Chapter Six
AYDA
Sitting on the closed toilet, I stared at the box resting on the edge of the sink. It was just a plain old box—so unassuming and ordinary—a three-pack of small, plastic test sticks that had the possibility to change our lives forever.
Not just mine and Drew’s. This would change the life of every man in The Hut.
The rest of the fallout we could deal with when we had the test results, though. I was already a hundred and ten percent sure I was pregnant, but this would make the whole thing a reality. This test would give us a definitive answer.
Pressing my hand to my stomach, I stayed where I was and mentally tried to ready myself for what was about to come. This proverbial can of worms had been opened now. There was no going back to how we had been before those words had fallen from my lips.
If I wanted the answers, all I had to do was take the damn test.
Something I was suddenly struggling with.
“Man up, Ayda,” I mumbled to myself as one foot tapped against the bath mat with nervous energy. It was so easy. There wasn’t much to it. Pee on a stick, wait, and the resultswould be right there. Easy.
Except it wasn’t.
Pushing up from the toilet, I stared at my bruised face in the mirror and winced at my battered reflection. I hated it.
These bruises were a horrible reminder of the deepest betrayal we’d felt, and that realization now meant that I also had to consider what my body had been through in the last thirty-six hours. What if the pregnancy test came back positive now, and I went to the doctor only to learn that I was pregnant, but something had happened, and that gift of pregnancy had been taken away? What would that do to me or to Drew—the man who was sitting out there, possibly working through all the same shit I was working out in here? Would it have been kinder to have kept my sudden epiphany to myself when he’d caught me after Owen’s attack?
It was too late to think about that now.
This was happening, and there was nothing I could do to change how it had all come about. I still had Drew, no matter what, and the two of us could work through whatever was thrown at us together. We’d been through so much in our relationship already and I wasn’t about to let this break either of us, which meant that I had to be strong. It meant I had to hold my shoulders back and be as level headed as he was being right now. Even if that meant I had to be the realist.
The first step of all of this was to take the test, which is exactly what I did next.
Reading the directions twice, I went through the steps and rested the test on the side of the sink while I washed my hands, doing my level best not to look at the damn thing before I was supposed to. I left the other two in the box and finally picked up that little plastic life-changer before I headed back to the bedroom where I’d left Drew.
The moment I stepped through the door, I stopped and took a moment to appreciate him. He was sitting up in bednow, his back against the wall, his bare chest and abs on full display, both riddled with the scars that only ever added to his sex appeal.
He hadn’t shaved in a while, either, so the stubble that littered his face made him look more angular and hard. Even with that hard masculinity on full display, all I could think when I studied him was how beautiful he truly was. Handsome, yes. Sexy, absolutely, but Drew was also more. So much more that words failed me.
Easing farther into the room, Drew caught the movement from the corner of his eye and unleashed the intense blue-green of them onto me, temporarily freezing me in my tracks.
He pushed himself up to standing, staring at me like he was waiting for me to remind him how to breathe.
When I finally ventured close enough to feel his body heat, I put my free hand over his heart and felt it smashing against my palm with the same urgency of my own.
“It’s going to take a minute or two,” I finally said. I bit my lip and tried to think of something more profound to say, but all I could do was look at him.
Drew raised his hands, running them up and down my arms slowly before he let his palms slide up to cup my neck. “Have I ever told you how brave I think you are?”
“Don’t say that. I’m absolutely terrified right now.”
“You are, but here you stand, with one hand holding our future while your other rests over my heart like you’re the one worried about me, when it should be me worrying about you. You’re crazy, beautiful, strong, and I’m going to spend my life making sure you know it. Then, whether it’s in nine months or nine years, I’m going to make sure our kid knows it, too, and make sure they spend all of their days telling their mama how crazy, beautiful, strong, and fucking loved she is.” He smirked and offered me a small wink. “I’ll just leave out the cuss words for a while.”
The sting of unshed tears was enough to make me blink several times as emotion overwhelmed me. He always knew exactly the right words to say when I needed to hear them. He always knew how to pierce my heart and make it swell twice the size with nothing but love.
“Stop trying to make me cry.”
“Not trying to make you cry, darlin’. Just trying to let you know that I’ve got you, no matter what.” He dropped his forehead to mine and whispered, “Because I love you.”
“I love you. I hope you know I’ve got you, too. I’ve always got you.”
I could feel his heartbeat quicken beneath my touch, but he never moved. Drew simply held me with his gaze, trying to create a world where he was my only focus, and all my doubts, worries, fears, and nerves were drowned out by his blue-green eyes.