Author's Note: This concludes Book One. Thank you for the incredible support and engagement. I look forward to continuing these great adventures in Book Two, which will follow immediately! Lots more fun ahead!
* * *
"Could it be yours?" Jess asked me in the Uber ride on the drive home.
I was amazed that we had been able to keep it together at dinner. I found it to be the most tedious two hours of my life. It was more painful than I wanted to admit. It also scared the shit out of me, precisely because of the question Jess just posed to me.
"I think you know that answer as well as I do," I said. "Were they trying? Had she gone off her birth control?"
She shook her head. "Not that I know of," she said. "And I really believe she would have told me."
I stared out the window in disbelief. It had been a long time since I had felt like this. The air of inevitability crept in around me, like a rotting stench. Of course it was bound to end in some way like this, I thought. Things had been too good. There was no way it was going to end well. Jess put her hand on top of mine, a little touch to let me know she was there for me.
I remained stoic. The thought kept rolling around in my head. It could be mine. It definitely could be mine.
* * *
The next six weeks plodded by painfully. Kat cut off communication with me, which really took a mental toll on me. Initially, she said she needed some space. Then she needed time to figure things out. Work kept me busy. Jess kept me busy and entertained, although a deep part of our connection was linked to Kat. We were having to reinvent ourselves, as improbable as it sounded, as a couple instead of a trio.
The question of paternity nagged at me, which it should have. If what I believed was actually true, I had sex with Kat a lot more than her husband did. She maintained to Jess, who she kept as a friend, that she had been on the pill. That it was an accident. And then, in the blink of an eye, it didn't matter.
"Kat had a miscarriage," Jess told me, greeting me at the door and blurting it out as I came home from work.
"What?" I said, trying to process her words.
"A miscarriage," she said. "She was ten weeks along."
"Is she okay?" I asked.
"How okay do you think she could be?" Jess said acridly.
"You're right," I said and just let silence envelope us.
After a few minutes, I tried again. "Did you talk to her?" I asked.
Jess nodded. She hugged me. "I'm sorry," she said. "She called to tell me."
"Should I reach out to her?" I said.
"I don't know," Jess answered honestly.
I texted Kat. "Jess just told me. I'm so sorry. We're here if you need anything," I wrote.
I had learned over the past few weeks not to expect a response.