For His Trust (16 page)

She went down the stairs two at a time, jogged about a block and a half to the nearest CVS, and bought a pregnancy test.

Even doing it, Nicole thought it was impossible. It was a coincidence, it had to be.

A few minutes later, she was in a stall in the office ladies room, peeing onto a stick and then sitting there, watching to see what came up.

Her forehead and armpits were sweaty from running down the street and back, and she was basically a mess at this point. But Nicole didn’t care about any of that—all she wanted to know was the answer to this one question.

Minutes later still, she was walking into Red’s office and closing the door behind her.

Red looked up from his computer, distracted. “Hey, what’s going on?”

Nicole was holding the pregnancy test in her hand, and she was shaking. “I threw up this morning,” she said.

“You—what?” His eyes suddenly took in what she was holding. Red stood up and pointed at the test. “Is that what I think it is?”

Nicole nodded slowly. “Red, I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe this happened.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Look for yourself.”

He came around the desk and took the pregnancy test out of her hand, and looked at it, his mouth forming a smile, his eyes lighting up. “Oh my God. Nicole!”

“We’re pregnant,” she cried.

And then Red hugged her so tightly, and both of them were holding each other so tight, and laughing. There were some tears too, but they were tears of joy and relief.

“We’re going to have a baby,” she said, unable to believe the words were coming from her own mouth. “It’s happening.”

And Red squeezed her even tighter, and she knew that this was how it was supposed to be. But still, a tiny part of her wondered if she would be hurt again—if somehow, something would steal this happiness from her…