Free Forever Starts Tonight by Roni Loren Page A

letting his gaze travel down to her flat belly. What if it were true? What if she was only a few months away from being round with their child? His heart picked up speed and he swallowed hard. “I’m thinking that’s not going to be a very effective plan.”
    She closed her eyes again and Jace took that opportunity to peer over at Andre. Those liquid brown eyes met Jace’s and he gave a
let’s do this
nod.
    Jace took a deep breath and grabbed Evan’s hand. “Baby, we need to ask you something.”
    Her eyes opened again, curious, and she glanced between the two of them. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing’s wrong,” Andre assured her. “We were just talking with Alice and she brought up something that might explain why you’ve been feeling so bad lately.”
    “What? Is there a stomach flu going around or something?” she asked.
    “No,” Jace said, trying to find the right words to ask the question but not freak her out completely even though he was kind of freaking out completely. Evan had had an unexpected pregnancy before, and he knew that time had been the worst of her life. She’d always given him the impression that she might never want to go down that path again. They’d never explicitly talked about the role of kids in their future for that reason. But this wasn’t something they could ignore. “Alice said that sometimes the smell of meat gets to women . . . when they’re pregnant.”
    Evan’s blue eyes went big.
    “And we know you’re on the pill,” Andre added. “But there’s always a possibility, and you’ve been so tired lately, and now you’re getting nausea and—”
    “I’m not pregnant,” she said flatly.
    Jace let out a breath, but for some reason, it didn’t feel like one of relief. “Are you sure?”
    She pushed herself into a sitting position, her expression wary. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
    “But how can you be with those pills you take, if you don’t get a period every month?” Andre asked.
    She sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. “I’m sure because I took a pregnancy test the other day.”
    “What?”
Jace sat back on his heels. “Without telling us?”
    “Bella,”
Andre said, hurt in his voice.
    She winced. “There are problems with my pill. I heard a news story. There’s a recall on them because some packs had all sugar pills. So I panicked and bought a test. But it was negative, so I didn’t think it was worth bringing up.”
    “But you put yourself through all that worry without us? We could’ve been there for you,” Jace said, frowning. He could only imagine how anxiety-provoking all that had been for her.
    “Are you sure the test was accurate?” Andre asked. “Are they one-hundred percent?”
    She shrugged. “Nothing is a hundred percent accurate, but I think it’s like ninety-seven percent. I have another test in my purse. I figured I’d take it in a few days just in case to make sure.”
    “And I’m guessing you weren’t going to tell us about that one either?” Jace gave her a pointed look.
    She rubbed her lips together and met his eyes. “I’m sorry. I just—we haven’t had this conversation and I didn’t want to cause a big thing if it turned out to be nothing.”
    He laced his fingers with hers. “Baby, when are you going to get it through your head that we’re all in this together? We want to be part of those big things—even if they’re scary.”
    “Especially if they’re scary,” Andre said. “It’s not like we’re going to run screaming. Whatever it is, we’ll stand with you and help figure it out.”
    She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath, as if maybe that fear had truly been there. That worried Jace more than anything else. If Evan still thought they were going to pick up and leave one day, they definitely hadn’t done their job making her feel secure.
    “I’m sorry,” she said again, and this time when she opened her eyes, they were shiny. “I just don’t know how to do this sometimes. I’m used