I stare at the ceiling as I mentally calculate. When I finally realize it was a little over two months ago, right before Micha and I had hot, sweaty piano bench sex, fear soars through me so potently I can barely breathe. How is this freaking possible? I mean, I’m on the damn pill. There was that week that I missed a few and had to start over, though. Fuck, I forgot about that.

I bite at my fingernails. Shit.

“Things have been so intense at the gallery I can barely remember to eat, let alone when the last time I had my period was,” I lie, unable to accept the truth.

Lila pats my hand. “Oh, Ella.”

I jerk away from her. “Don’t you ‘oh Ella’ me.”

She surrenders, her hands in front of her. “Okay, Miss Hormones.”

“Lila!” I whine as tears sting my eyes. “Stop with the jokes. I’m freaking out here.”

Her hands fall to her lap. “Sorry. What do you need from me?”

“For you to help me. Please,” I practically beg her, but for what, I’m not even sure. Something that will help me handle this.

She must understand me because she nods and then backs out onto the road. “Okay, help is on the way.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, telling myself to breathe. That it can’t be true. That it’s a mistake. That it has to be a mistake. Because I was never supposed to be a mother.

She steers the car toward the city. “To find out the truth.”

Life has thrown me a curveball that’s hit me straight in the face. My brain aches so badly I can hardly think straight, much less process my emotions. I honestly wish I couldn’t think at all, then maybe I wouldn’t have to acknowledge the reality in front of me.

“How accurate are these things?” I ask Lila as I stare at the five pregnancy tests scattered on my bathroom countertop. All show positive, that yes, there’s a human growing in my stomach. Each time I think about it, I want to throw up. Mom? I’m not a mom.

“Pretty accurate,” Lila says as she reads the back of the box. Once she’s finished, she hops off the counter and tosses the box into the trashcan. “Face it, Ella, I think you have a bun in your oven.”

“Ew. Don’t ever say that.” I frown at the stupid tests again. “Are you sure there’s not a small chance that all of them could be wrong?”

She shrugs as she checks her reflection in the mirror, wiping a dab of lipstick from her teeth. “There might be, but with five positives, I doubt it.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling the floor crumbling beneath me. “Now what do I do?” I whisper.

When she places her hands on my shoulders, my eyelids open. “You tell Micha.” She looks over my shoulder and at me in the mirror. “And then you two get to celebrate.”

Lila is obviously happy about this and thinks I should be equally as happy. She doesn’t know—doesn’t understand—my fear of being a mother. From the day Micha and I first started talking about having children, I worried I couldn’t be a mother. That, if I had a child of my own, I wouldn’t know what to do with it since my own mother never seemed to know what to do with me. I actually spent many years taking care of her until I was about seventeen, and she took her own life. Left this world.

And now I’m supposed to bring someone into this world?

“I think I need to get ready for the concert,” I mumble, offering Lila a fake smile when she narrows her eyes at me.

“Let me know how it goes,” she replies as she turns to leave. Then she pauses in the doorway and looks over her shoulder at me. “And, Ella, be happy. This is a happy thing, okay?”

My smile grows even faker. “Okay.”

Her smile seems as sad as mine, but at the moment, I don’t have the energy to pick us both up.

Once she leaves the bathroom, I slam the door shut and collapse to my knees on the tile floor. God, I wish I had someone a little more understanding to talk to, wish I had a mother to call up and ask for advice. But, all I have is a father who hardly ever was a father to me until I was about twenty.

Lila, even though she means well, is too excited over this. She doesn’t get the undiluted terror I feel just thinking those test could be true. The sheer and utter horror over the fact that I might be a mother soon, and I have absolutely no idea what that entails.

As the realization weighs on me, I lie down on the floor, and for the first time in a long time, I cry my heart out.

Chapter 4

Micha

Ella doesn’t show up at my final performance for the tour, and her phone is sending me straight to voicemail every time I call her. I’m trying not to lose my shit over not being able to get a hold of her. More than likely, she’s locked herself up in the attic to paint and has lost track of time—it’s happened before.

I had such huge plans for us tonight. Dinner after the concert, dancing, sex, going home, sex, talking about what’s going on in my career. Sex. Sex. Sex. But, as I pull up to our house and see that all the lights are off, my worry rockets through the roof.

I quickly park the car in the garage, silence the engine, and then rush into the house. The alarm doesn’t go off, which means it wasn’t set, making my worry escalate.

“Ella!” I call out as I drop the car keys onto the kitchen counter and dash for the stairway. “Ella, baby, are you home?”

When I reach the top of the stairs, I hurry to our bedroom door and push it open. Immediately, my heart settles.

Ella is curled up in a ball on the bed, fast asleep.

I cross the room, sink down on the edge of the mattress beside her, and watch her sleep peacefully, softly breathing in and out.

“God, I’m so glad to be home,” I whisper as I kick my boots off.

As they thud against the floor, Ella’s eyelids flutter open. She glances up at me, bleary eyed and disoriented. “Am I dreaming?” she asks as her gaze skims the room then lands back on me.

I sweep her hair out of her eyes. “No, baby, this isn’t a dream. I’m here.”

“What about earlier today?” she mutters as she sits up in bed and stretches her arms above her head. “Was that a dream?”

My brows furrow. “What happened earlier today?”

Her gaze flicks to the bathroom door, then she blinks back to me. “Nothing. I just got sick.” She yawns then slumps against the headboard. “I feel so tired.”

“I’m sorry you’re sick.” I slip off my other boot then climb over her and lay down in the bed. “It feels so good to be in my own bed again.” I bury my head into the pillow and stretch out my arms.