The Fireman's Baby(15)

Laura frowned but still wrote down her number on a scrap and handed it to him.

“Please give that to him when you see him,” she insisted. “It's important.”

She left the station feeling lost and uncertain. Her plan had been to find Daniel, tell him about the baby, and make a plan with him for what to do next, but Daniel hadn't been there, there was no way of getting hold of him for God knows how long and her plan had come to a dead end. Things hadn't gone according to her plans since she'd met that man.

At the other end of town, Sophie's radar must have been going off because Laura's mobile began to ring in her bag. She pulled it out, took a deep breath and answered it.

“Hello?”

“Hello stranger,” Sophie said brightly on the other end of the line. “Where have you been? I haven't seen you in almost two weeks. I hope you're not still pining after that fireman. It's been too long since I've seen you. When are you free?”

“Right now,” Laura told her. “Can I come over?”

“Sure, is everything alright?” Sophie asked with concern.

“I could use someone to talk to,” Laura confessed.

“Well, I'll put the coffee on then,” Sophie promised. “See you in a bit?”

“Ten minutes.”

Laura hung up and changed her course, turning on her heel to head over to Sophie's house instead. She had been hoping to have the first conversation about this unplanned pregnancy with the father of the baby, but as he was nowhere to be found, Sophie would have to do instead.





Chapter5



The young woman arrived at her best friend's house minutes later and was welcomed in with a sisterly hug and a string of friendly chatter as Sophie set about pouring coffee and pulling cookies out of the cupboards.

“I was getting worried about you,” Sophie confessed. “It's unlike you not to call for days. I know that it was Mother's day last week, so I thought maybe you were just swamped with work, but that was last Sunday, so I was starting to get a bit worried that I hadn't heard from you still. Is everything all right?”

Laura sat down on Sophie's floral-print sofa with a cup of coffee in her hands and shook her head.

“I've gotten myself into a little bit of a mess, Soph,” she confessed.

“Ooh,” Sophie said mischievously, pulling her feet up onto the couch and curling into position that said she was ready for a good, long session of girl chat. She sat holding her coffee and looking at Laura over the rim of the cup with an expectant grin. “Does it have anything to do with that fireman? What is it? Has he asked you to do something kinky?”

“What? Sophie, no!” Laura exclaimed, rolling her eyes. “Why do you always think it's something like that?”

Sophie shrugged. “Well, it sounded like you had a pretty wild night with him not so long ago and you haven't been yourself since then. It's always the handsome ones that get weird in the bedroom.”

“Please Sophie, stop,” Laura pleaded, setting her coffee down on the table. “This is serious.”

Her best friend set down her own cup and dropped the joking. She could tell now that something was wrong and her intuitiveness for drama sensed what it was.

“Don't tell me that you're pregnant!” she gasped.

Laura nodded slowly. “I forgot I'd stopped taking the pill after Ray,” she confessed. “I thought I was going to be single for a while, remember? I was so caught up in the moment with Daniel that I just didn't think about it. I mean, it was just one night, Sophie. How could I get pregnant after just one night?”

“It's not about the number of times, Laura, it's about the quality of the stuff,” Sophie told her matter-of-factly. “God, so what are you going to do now?”

“I don't know,” Laura said, feeling sick at the thought.

“Have you spoken to him about it? What did he say?”

“That's the problem,” Laura told her. “I went to find him today and it turns out that he's gone off to Colorado for the summer and there's no way to get a hold of him, which means that I have to make a pretty huge decision on my own right now. Sophie, what do I do?”

“I can't answer that for you,” Sophie said gently. “What do you want to do?”

“I don't know,” Laura sighed. “Part of me thinks that I can't do this on my own. I mean, it's not part of the plan, but the other part of me knows how I'd feel if I didn't keep the baby.”

“The infamous plan...” Sophie repeated. “The plan doesn't matter now, Laura. The plan's out the window. It's time for a new plan. I mean, can you afford a baby?”

“Not really, but that's not the point,” Laura told her. “I've gotten pregnant and I need to take responsibility for that. I mean, we're not kids anymore, Sophie. I'm not a teenager or college student now. I'm a grown woman and if I've gotten pregnant, maybe that's a sign that it's time for me to start taking the next steps in my life.”