My dad bursts into the house, followed by Gerald. “What in tarnation is going on here?”

“Go ahead, Hanna, tell your father what you’ve done.” My mother tips her chin up and looks down her nose at me.

“And rob you of the satisfaction? How could I?” I sneer.

She keeps her glare locked on me. “Hanna’s pregnant. Again.”

“Holy shitballs!” Gerald says. “For real? Like you’re knocked up? With a baby?”

“Gerald.” My dad raises a hand to stop him and gives me a bright, somewhat naïve smile. “Is this true, Hanna Banana? Are we finally gonna be grandparents like we always wanted?”

Leave it to my dad to try to turn it around when my mom and I are in the middle of a fight.

I’m exhausted from more than a quarter century of placating. “I already made you grandparents. Three decades ago.” I push out of the chair and head for the door. But I only make it a couple of steps before the world turns black.

_______________

MY PARENTS TAKE me to urgent care, and I message Paxton to meet us there, because I honestly can’t handle any more of my mother’s lectures or her tendency to steamroll and undermine my decisions. Especially since my blood pressure is a lot higher than they like.

Urgent care ends up calling Dr. Tumbler, and I’m put on blood pressure medication right away. And I have an appointment with her the following day.

The whole thing scares the crap out of me. I’m very glad Paxton is staying the night, because the alternative is staying at my parents’, and that’s where I went the last time I had complications. Gordon had been out of town for work, and I hadn’t wanted to stay in my house alone while I dealt with the loss.

“Your mother is damn lucky I was too worried about you to rip into her.” Paxton grips the steering wheel. She’s trying to keep it together, but I think she’s as rattled as I am.

“I knew the Jake part was going to be a thing, but I didn’t expect her to react quite so…badly.” It was a shock, one I obviously didn’t need.

“No offense, I love you, and I can also appreciate your mother, because I know her heart is usually in the right place, but she needs to get a damn fucking clue. You’re a self-sufficient adult. She had no right to say any of the stuff she did.”

“I know.” I scrub a hand over my face. “I should have let Jake come with me when I told them. Or maybe it would have been worse. I don’t know.”

We pull into my driveway. “I can’t see Jake letting any of that shit fly. And honestly, Hanna, you’ve been holding onto all of this for a long time. The only thing your mother should have been was supportive. And she wasn’t. Not at all.” She inhales a deep breath through her nose and exhales a huff. “I need to calm down. Me being this fired up can’t be good for you.”

“Thank you for being such a good friend and being on my side.”

She reaches across the center console and squeezes my hand. “I’m always going to be here for you, Han. You know that.”

“I do.” In all the years we’ve been friends, she’s never let me down. This kind of friendship is rare, and I love her dearly.

She helps me inside, and I don’t fight her on the mother-bird hovering.

Once I’m settled on the couch, she makes me a tea and pulls a box of cookies out of the cupboard. I didn’t have dinner, and I had a hard time stomaching lunch, so I blamed my fainting on low blood sugar. Which wasn’t a lie. But the raised blood pressure was, and continues to be, an issue.

“I think I have to tell work I’m pregnant,” I announce.

Paxton takes the cushion at the other end of the couch. “I know you wanted to wait a little longer, but it might be a good idea. Do you think you should try to reduce your hours? Lower your stress levels?”

“I can’t reduce my hours. Not when I’m being considered for that promotion.” And I need this one thing to hold onto, in case the worst happens.

Pax sips her tea, then lowers her mug. “Can I say something?”

“Of course. Your blunt honesty is my favorite thing about you.”

She snorts. “You should probably wait until after I say what I’m going to say before you commit to that statement.” She sets her mug onto the coffee table. “Do you still want this promotion?”

“I’ve worked so hard for this, and it comes with a pretty substantial raise, the kind that I’m going to need with a baby on the way,” I tell her.

“Okay. I understand not wanting to walk away from that, and I know how hard you’ve worked. But maybe you need to reevaluate where this falls on the priority list.”

“I don’t want to give it up just because I’m pregnant.” And after tonight, I’m reasonably shaken about how the next few months are going to play out.

“I get that. But, provided things go well—” She motions to the very small bump starting to make itself known under my shirt. “Do you really want a job where you take on more responsibility when you’ll have an infant to care for?”

“Say everything goes smoothly, a better salary means I’ll be able to put more money away for his education.” And I’ll have a better pension. All things that seem important for safeguarding the future. I rub my belly, thinking about what JJ might look like, be like, in the years to come. Will he have his dad’s size? Will he be athletic? Artistic? Will he be soft and kind like King and Jake? Will he be determined like me?

“If you were doing this alone, I’d say that makes sense. But you also need to take into consideration that he’s going to have a father who will very much be in the picture, and who makes millions of dollars a year. He’s one of the highest paid GMs in the league. I think it’s safe to say you don’t need to worry too much about socking away money for his education.”

“Maybe not, but I don’t want the financial side of things to fall solely on Jake. And what if I’m raising him here, on my own? I’ll need to be able to support myself, even if he’s helping support JJ.”

“We’re going to come back to that point in a minute.” Paxton crosses her legs and props her elbows on her knees. “First, let me ask you this: are you really willing to only take three months off after you have this baby since that’s what your company will give you?”

I keep dunking my tea bag into the cup. It’s chamomile. I need caffeine like I need a hole in the head. I’ve thought about this a lot over the past few weeks. Thought about it and pushed it to the back of my mind because I had other things that needed my attention more. “No. Three months isn’t enough.”

She nods, clearly agreeing with me. “How much time do you think will be enough?”

“I don’t know.” I can see where she’s going with this. This is what I’ve been avoiding these past few weeks, not letting myself see all the ramifications this pregnancy will have. Now I understand why Jake was concerned by all the changes our lives will go through and why it took him a while to wrap his head around it. I skipped that step, wanting to focus on a healthy pregnancy. “I want to be there for all the things I missed with Ryan.” First smile, rolling over, sitting up, crawling, and first word.