Yay!
“Slade!”
I’m grinning as I walk away and grab the box of keepsakes from my desk, because I hear her cursing all the way.
“Hey, Becky?”
I turn to Trish and arch a brow, looking over her shoulder to the clique of bitches huddled behind her.
“Where are you going?”
Oh, so they’re worried because the office drudge is leaving. Figures they’d spend years making my life hell because I’m too fat and quiet to fit in, but now that they’ll have to actually get off their skinny, manicured asses they want me to stay.
Huh!
“Home.”
“Are you sick?”
I can tell by the way she asks that she knows I’m leaving, and the thought is not one she likes. This woman and her friends have spent three years shuffling their workload to my desk because they’re lazy and entitled, just as a lot—not all—but a lot of beautiful woman are.
Things come easy to them, so they think they can coast through life on looks alone while the rest of us regular Joes and Janes do all the work. I hope Abi hires someone just like her so that the lot of them are forced to do something, for a change.
Not spite, just that I hate to think that’s all she’ll ever be because no one wants to push the pretty mean girl to be more.
“No, but I am sick and tired. Do me a favor? Use the brains God gave you and do something other than going to hair appointments and waiting for others to carry the load. You’re better than the vacant shell you make yourself out to be.”
I walk away and don’t look back, because honestly, I don’t have time to care about her feelings, or anything else, for that matter. I have something to do, and I plan to do it before I lose the courage.
When I get home I dump my box and kick off my shoes, grabbing the phone and my old address book. I breathe deep and dial, part of me hoping he doesn’t answer even as the other part hopes he does.
“Baxter.”
And just like that I feel the need to say carrot. Broccoli. Turnips. Anything but what I’m about to say.
“Devon.”
The silence hangs between us for a full minute before I hear a door close and then the squeak of a chair.
“Imp? What’s wrong?” he asks, and I can almost see the exact same look on his face as the one Grey gets when I sound this unsure. Weird to know that a guy I don’t really know all that well knows me down to the tone of my voice.
“Nothing. Well. Maybe something, but it’s not bad, at least I think, it’s not, it’s just that I—” I let the sentence peter out and drag in a lungful of air, feeling lightheaded from that mouthful.
“I think I’m pregnant, and I thought you should know. That’s all. Think about it and call me when you’re ready to talk.”
I hang up and disconnect my phone and put my cell on silent, grabbing the pharmacy package from the kitchen counter and breathing all the way to the bathroom.
I’m not sure yet, as you can tell from the tests in my hand, but if I have to suffer through two minutes of utter hell, so does he. Seems only fair.
Chapter Twelve
Dev
It’s been exactly a week since I got that phone call, and my gut is still aching with equal doses of fear and a strange joy I can’t quite grasp. Imp said she thinks she might be pregnant, and then she hung up and probably disconnected her phone, if the constant non-answer is an indication.
So I’ve spent the time thinking, and I know what I have to do.
“You going to talk or what, mate? Because I have a have a Halo hookup soon with this really hot bird who’s into kicking my virtual arse, and I’d really like to get to it,” David gripes, slinging his massive body over the couch and looking like the proverbial teenaged mess that he is.
I sigh and raise a brow, waiting for Ry to stumble in, his hair sticking out at blonde angles on his sleep-mussed head.
“Yeah, you all right, man? You look like a right mess, you do,” he says through a yawn, scratching his belly with his uninjured hand.
“I’m fine, just need to run something by you two before I do anything,” I say, flicking at the top button of my shirt and loosening the collar. I’m nervous, absolutely hate telling them what I need to, because I’ve spent years trying to raise men I can be proud of and now I have to tell them that I’m a wanker and that I’ve fucked up a woman’s life.
“This about that bird back in the States? That hot one who Facebooks me whenever I win a match? I like her. She’s a solid one, that. Didn’t you spend a week with her and her family at that wedding thing?”
“Yes, Ry. And no, you may not refer to her as ‘the hot one’, you little shithead. Now what I have to say is—”