By Your Side // Bradley Bradshaw

Chapter Twelve

Six weeks later

March

Sophie stares blankly at the calendar. This couldn't be happening. She made plans for herself and she stuck to them. Always. She'd been that way her whole life. It was how she had been so successful in her life thus far. Get into the Naval Academy at eighteen years old and she did. Graduate and go to flight school and she did. Get invited to Top Gun; she did that. She wasn't allowed to have roadblocks or barriers get in her way.  Especially not ones like this.

This would blow up her life in more ways than one. Her personal life, work life; all of it. She didn't have time for this. She could feel her dinner begging to come back up the more she thought about it.

After emptying the contents of our stomach into the toilet, she slowly makes her way downstairs to Bradley. She needed to talk to him immediately. Step by step, the weight of her current situation settles into her mind. How would Bradley react to this? How would they get through this? They weren't prepared at all. Finally gathering the courage to take the last few steps, she turns into the living room where Bradley is heavily invested in a March Madness game.

"There you are," he says without lifting an eye from the tv. He was so into sports and it often distracted him, but she didn't mind. She thought it was cute how passionate he was about his favorite teams. "I've got our brackets down here so we can keep up with them during the games. So far, we've done pretty well in the first round besides the UNC game, but nobody could've predicted that upset. We're still doing better than Mark and Luna though." One glance at Sophie frozen in her spot and pale in the face, causes Bradley's demeanor to change. "Hey are you okay," he asks, concern laced in his voice.

She takes a deep breath before coming right out with it. "Bradley, I think I may be pregnant."

He chokes on the beer he was drinking, almost spitting it out. She sighs, not the reaction she was hoping for, but also understandable. It was exactly the same way she felt. She was just trying to hold it together for the sake of herself. After he successfully swallows his drink and his coughing fit subsides, he looks back up at her. She hadn't moved an inch since the words left her mouth. "What? I mean how?"

"I don't know, but your reaction is not helping. I am freaking out here. I mean I'm not ready to be a mom. I can't do this," she rambles on, letting her face fall into her hands. Her emotions finally break through her facade and Bradley sees how scared she is.

He quickly gets up and puts a careful arm around her to lead her shaking body to the couch. He rubs comforting circles on her back, hoping to help calm her nerves. Once she is breathing normally again, she slumps back, avoiding eye contact with him.

"Hey, hey. It's okay. Why do you think you're pregnant?"

"I'm late," she says without any further explanation.

He slowly nods his head, taking in her words. The thought of her being pregnant scared the hell out of him. He knew he wanted to be a dad someday and he knew he wanted that with the woman right in front of him. But they weren't prepared in the slightest for a baby at the moment. Sophie liked for things to be planned out and if he was honest with himself, so did he. His whole childhood had been filled with unexpected tragedy that completely turned his life upside down. Since he'd been in the Navy, he was finally able to have some structure in his life. Everything was planned, precise, and strategic. He preferred it that way. He liked to be in control of things. Which is why it completely threw him off that his heart fluttered at the thought of them having a baby in nine months.

Bradley quickly shook the feeling away and they decided to drive to the local pharmacy to get some pregnancy tests. The drive was silent, minus the faint sound of one of Bradley's favorite bands playing on the radio. Sophie was taping her finger anxiously against the window, watching as all the different cars went by them. She wondered if anyone else was in the middle of getting life-altering news. In her mind, this couldn't be worse timing. She had just gotten her promotion this past year and was working harder than ever to further her career. She would have to stop flying and put all of that on hold. Being pregnant was the last thing that she wanted right now.