Coyotes Ever After (Colorado Coyotes #7)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

Tess

“Hello? Are you about done?”

“Nope,” I yell back at the person knocking on the door of the gas station bathroom I’m in. “It’s wrecked in here, I’d find another bathroom.”

I rip open a second pregnancy test and pull out the stick, tearing the wrapper off. This one will go faster because I already know how to do it after the first one.

That positive result has to be a fluke. There’s no way I went more than five years having lots of sex with my husband and never got pregnant, and now, all of a sudden, at age forty, I am.

It’s not possible. And while I’m waiting for the negative result on the second test, I’m going to compose a letter to the company that made the tests about the absolute bullshit that is false-positive results.

I pee on the stick and carefully set it on top of the box, making sure the test doesn’t touch any surface in this sketchy bathroom.

Someone wrote ‘I love fashism’ on one of the wall tiles in marker, and someone else crossed it out and wrote ‘*Fascism dumb shit.’ Instead of starting my email to the pharmaceutical company, I take a photo of it and text it to my sister.

Tess: Guess where I am?

Cam: A public bathroom where you just got herpes from a toilet seat?

Tess: Yes on the first part. Hopefully no on the second...

Cam: Everything ok?

Tess: Almost

Cam: ??

Tess: It’ll be okay in a few more minutes when I can read the results of the pregnancy test I just took

Cam: HOLY FUCK TESS WHAT

Tess: I got two tests to be sure. The first one was defective.

Cam: Defective like how?

Tess: It was positive, which has to be a mistake.

Cam: TESS OMG I JUST DIED

Tess: Relax. I’m 40. My womb is dry and shriveled. It had to be a mistake.

Cam: Um. Why are you taking a pregnancy test to begin with?

Tess: I’m almost three weeks late. Fingers crossed I’m in menopause.

Cam: Does Dom know?

Tess: omg are you kidding? He’d flip his shit if he knew I was even a day late.

She doesn’t respond right away. I fight my urge to look at the test, because the directions said not to. Instead, I open an app and start ordering our Chinese food.

Definitely extra sugar-covered donut things, because damn .

There’s a knock at the door.

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

I look at the door. “What?”

“We have other customers waiting to use the restroom. Do you know...how much longer you’ll be?”

Oh, hell no. I’m not about to leave this bathroom until I can read that test result.

“As long as it takes for the diarrhea to stop. I had Indian for lunch, so I might be a while yet.”

There’s a few seconds of silence. “Okay. Um...okay. Take your time.”

I go back to my phone.

Cam: Sorry, Mae was spilling an entire box of Cheerios on the floor and I had to grab it. How much longer until you get the results?

I glance at the timer on my phone.

Tess: Three minutes.

Cam: Okay. Want to talk through both scenarios?

Tess: Not really. Hannah got into Wharton today.

Cam: I heard! She called me. I was a blubbering mess in the grocery store checkout line. I’m so damn happy for her.

Tess: Yeah, same.

Cam: Why are you doing the test in a gross public bathroom? Why not at home?

Tess: Because Dom would bust me with the tests. Or find them after. I don’t plan to ever tell him about this little scare.

Cam: LOL okay. Better buy some oversized shirts and really stretchy pants....

Tess: Not funny. Be supportive. It’ll be negative.

Cam: There are worse things, you know. I’m basically the old woman who lived in the shoe over here. Five kids. Constant chaos. But it’s our chaos.

I stare at the timer on my phone as it counts down the final thirty seconds.

Tess: Okay, it’s time.

I pick up the stick, my jaw dropping when I see a plus sign. Again.

Tess: WTF I have to go get more tests.

Cam: You’re pregnant. More tests aren’t going to change it.

I stare at myself in the mirror. I have crow’s-feet. I diligently pluck gray hairs out of my scalp more and more often. Women my age don’t have babies.

Just because I’m pregnant, that doesn’t mean I’m having a baby. But at this point, I do have to tell Dom.

Tess: I’m going home. Talk more later.

Cam: Are you sure you’re okay to drive?

Tess: I’m fine.

I’m not fine. By the time I walk in the door to my home almost an hour later carrying Chinese food, my eyes are red and swollen and my face is blotchy from ugly crying the entire way home.

The people at the Chinese restaurant were genuinely worried about me, seeing as I was practically sobbing in the pickup line.

“Hey, there’s my sexy wife,” Dom says merrily as he walks into the kitchen, his face falling as he looks at me. “Jesus, babe, what’s wrong?”

