The Bad Boy's Forever (TBBG Series #3) NOW PUBLISHED

Chapter Fourteen: The Six Feet Deep Craters Under My Eyes Would Disagree

       

Chapter Fourteen:

Tessa

If there's one thing I'm grateful for right now, it's work and the fact that I can immerse myself so completely in it that it helps me ignore the proverbial elephant in the room.

Although it's not like there's any ignoring the fact that I just got knocked up. I somehow managed to scrounge up the courage to schedule an appointment with my OB/GYN but even before that, it's like the acknowledgment of the fact that there might be a tiny human growing inside of me has opened the pregnancy floodgates and with it comes the morning sickness.

Now I've read about this particular phenomenon in romance novels, watched it on countless TV shows and movies and never thought twice about just how horrible it could be to constantly live in a state of nauseousness and when you're not nauseous, you're puking your guts out. It doesn't sound pleasant it certainly doesn't feel any better. One day I'd been happily going through life, feeling so grateful that there were no looming disaster in my near future and then BAM!

The mother of all unexpected and unplanned disasters strikes and you realise that life as you know it is going to change forever. It's been a week since I took the tests at home, a week since I nearly passed out when I looked at the two lines on the sticks I'd just peed on and felt my world tilt on its axis. I'm still not sure if I've processed it fully or whether I'm continuing to live in a state of denial but I count scheduling an actual appointment as a small victory and those are the only kind I can afford right now.

"You okay?"

People have been asking me that a lot lately and I'm honestly tired of lying. I haven't been answering Beth's texts and I know Travis jus ends up calling Cole who knows better than to tell anyone about our, uh present situation without asking me first. It's like we've been living in our own little hell, maybe that's a little too harsh but that's what it feels like. I'm pushing Cole away, we both know it and I'm so lost in my own head half the time that I spend hours just spaced out, trying to figure out how I'm going to deal with this curveball that life's thrown my way.

"I know I look like shit, you don't need to sugarcoat it Mattie."

I concentrate on the monitor in front of me trying to get past the wave of nausea that's currently coming over me and try not to get out the saltine crackers stashed in my purse. I feel as though the moment I break those out, I'd have gigantic sign pointing right at my stomach screaming KNOCKED UP.

So I woman up, count to three in my head and get back to work but I know what I look like and it's not pretty. I haven't been able to sleep, throw up what little I manage to eat and for the life of me I can't stop crying. It's not like I want to burst out into tears every time I see myself in a mirror and am reminded that my life is about to change irrevocably but that's the case and there's nothing I can to change that.

"Jeez, who peed in your porridge today? I was just asking because you've been staring at the same page for the last twenty minutes and usually it takes you half a day to go through a book."

It's true, I've done a pitiful amount of work today and if that's any sign of what's to come then it's yet another thing that's going to add to my misery.

"Just tired, haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately."

He groans dramatically, "Don't remind me that you go home to that hot as sin boyfriend of yours. I'm sure he's been keeping you busy." He waggles his eyebrows at me and I swear it takes every ounce of self-control that I possess to not throw up there and then.

Yup Cole's been keeping me busy, maybe a little too busy that's what got me in this mess in the first place but I don't want exactly want to tell Mattie that so I just smile it off and try to not completely fail at my job today.