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Except, when I looked at Piper, she didn’t look angry or disappointed or anything else I could’ve guessed. She looked horrified.
Why the fuck…?
"That’s mine," Piper blurted out.
Everything went silent again. Not just the people in the room, with everyone’s stunned faces, and not just my shallow breathing. But all the activity in my brain went down to a smooth zero percent, shutting off for the day.
Piper’s pregnant.
Piper was pregnant and I knew she was on birth control but how many times had I brought her back to my bedroom? Even when we were using condoms? All those times I’d bent her over the kitchen counter…holy shit.
Piper was pregnant. My Piper was pregnant. With my child.
I stared at her, unable to look at anything else. I could’ve been floating - I wouldn’t have noticed.
It was the best day of my life.
Suddenly, everything else seemed so fucking insignificant. How careful we were so nobody found out, all the times I purposely drove off campus to keep anybody from recognizing us, the stolen kisses I could’ve made public, all of that shit didn’t matter. The only things in the world that mattered to me were the embarrassed blonde woman and the baby—my baby.
The happiness was overwhelming.
Until the fear crept in.
Piper was pregnant and my parents knew all about her. Holy shit. No doubt the book would be everywhere and they weren’t people that shirked that spotlight. Book tours. Interviews. And now, impulsive, violet Adam had a pregnant girlfriend—the girl whose last relationship he ruined, the girl he elbowed into a pool, or whatever else they’d string together.
A cold hand gripped my throat. I couldn’t breathe.
"Holy crap." One of the freshman football players laughed, the only sound in the room. "Damn, Adam. You got your RA pregnant?"
In a second, I leaped to my feet. "Shut the fuck up, you wipe my fucking shoes."
He blinked at me.
Another voice joined in, Piper’s, and I could feel her hand on my arm. "Adam—no, no, no—"
I jabbed a finger at the dumbass who decided to speak. Anger was the only thing that pushed the fear away and I was all too ready to beat his ass outside. "Watch your fucking mouth when you talk to the mother of my child."
"Adam!" Piper yanked my arm and took a step in front of me, purposely getting my face. And there she was, the most beautiful woman in the world, her eyebrows knitted in concern, her lips pressed together. "Adam! It’s a prank!"
"What?" I said, without understanding the words.
"It’s a prank. The whole thing." She tried to laugh, even if her face was pale. "It’s a joke!"
"You’re not…pregnant," I said blankly.
"No," Piper choked out. "Of course not."
She might as well have stabbed me. It wouldn’t have felt any different. A pain like I’d never known sank in me. Into my blood. Into my bones. I sat in the chair next to her, staring listlessly ahead.
Good—she wasn’t pregnant, but bad. But good. But bad. She was working towards grad school and this would’ve messed up her plans. And she could’ve lost her housing if they found out I knocked her up and even though I could pay for it, she worked hard for it. But I wanted her to have my child and the loss of something that didn’t even exist hit me like a train. Goodbye to the dizzying happiness but wasn’t this the best possible solution to all of it because how could I tie Piper to my fucked-up family?
How fucking selfish are you, Adam?
Fifty things slammed into me at once. She didn’t play a joke on me. I was the joke.
Kassie’s voice was soft. "Adam…?"
Next to her, Ryan sucked in a breath. "Adam, if you ever—"