I take a deep breath, tears flooding my eyes. “I’m fucking pregnant, that’s what.”

His jaw drops and he just stares at me for a few seconds.

“Uh...wow. I don’t...are you sure?”

I walk over to the kitchen island and set the bag on it, opening it and digging for the sugar donuts.

“Two positive tests,” I say sharply. “So yeah. Pretty sure. I’m fucking forty and pregnant.”

I find the donuts and jerk the smaller bag out of the main one, glaring at him.

“Are you...mad at me?”

“Did you just take two pregnancy tests in a nasty gas station bathroom while people thought you were shitting your guts out? And then bawl in the pickup line at Hot Wok until people started asking if you were okay?”

“Uh...no. No, I did not.”

“Right. I fucking did.” I open the bag and pull out a donut, biting off half of it.

“And you don’t have to get an abortion, either.” I cry as I chew. “I do.”

He exhales heavily. “Babe, I’m sorry.”

“You should be. It was your stupid dick that got me in this situation.”

“I am very sorry about my dick.”

“Don’t patronize me!”

I walk into the living room with my bag of donuts and sit down on the couch. Dom follows me.

“What do you need from me?” he asks from the doorway. “Do you want to talk about it? Yell at my dick some more?”

I glare daggers at him as I eat my donuts. “I don’t know what I need.”

“Quite a bit of sugar, apparently,” he says lightly.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

He puts his hands up in surrender. “Okay, I’m gonna go eat my dinner in the kitchen. Tell me when you’re ready to talk.”

“I don’t know!” I’m crying again. Fuck.

My husband walks over and sits down next to me. He puts an arm around me and I sag against him.

“I’m sorry, babe. I should have realized it was a possibility. This is...a shock, obviously. A big shock. But I support you in whatever you want to do.”

I sit up straight, gaping at him. “Whatever I want to do? I’m almost forty-one. I have a son who is twenty-five. We’re old . What would we do with a newborn who wakes us up crying every two hours?”

“Feed it?”

My laugh comes out maniacal. “Feed it. Are you serious? I thought you’d be flipping your shit over this.”

“I think it’s best when we flip our shit one at a time. And it’s obviously your turn right now.”

I set down my bag of donuts and turn to face him. “Be serious. This is important.”

“I am being serious.” He strokes his fingertips over my forehead, tenderly moving aside the pieces of hair stuck to my teary face.

“You want me to end the pregnancy, don’t you? We have so many travel plans and the business is booming.”

His lips quirk in a smile. “They allow babies in Greece and Hawaii, love. And we can bring our kid to work if we want. We do own the place. Or hire help.”

I just gape at him. “How are you so calm about this? It’s a lifetime commitment.”

“I already made a lifetime commitment to this family. If it grows more, I think that sounds pretty awesome. But if it’s not what you want, I respect that.”

“Are you saying us having a baby sounds pretty awesome ?”

He turns his face slightly, side-eyeing me. “You might be about to punch me, but...yeah?”

“But you’ve never had a newborn. They take over your whole life.”

“My friends have had them. I know how much work it is.”

“We’d be...fifty with a ten-year-old. Almost sixty by the time the kid graduated from high school.”

He shrugs. “We’ll be just fine, babe. I know you. You want this baby. You’re scared because of the one we lost, but if you could know for sure right now that we’d have a healthy baby at the end of the pregnancy, you’d be all in.”

I think about it for a second. “Yeah, I would.”

“So let’s do it. One day at a time.”

My heart pounds with excitement. “Are you sure?”

He smiles and kisses my forehead. “Yes. We’ll be way cooler than all those young parents anyway. Fuck ’em.”

I let myself imagine having a baby in my arms again. It’s been so long since Hannah was born, and I never thought this was even an option. But it is, and I’m...happy about it. Really happy.

“Everyone will think we’re crazy,” I say.

“Fuck them, too.”

I put my hands on his cheeks and kiss him. “We’re doing this.”

“We’re doing it.” He smiles, the shine of happiness in his eyes melting my heart.

“A baby.” I put a hand on my stomach. “I guess this explains why I’ve been feeling off in the mornings and why I’m so emotional.”

“You think?” Dom asks, wrinkling his nose with a skeptical look. “You seem perfectly fine to me.”

I shove his shoulder. When our eyes meet, we both laugh.

“Let’s go in the kitchen and get you something better than those donuts to eat.” He stands up and reaches for my hand.

I put my hand in his, excited about our new, very unplanned adventure.

Some of the best things happen when you least expect them.