Floored - Karla Sorensen Page 0,21

Jude, Don't Let Me Down it proclaimed, a nod to the Beatles song. My hand was shaking so badly as I tried to scroll down to see the picture even though I knew—oh my sweet baby Jesus in the manger, I knew—by the messy dark hair and the eyes it was him.

My other hand covered my mouth as his face came into full view. In the shot, he was mid-kick, muscular leg swinging toward a ball suspended midair. His face, just as stupidly hot as I remember, was frozen in concentration, his muscular body covered in a blue and white uniform. Maybe if I wasn't freaking the fuck out, I would've thought about how insane it was that the guy I'd been text flirting with all day—the guy I'd slept with after making fun of the sport that employed him—was apparently a professional soccer player.

Football.

Whatever.

The hysterical laughter bubbled up in my throat, unbidden. I thought of his face when I said how boring the game was. I thought of his texts, telling me he'd been too busy playing football to text me sooner. Pretty soon, I was hunched over, wiping tears from my eyes because I couldn't stop the sounds coming from my mouth.

That was when it happened.

The head spinning.

The nausea.

My stomach roiled slowly, unpleasantly, and I barely made it to the bathroom before I puked.

Chapter Seven

Lia

"It's fine. It'll be fine."

I'd said it a thousand times since I hastily packed my shit and hopped back on a train to Oxford. Sorry, Brontës, but I needed to be back in my own flat if I was going to find out I was carrying a little baby soccer player inside my body.

I groaned. Also for the thousandth time.

Maybe I'd just had a bad breakfast. Or lunch. Or tea.

My pace picked up as I booked it from the station back to my place. Yes. I liked that train of thought.

And honestly, I had to stick with it because as I approached the building that I would call home for a few months, I knew I absolutely had to convince myself it was true until I was safely ensconced behind locked doors and out of sight.

Have you ever seen someone fumble with a bottle of champagne? The really big expensive ones that would probably kill someone if you used it as a weapon. Molly got one for a party once, some fancy Amazon shindig for work that we were all invited to. She struggled to open it, and because it got jostled, the bubbles were angry, looking for a place to go once the pressure was released.

Once she got the cork off, oh, did they explode.

I imagined that happening inside my poor body. I could hardly pay attention to any aspect of my surroundings, wearing veritable blinders the entire time I left Haworth, the entire time I was on the train staring blankly out the window, and the entire time I hoofed it back to my flat.

So much pressure was building in me that the moment that cork came out, holy shit, I was going to erupt like a hormonal Vesuvius. Tears. Snot. Splotchy skin.

Somewhere, in that part of me that hated putting labels on shit like this, I knew exactly what this was.

Panic.

It felt like bottled panic.

Even putting a name to that emotion had my skin vibrating at a dangerous frequency as I took the steps up to my flat. My teeth clenched. My fingers curled into tight balls.

As I hit the top step, my breath sawed in and out of my lungs like I'd just run a freaking marathon. Alishiya was coming out of her apartment with a polite smile on her face. I knew the moment she saw all that angry, bubbling panic because her eyebrows bent in concern.

"Are you all right?"

Tight-lipped, I gave her a, "Mm-hmm," in response because honestly, I couldn't handle anything besides that.

She didn't push, which I would thank her for later. She must not have three sisters and a mama bear mother figure because holy hell, if I was at home right now, they'd be all up in my face.

"Shit," I whispered, my voice wavering, my chin wobbling.

What a stupid thought to have in my current predicament. If I was at home right now.

The first tear slipped out, and it took every shred of self-control to hold in the sob that wanted to follow it. My hand was shaking so badly that the key clanged in the door. From behind me, Alishiya laid a gentle hand