already knew they weren’t quite right for this town.

Like they didn’t really care anymore, whether they sloped or pooled or puddled.

Nicole tried Gabe a few more times.

Logan booked a flight on his phone.

“Mari should be here soon,” he said. “Do you need anything? Do you want to wait inside?”

Nicole shook her head. They just sat in silence and watched the strange, bleary rain.

“You didn’t have to do this, you know.”

“It’s really no problem,” he said. “Mari will be here, in case you need her. And New York will be good. I’ll get a giant pretzel.

Go to the Olive Garden in Times Square. Maybe I’ll stay for the weekend, see if my cousin will go to the M&M’s experience store with me.

I always try to sneak in something cultural when I’m in the city, you know? ”

Nicole laughed through a few hot, wet tears.

“Thank you,” she said.

He nodded, wringing his hands together. “I really hope everything’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Nicole said, studying the ground.

She wasn’t quite sure why she’d said that.

To him, to anyone. She just needed to. “The nurse I talked to, she told me to calm down. That it might be nothing, to just put my feet up and come in for bloodwork. But I know my body. And it’s not nothing. It’s over. I can feel it.”

Nicole, with that, put her head in her hands. For a minute, they were quiet. When Logan finally exhaled, she glanced over at him. He was looking right at her. His face, pained but kind.

“I’m really sorry,” he said.

She shrugged, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her cardigan.

He was more of a grown-up than she’d ever given him credit for, wasn’t he?

And there was this whole other side to him, she realized, that she would never really get to know.

She’d met him a couple of years ago—right here, right in that coffee shop across the parking lot, rambling about Dungeons & Dragons with his phone to his shoulder and his dress shirt, untucked—and filled in all his blanks at once.

She’d been so sure, in that moment, she knew exactly who he was.

But she’d been mistaken, hadn’t she?

She did that sometimes. Made snap judgments. Got people wrong.

She’d done it with Gabe, that was for sure. She’d taken her first impression of him and stuck him in a box, then ended up falling in love with the man she watched cut open its seals and crawl out.

“I’m sorry too,” she said, the tiniest smirk stretching across her stinging face. “Sounds like you’re actually going to have to work this week. And I know how much you hate that.”

He side-eyed her, chuckling. “Worst day of your life, and you still can’t help yourself, can you?”

“What can I say?” she said. “Making fun of you is my passion.”