Page 39 of Size Doesn't Matter
Sophie paced back and forth in the bathroom as she waited for the timer on her phone to go off and for the pregnancy test to be ready. Abby and Lucy waited with her, all of them dressed in their wedding finery.
By the time Uly had returned with the fairy lights and pregnancy test, they’d all had their nails and hair done, eaten a light lunch, and Sophie had thrown up again.
“It could just be stress, you know?” Abby said. “Your period has never been regular, and stress can exacerbate the problem.”
She nodded, but she wasn’t really paying attention. She was too busy freaking out over the fact that she might be pregnant. With Jack Martin’s baby.
Jack Martin, who was married to another woman. Jack Martin, who every gossipmonger in the country thought she’d screwed for a job, because God forbid she earn it on her own merits and not on her back. Jack Martin, the man she still daydreamed about way more than was healthy for her, and wished things had been different with, and that she could have had her very own fairy-tale ending with, just like every other Bennett had recently.
The timer buzzed.
Sophie froze to the spot. “I can’t look.” She turned to Abby. “You do it.”
“What? Why me? I don’t want to touch your pee stick.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, I’ll do it,” Lucy said, shaking her head at the pair of them, and picked up the test. She stared at it for a moment, then picked up the instruction leaflet. “Do you know what you’re hoping for?”
Sophie swallowed again, barely choking down the air caught in her windpipe. “I don’t know.”
“I’m assuming you know who the father is?” Abby said.
“The whole bloody country knows who the father is,” she grumbled.
Lucy looked at the test again, then the instructions again, then at Sophie and said, “It’s positive.”
Her knees went out from under her, and she sat heavily on the toilet seat as an emotional cocktail of confusion, need, and pure unadulterated joy overwhelmed her, then burst forth from her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. “I’m having a baby?”
In an instant, Abby was kneeling beside her, hugging her so tightly, she almost couldn’t breathe. “Don’t cry, sweetie. It’ll be all right, you’ll see. We’ll help you with whatever you need.”
Sophie sniffed loudly and swiped at her tears. “It makes no sense,” she said, shaking her head. “A baby is the last thing I need in my life right now, especially with a man who’s married to someone else—”
“He’s separated, Soph. Has been for a couple of years, from what I can tell,” Abby interjected. “That’s not the same as married.”
“It’s not single either, which is what he told me. Even so, I—” Sophie looked up at Lucy and Abby. “I’m happy.” She laughed, unable to hide the hint of hysteria, then sniffed again and reached for some toilet paper to blow her nose. “I’m having a baby! Although….”
“Although… what?” Lucy pressed.
“I don’t know how it happened. We used protection. We used condoms. Every time.”
Lucy’s eyebrows shot up and she pinched her lips together as if holding in a laugh, then said, “Everytime? How many times are we talking here?”
“Lucy!” Abby scolded her.
Lucy shrugged, her grin unrepentant. “Oh come on. Tell me you’re not curious how many times is ‘every time.’”
Sophie blushed. “A few,” she hedged. “And we used protection every… time… oh no.”
“What?” The other women stared at her expectantly.
“Well, there was one time, at the end of the night. Our last time. We’d run out of condoms.”
“You ran out of condoms?” Lucy grinned like the sex fiend she was. “Go Jack!”
“Soph,” Abby groaned. “It only takes one time. You know this.”
“But we didn’t have sex,” she said, her eyes wide as she tried to explain. “We just fooled around until he, uh, you know, cameonme. But I couldn’t get pregnant fromthat… right?”
“Whereon you?”