Because of the panic and the nausea, I complied.
Colby rounded the bar to get a beer from the fridge, taking off the top and placing it in front of me. He did the same for himself, though he already had a half full one in front of his seat.
“It’s barely noon,” I informed him as he walked back around the bar and sat on the stool beside me.
“What are you, a cop?” he scoffed. “And, you’re in fucking college… Don’t even pretend that drinking before noon isn’t part of the curriculum.” He finished the rest of his original beer. “Or do they not do that at the fancy colleges?”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course,they do it at the fancy colleges. They do it more, for all the future CEOs and billionaires to prepare for their casual alcoholism and drug addictions,” I joked.
Colby grinned. “Perfect training for your weekend of partying with me.”
I bit my lip, trying to figure out how I was going to get out of this. Colby took a lot of things seriously, partying being one of them. And usually, I was on board with it. Usually, I wasn’t pregnant.
Well, except that one time.
“I’m not in the mood for partying right now.” Even thinking about beer made my mouth dry.
Colby laughed. “Yeah, good one. Drink up, bitch.”
I didn’t take the beer he’d picked up and held to me.
He squinted at me. “What are you, pregnant or something?” he joked.
I pressed my lips together. I was unable to lie straight to his face. I really hadn’t thought someone would ask me flat out.
Colby’s eyes stopped twinkling with humor, and my friend turned into a scary badass once again.
“You’re fuckin’ pregnant?” he boomed, leaning forward.
“Shut up,” I hissed. “I don’t think they heard you in the garage.”
But it became apparent that someone had heard when Colby’s eyes jumped behind me, hardening into a glare as I was lifted off the stool.
Elden’s scent enveloped me. I breathed him in. There was one thing that didn’t make me feel sick, it seemed.
I didn’t have much time to protest as Elden gathered me into his arms—carefully, more carefully than he’d ever touched me—and walked us out of the common room and down the hall.
It was pure luck that no one saw us. We’d had a lot of that, what with all of the times we’d tempted fate by showing what we were to each other for anyone to see. Maybe fate was on our side.
I liked to think that.
He didn’t speak as he walked us down the hall in long, purposeful strides. It should’ve felt ridiculous to be carried like this. It didn’t. Elden’s arms were around me, strong, firm, safe. I didn’t speak either. Simply gazed up at him hungrily, taking in every detail. His beard was streaked with slivers of silver, groomed and smelled like the Tom Ford oil I’d bought him over the Christmas break. I liked it because I smelled him on me for hours after we left each other.
His face was tanned, weathered, every groove in it serving to make him more distinguished and rugged at the same time. His icy eyes were inscrutable, intense, capturing mine every second step.
My heart was slamming against my rib cage as the door to his room closed behind us. Again, I breathed in the scent of the cleaning products he used, mingling with his own smell. My body settled into it… This was my home. He was. I didn’t know when the change had happened. Maybe it was when the second line showed up. Maybe it was long before that. But it clicked right then, there in that moment.
He sat me on the bed, kneeling between my knees. Large hands settled on the silk of my skirt.
“I’m pregnant,” I uttered, pointing out the obvious.
His hand cradled my chin, his eyes sparkling with something that wasn’t rage or disappointment. “I know.”
I blinked at him, coming out of my brain fog, getting over the shock of seeing him again, of feeling him again. “You don’t sound mad.”
“Why in the fuck would I be mad?”
I stared at him, realizing that he was genuinely confused. He was something else too. It looked like … happiness, but I must’ve been hallucinating. Outlaw bikers didn’t tend to be happy in the face of unplanned pregnancies. Or at least that’s what I’d thought.