Just a Positive Pregnancy Test - London Casey Page 0,36

to… I don’t know… I’ll figure it out. I’m getting the balance of it all down. Between this and the coffee stuff.”

“I can help there,” I said. “I mean it. I’m obviously not going anywhere.”

“I know,” Claire said. “We’re all in it. And it’s actually working. I can’t believe it. Olivia is kind of a quiet genius I think.”

“If she’s so smart, how did she end up with Tyler?” Anna asked.

I laughed. “Nice one.”

“At least she has a man who is good to her,” Claire threw at her sister.

“Ut-oh,” I said.

Anna rolled her eyes. “You don’t want to hear.”

“Yes, I do,” I said.

“She’s all goo-goo after some doctor who uses her,” Claire said.

“Don’t say it like that,” Anna said.

“Is that not true?”

Anna turned her head. “Yeah, okay, it’s true.”

“A hot doctor?” I asked.

“So hot,” Anna said. “Insane. The guy is just…”

Anna fanned herself again.

“Except this guy is just using her,” Claire said. “He wants something completely casual and Anna keeps doing wife things for him.”

“Wife things?” I asked.

“She picked up his dry cleaning the other day.”

“Anna,” I said.

“Oh, shut up,” Anna said. “It was no big deal.”

“You went on your lunch break,” Claire said.

“He paid me back,” Anna said with a smile.

“Oh, right,” Claire said. “He showed up to your house at, what, midnight? And by one in the morning he was leaving?”

“Wait,” I said. “That’s okay. It was a thing.”

“Not to her,” Claire said, pointing at Anna.

Anna cringed.

“What?” I asked.

“We… did our thing…” She swallowed hard. “Then I went to the kitchen to get us a drink. I thought we were going to stay up and talk. Or sleep. Or… something.”

“What did Dr. Dickhead do?” Claire asked.

“He left.”

“Without telling you?” I asked.

Anna nodded.

“How?”

“He snuck out,” Claire said. “He fucking bolted!”

“Claire, shut up,” Anna said. She looked at me. “He bolted.”

“Oh, Anna…”

“I know,” she said. “He texted me at like six and said there was an emergency. There wasn’t an emergency. He got what he wanted and left.”

“And if he showed up again tonight, you’d do the same thing,” Claire said.

“That’s not a bad thing,” I said.

“Except she has her heart in it,” Claire said.

Anna frowned. “I messed up with this one.”

“You always do this,” Claire said. “No offense. You fall in love so fast. You can never read a man. It’s like… a guy holds your hand one time and your legs are wide open.”

“Thanks for that,” Anna said.

“Claire, don’t say that,” I said.

“Sorry,” Claire said. “I’m just frustrated for you, Anna.”

“I told you it wasn’t all that fun to hear,” Anna said.

“I’m sorry you’re going through it,” I said. “Having feelings like that are hard. And when it’s not reciprocated…”

“Exactly,” Anna said. “In my mind I keep thinking I need to be done. Then he shows up and I just get that…”

“You get that boost of energy that everything will be okay,” I said. “Then that energy rushes between your legs.”

“Yes!” Anna said. “You get it.”

“Oh, she got it,” Claire said. “She’s pregnant.”

“At least Silas is with you,” Anna said.

“Well, thankfully you’re on birth control,” Claire said to Anna. “Please don’t fuck that up.”

Claire faced her paintings and chose the one of the restaurant and dumped it to the floor. In its place went a black canvas.

I stood next to Anna and nudged her.

Poor Anna.

In so many ways she was like Tyler.

The protective one between her and Claire.

Anna was a nurse and made really good money and made sure to take care of Claire when needed. And yet she was no match for the perceived notion of love.

Speaking of which…

I touched my stomach and took a deep breath.

I eventually had to go back to the inn and see Silas.

When I got to the inn, Silas’s truck was nowhere to be found.

That left me with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

I carried myself to the room and unlocked the door.

At the first flicker of candlelight, I froze.

Then my eyes began to do their job.

There were candles everywhere. Twenty. Thirty. Maybe even more.

My ears tingled at the first strum of a chord on a guitar.

I stepped forward and shut the door and locked it.

“Hello?” I called out.

Silas stepped out of the bedroom, guitar in hand, strumming chords.

“Hey, darling,” he said. “How was your day?”

“What is this?” I asked. “Where’s your truck?”

“I hid it,” he said. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“Silas…”

“Listen to me,” he said. He kept playing the guitar. “I’m not perfect. I’m going to say the wrong things. I’m going to do the wrong things. It only happens because