Once Upon A Half-Time: A Sports Romance - Sosie Frost Page 0,57

else wanted to come up. That didn’t mean my scrappy little stomach didn’t try its damnedest.

I was totally and utterly screwed.

“Are you okay?”

I recognized Louisa’s voice.

Great. I flushed away the rest of my pride. No way the best trainer on the team would let me out of the bathroom without an interrogation about my health.

I retreated from the safety of the stall, flinching as the door swung and smacked my ass. Louisa awaited my response with crossed arms.

“I’m okay.” I splashed some water on my face and toweled it off. “It’s just stress. That’s all.”

“How far along are you?”

I crumpled the paper towel. “How far from where?”

“I mean, how many weeks?”

“Weeks from what?”

Louisa wasn’t amused, but I had no idea what I’d done. She tilted her head.

“How many weeks are you?” She drew the word out. “In the pregnancy?”

“In the preg—in the what?”

“You’re pregnant.”

“I am?”

“You’re not?”

My voice shrilled, echoing off the bathroom walls hard enough to smack me upside the head. “I’m not pregnant.”

Louisa laughed. “Are you kidding? You’ve been sick for three weeks.”

“So was half the team. We’ve got a cold.”

“No. They have a cold. You have a baby.” She counted off on her fingers. “You’re sick. You’re exhausted. Your breasts have swelled.”

“Thanks for noticing?”

“Is your period late?”

“No, my period is not…”

Uh-oh.

I whipped out my phone.

No, no, no.

I checked the date and did a bit of mental math in my head. “Okay, wait. This is ridiculous. I’m not…I can’t be…Lachlan and I haven’t really…”

I counted the days.

The river!

No way.

I gripped the sink. Louisa offered me a smile.

“I’ve seen it a lot lately,” she said. “All these new girls floating around the Rivets’ players. Girlfriends and wives. First Leah Carson. Then Piper Hawthorne. I mean...it’s an epidemic! I don’t know what it is about these football players. This team is just built to breed.”

She gestured for me to follow, though I had no idea how I willed my feet to move. I followed her to her office as she rifled in her desk for a stack of pregnancy tests.

“Just thought it was prudent to keep some around,” Louisa said. “No fertile woman is safe around this field. If it was my decision, I’d make the guys put on a condom under their cups.”

“This isn’t happening.”

“Go.” She sorted through stray bits of equipment, tape, ice packs, and other bits and ends from her first aid kit. “You’ll wanna know.”

“Will I?”

“First comes love, then comes marriage.”

Yeah right. Maybe if the orders were reversed.

I was under no obligation to love Lachlan until that third date, and I sure as hell didn’t have the space in my apartment around the shelves and other breakables for a baby carriage.

Taking the test might have been without a doubt, the single most humiliating moment of my life, but the two minutes it took for the test to register positive was a trial by fire.

Pregnant.

I was pregnant.

I wasn’t ready for two whammies in the day.

First team-wide espionage and a corporate controversy. Now a baby?

Lachlan Reed’s baby.

I wasn’t entirely sure he could tie his shoes without tourniqueting a finger. And now I was carrying his child?

Louisa didn’t seem surprised. She moved a chair behind me before I plunked down on the floor.

“Congratulations,” she said. “New husband. New baby. How’s that for a Happily Ever After?”

How was it?

How about un-freaking-believable?

No one told me I had even started a Once Upon A Time!

14

Lachlan

“You look weird.”

Sebastian sat on the bathroom counter, getting comfortable in my tux’s jacket.

Apparently, he took the role of fashion police seriously. Or maybe he was just a ball buster. At least I was raising him right.

He pushed the sleeves up to his elbows. It didn’t help. The jacket cocooned him. I batted his arm away before he dragged the sleeve through a line of toothpaste.

“The truth is, you look weird.” I finished shaving and rinsed the razor. “We just don’t talk about it.”

“Na-uh. You said I’m cuter than you.”

“I’m just sparing your feelings, little man.” I studied him and faked gagging. “Yep. You’re grotesque. Remember the Hunchback of Notre Dame?”

“Quizzytomato?”

“Yeah. That one. He’s got a better shot at the gypsy than you.”

“Okay, well…you’d only get the goat.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a b-a-a-a-a-a-d boy, Bast?”

“It’s Sebastian.”

“Okay, Seba-a-a-a-a-a-stian.”

I hauled him off the sink and stole my suit jacket back. He followed me to the bedroom, jumping on my bed as I attempted to straighten my bow tie.

“Why are you wearing that?” he asked.

“Cause I was invited to our quarterback’s charity gala. Gotta dress up.”

“Why?”

Good question. “It’s a fancy