Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 63758 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63758 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
“What do you mean a real test? Don’t you believe me?” Her voice is at a screech. She stands and paces away from the ratty couch that smells like stale beer and has seen too many parties. “God, I knew it would be like this!”
My next lines come easily. “Like what?” I go super innocent. “Wanting to get you appropriate medical care?” I glance at Lake for support, but his gaze is on Cadence.
She’s hot–I get it. But she’s also a hot mess.
“I’ll pay for the visit. Let’s just go to get the facts. When you conceived. If the baby is healthy. When we can do a paternity test, if you decide to keep it.”
Lake shoots me a deathray glare, but I’m watching Cadence.
She’s gone pale.
“Yeah, okay. It might be too early for an appointment, but I’ll call around. It might take a few weeks to get in.”
Jesus. She didn’t think this shit through at all. I honestly don’t think she’s even pregnant.
I really don’t.
If she is, I know it’s not mine. I’m careful. I know condoms aren’t fool-proof, but my gut just tells me this is drama.
I stand. “I think we should go right now. They have walk-in pregnancy clinics. They could at least give us the run-down on what your options are and how things work, right?”
“I know how things work!” Cadence stomp-paces through her living room, still at screech level. “I Googled it, okay?”
“Come here.” I make my voice coaxing and hold out my arm to her, showing the sympathy she seems to be begging for.
She comes running to me, wrapping her arms around me. Lake looks like he’s going to poke a fork through my eye.
“You’re so good in a crisis,” she whimpers against my chest. “I knew you’d be here for me. Just like you needed to save that Russian girl. I told her you’re the rescuer type.”
I heard the needle-scratch on a record in my ears. What fuckery is this?
Was that why Nadia broke up with me? She thought I had a rescuer complex? My mind spins back to the night she broke up. We’d just come from my mom’s car accident. Then Cadence showed up with her big reveal.
Fuck.
It must seem like I am a rescuer. But just because I’m solid in a crisis doesn’t mean I seek that shit out. It’s not why I’m in love with Nadia. Not even close.
I’m in love with her because…she rescued me. She opened my eyes to so much more my life could be. That I could be. She challenged me to step up and be a man instead of slinking back in the shadows afraid to even have a dream, much less go for one.
“You what now?”
She goes still, like she realizes she fucked up.
I’m not the type of guy who gets pissed easily. I consider myself pretty laid-back. Live and let live.
But right now, I am pissed as hell.
I look over the top of Cadence’s head and meet Lake’s gaze, and I know he finally gets it, too. This chick is trying to play us both, and I’m not having it.
“Lake and I will take you to a clinic right now,” I say.
“No.” She pushes away from me. “I’m a total wreck right now. I can’t deal with a place like that. I’ll make an appointment on my own.”
“Nah, I feel like we need to get this worked out. It’s a big deal, and you’ve been hitting the weed, which probably isn’t good for the baby.”
“It’s okay. I Googled that, too.”
“Well, it’s supposedly my baby, and I need to hear it from a doctor. Let’s go.”
“I’m not going to a clinic.”
“It will be all right. We’ll take care of you.” Lake picks up her coat and holds it open for her, but I know he’s playing her right back now, too.
We hustle her out the door and into the van. Lake takes the passenger front seat where he slouches low and keeps scrubbing his hand over his chin. He’s obviously coming to terms with the sitch. Hopefully realizing Cadence isn’t the one for him.
He scrolls on his phone and gives me an address to a clinic.
“These clinics are the kind that try to talk you out of abortion,” Cadence pipes up from the back. “They try to arrange families to adopt the baby or something.”
“Yeah, but it’s a free and an immediate test. It’s a place to start.” Lake is totally in my camp now.
We both know there’s no baby.
“I really don’t feel comfortable with this, you guys.” She’s working herself back up to a fever pitch. “Shouldn’t it be about what I’m comfortable with? It’s my body. I’m the one who’s pregnant.”
I stop at a red light and twist to look over my shoulder. “Are you, Cadence?”
Lake twists to look, too.
She gets wide, scared-rabbit eyes as she looks between the two of us.