César seized on my last words to him. “If you haven’t gotten official results, then maybe you aren’t. You just peed on a stick from the drug store?”
I nodded. “Ten sticks.”
He winced but rallied. “Who knows if those are right? We’ll go to a real doctor tomorrow and do some kind of blood test, or imaging or something. The team doctors can recommend—”
“No,” I interrupted him. “No! I don’t want the Woodsmen team involved in this in any way. No Woodsmen doctors, no one from the organization.” The team finding out meant my father finding out.
He stared at me. “Look, I don’t know you at all, and if you think that you can trick me somehow, you’re wrong. I’m not going to keep this hidden so you can blackmail me or something. I’m not some easy mark, some dumb football player.”
“I’m not trying to trick you! I wish this wasn’t happening, too. Blackmail?” To my shame, I started to cry. “Don’t be an asshole!”
César reached over and handed me a piece of paper towel. “Ok. Sorry,” he said, very awkwardly. “This is just hard to believe.”
I mopped at my eyes. “Yeah, I feel the same way. But maybe it’s not true, maybe you’re right and all I need is a better test. Do you really think all the ones I took could have been false positives?” I couldn’t keep my hope from shining through that question.
“You actually did ten?” he asked, his voice grim.
“Yes, but as you said, they weren’t, you know, official or anything!” I started to get excited. “Who knows if that old lady was right? The clerk at the drug store who told me they were accurate,” I explained when he looked puzzled. “She’s no health care professional! I probably should have stayed at the clinic but I was too freaked out.”
“Wait, you did go to the doctor?” he asked, even more confused.
“I did, but when I got the clue that she thought I was pregnant, I ran out. I had just been thinking I was run-down due to stress and being so upset, and then I started to worry that I had cancer, so I went. But I ran out with my pants on backwards when she held out the cup for me to pee in.” My heart sank. “Oh, shit! Is that right? Doctors just do the same kind of test that I did at home in my bathroom?”
César shook his head. “We’ll get a more sophisticated one. There has to be something other than dipping a stick. I’ll start calling around, but not to anyone on the team,” he specified, when I stiffened and opened my mouth.
“Ok, yeah. That sounds ok,” I allowed.
He was looking at me very intently. “Camdyn, if you are pregnant—”
“Which may be just an assumption based on inaccurate medical technology,” I put in.
“If you are,” he persevered, “are you sure that I’m the father?”
“Yes.” I looked down at my hands on the countertop. “I was going out with someone before but we had already taken a break from each other and we hadn’t…” This guy didn’t need to hear about how Lincoln and I had been fighting and hadn’t done the deed in a while, even before he had gotten mad that final time and said we were over. “I got my period, you and I were together. You were it. You’re the only possibility unless I’m carrying another Messiah.”
“That’s probably a no. Ok.” César swallowed. “I’m going to have a beer. Another beer. Do you want—never mind,” he said quickly.
But my stomach turned over at the thought of drinking beer, and suddenly I could smell what was left in his bottle. Then I remembered the salty milk and hot sauce I’d had for breakfast. “I need a bathroom,” I said, but I didn’t make it that far—the sink was a lot closer. “Sorry,” I told him afterwards. “I’m sorry. That’s been happening a lot.”
“Shit,” he sighed. He handed me another paper towel.
We didn’t have much to say to each other after the vomit. César got me a glass of sparkling water from some machine he had and we sat in silence as I sipped it.
“I’m going to leave,” I said finally. “I have to go to my job.”
He jumped to his feet. “Ok, yeah. I’ll get an appointment for tomorrow.”
“Around lunch would be good. I’ve been missing a lot of work and my boss is pretty angry,” I explained. And she would be even angrier this morning when I waltzed in two hours late.
“I’ll do my best.” He walked me to the door, opened it halfway, and then stopped. “Wait a minute. I didn’t buzz you in. How did you get past the gate?”
“I climbed it.”
“You climbed the gate? That’s sixteen feet tall!” he exploded. “That’s dangerous even if you aren’t pregnant. What other crazy things have you been doing?”
I felt a pit form in my stomach. What other crazy things had I been doing? Probably too many to count! I hadn’t even considered it when I’d climbed so high. “That’s none of your business!” I said defensively.
“It is my business, if you’re carrying my baby!”
“Never mind then, I’m not!” I told him, and burst into tears again. Damn it! It was impossible to argue if I kept crying like this, and arguing was one of my strongest suits.
“Ok, listen, I’ll walk you to your car,” César said. “I think it’s a bad idea to climb that high, so please don’t do stuff like that.” His voice was much, much calmer.
“I didn’t see a button to ring,” I sniffed.
He yanked on shoes and stepped outside. “It’s icy, too,” he told me, and held out his arm to me.
I put on my coat and put my hand through his elbow. We walked carefully down the driveway together until he let go to type in a code on a keypad on one of the pillars. That same pillar also had a camera at the top,
