“Fuck me, Wes,” she moaned. “Like the first night.”
I slid into her. “Oh, this’ll be better than that.” I sucked hard on her nipple. “Because now I don’t just love fucking you. I love you.”
We both paced in front of the bathroom counter. Lennon sat on the edge of the tub and then was up again. We couldn’t be still. She walked over to the stick lying next to the sink.
“This is the longest three minutes of my life,” she sighed.
“No shit.” I was horrified and excited.
I had a messenger deliver a pregnancy test to the suite first thing this morning. Neither one of us needed the press spotting us in a drug store with one of these things.
“I think it’s time,” she announced.
I held my breath while she read the test. In an instant, I was terrified it would be negative. Getting her pregnant wasn’t the plan, but with the possibility this was a false alarm, I realized how much I wanted her to have my baby. How much I wanted this together.
I tried to read her expression. “God, you’re killing me, Doc. What does it say?”
She lowered the stick. Her blue eyes were clear and certain. “I’m pregnant.”
I grinned. “I knew it.”
She laughed. “I knew it too.”
I wrapped her in my arms and kissed her on the forehead.
She looked up at me. “Can we go back to bed now just for a little nap? It’s not even 6am.”
I nodded. “Yeah, let’s get some more sleep.”
With enough money, anyone can be bought off. I learned that when I made my first million. My agent had learned it too. Jenny Nichols took her money and changed her story before the next morning’s headlines. She reported that her source was a phony and she had x-rays to prove that Wes Blakefield’s injury had in fact been a sprain all along.
Lennon and I read the headlines in bed.
“I can’t believe this.” She scrolled through her tablet. “There’s not a single mention of an AFA investigation. Why aren’t they looking into it?”
I smiled and kissed her on the forehead. “I told you we had nothing to worry about.”
“Not really the point.”
“Can’t you be happy we’re not being interrogated? It’s going to be old news.”
I knew she was still mad I hadn’t done the honorable thing. And now that I was going to be a father, that would have to change. I wasn’t going to let my son or daughter grow up the way I did.
I wouldn’t be the kind of father who pushed them regardless of the rules. That meant I was going to have to start following them.
My hand snaked under the covers to Lennon’s flat belly. In a few months, her body would be different. I was going to love every second of it. The ice cream runs. The trips to the doctor. All of it. Normal dad stuff that other guys did.
“You know you could still come forward. You don’t have to wait to get caught.”
“I know that’s what you want me to do, but I’m not putting you through that stress. And before you say anything, that’s not just an excuse.” I stared at her hard. “You’d be interviewed. They’ll check all your previous prescriptions. Investigate your case histories. It could go on for months. You don’t deserve that. You did everything right, Doc.
And you’re carrying our baby. So I need to know… can you live with this lie? Can you be with me, knowing what I did?”
She closed her eyes. “I don’t want to say yes, but I can’t say no to you. But I have a condition.”
“Name it.”
“If you ever get hurt again. Ever. You heal like a man. You let your body work and heal for you. No substances. No broken rules. No lies to me or the AFA.”