Page 37 of Adoring Fletcher
I wrote a quick note on a pink Post-It and stuck it to the coffee maker, put on my shoes and jacket, and got in the car.
From there, I drove two towns over, to a little drugstore right off the main drag. Consider me a coward, but I couldn’t risk the chance of anyone from the pack recognizing me and rumors getting back to my parents.
Reading the backs of the boxes, I purchased three early-detection pregnancy tests, grimaced through the “Oh, congratulations,” from the clueless Omega cashier, and went home, my stomach in knots.
When I arrived, Fletcher was watching TV with a bowl of cereal cupped in his palms and a mug of coffee sitting, forgotten, on the end table.
He glanced up when he saw me enter the foyer, eyes lighting up when he noticed the plastic bag swinging from my hand. “Ooh, what’s that?”
I hesitated, not sure of how to broach the topic, but decided that we just needed to rip the Band-Aid off and get this over with, pain or no pain. I sucked in a deep breath and looked him in the eye.
“Can we talk for a second?”
Fletcher’s smile fell. “Yeah? Of course. What’s wrong?” His voice softened, withering at the very edges like a dying rose in a glass vase. “Did I do something wrong?”
It felt like there was a band around my chest, squeezing it. “No, baby,” I promised him. “You didn’t do anything wrong. If anything, this was my fuck-up.”
I walked over and sat down beside him on the couch. My hand found the remote, turning the TV to mute. The colors on the screen flashed on, but I had Fletcher’s undivided attention.
“Do you remember, during your heat… The condom broke.” I swallowed hard.
“Oh.” His expression tightened. He quickly looked away. “Yeah. I remember.”
Breathe through it.“I bought a couple of pregnancy tests,” I told him, keeping my voice gentle. “I think it’s time we face the possibility of a…hiccup.”
The Omega glanced up at me, his mossy green eyes widening, and I suddenly realized how bad that sounded. Shit.
Gritting my teeth, I offered Fletcher the bag. He hesitated, visibly anxious now. But he took it from my grasp, opening it to peek inside, and I could’ve sworn I saw his cheeks pale.
My heart began to pick up speed. If Fletcher was pregnant… Fuck. It would change everything. My entire life would just be?—
“Adam?” Fletcher’s voice was small, and something about the way he said my name made my thoughts screech to a halt. “If I am pregnant… What then?”
I stared at him for a moment, unsure of what to say. What did he want me to say? What did I want to say?
I knew what my father would expect—termination—but I could never go through with that. I could never ask Fletcher, Fletcher who’d already been through so much in his life, to take the life of his child.
Finally, I swallowed my nerves and reached out to squeeze his knee. “If you’re pregnant, then we will step up and love that baby, no matter what,” I told him, and wasn’t really surprised to find that I meant it.
Fletcher nibbled on his lower lip. “You promise?”
“I do,” I said. “We’ll find a way to deal with my parents together, okay? But first, we need to find out. We might be worrying for nothing. Like you said, it might just be a scare.”
He took a deep breath, nodded, then stood. Clenching the bag to his chest, he walked off down the hall and closed himself up in the bathroom.
I sat on the couch, and I waited.
He was in there for a long time.
Just as I was beginning to worry, my anxiety ratcheting up, Fletcher came out. Our eyes met. Slowly, he shook his head.
“Negative,” he murmured. “All three of them.”
Thank god. I breathed a sigh of relief, because I was not ready to deal with my father’s hammer of justice quite yet. It was bad enough that I’d fallen in love with a feline—but one who was born an orphan, with nothing to his name? Father would be furious with me.
When I looked back up, I couldn’t miss the pinched look on Fletcher’s face. “Fletch? You okay?” I was on my feet and by his side in an instant, but he only shrugged and wrapped his arms around himself, hugging himself tight. He only ever did that when he felt insecure, so I knew that no, he wasn’t okay.
“What’s wrong?” I asked gently.
