"Hey, Har, are you busy?"

I lifted my head from the textbook across my lap and glanced toward Ash shifting uncomfortably in my doorway. The action was so unlike her it peaked my interest and I shut my book.

"What's wrong, Ash?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

She swallowed and averted her eyes, "I need you to come somewhere with me. If you're not busy, I mean."

I glanced down at my phone, then looked back to my best friend. "Mom has Danni until five. I'm all yours until then."

I refused to let Danielle out of my sight the first few nights after Dylan had taken her. I didn't work. Didn't go to class. I didn't even sleep. I just cradled her against me in my bedroom while James sat at the edge of the bed, rubbing my back in comfort, staying awake into the latest hours of the night with me despite the exhaustion that lined every inch of his face. It hadn't been until my mother insisted she'd taken time off for the next couple months and was open to watch Danni so I could finish my degree and get back to work. If there was one person in this world I trusted with my little girl, it was my mother, and she'd still had to pry my fingers from Danni's shoulder's this morning.

Turns out my best friend's anxiousness didn't end the moment we stepped outside the apartment as it usually did. I hadn't seen Ashley this out of it since high school, and even then she'd picked herself up and forced a smile when we left the house.

"Ash, what's going on?" I asked, eyes trained out the window as she slowed the car to a stop outside of her OBGYN. My lips parted as I readied myself to speak, then slammed shut when I realized why we were here. "Oh no, Ash, did you seriously get another STD?"

She didn't even look my way. Her expression remained indifferent as she shook her head and grabbed her back from the floorboard by my feet. "Let's go."

I eyed her with my brows drawn in concentration all the way into the office. It wasn't until she was handed forms to fill out and a cup to pee in that I was suddenly catapulted back into this very lobby at eighteen.

"Ash, are you pregnant?"

She didn't deny the question this time. She just set the clipboard down on the hard, plastic chair beside me and lifted the cup in the air between us, "I guess we'll see. I'll be right back."

I blinked, trying to process the information the entire five minutes she was gone.

"Chris—"

"Has a weak pull-out game apparently."

There she was. The comment was so Ashley it eased my own anxiety the slightest bit.

"You guys didn't use protection?"

She snuck a quick look in my direction, "Are we really having this conversation when you have a four year old at home because of the lack of that exact thing?"

"It's okay, Ash. No need to get snappy with me."

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm just scared and angry, and really really hungry."

I smiled and squeezed her hand, surprised when Ash grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the room with her. We waited a very excruciating ten minutes of Ash pacing before the doctor finally walked in with her results.

"Ashley, I think a congratulations is in order."

All color drained from my best friend's face. "No."

"The test is most definitely positive. I am going to have one of my nurses do an ultrasound and get some bloodwork done. Based of when you listed your last period you'd be close to seventeen weeks."

If I didn't know any better, I'd think Ash was going to pass out. Knowing her feet had no intention of moving on their own, I led her to the ultrasound room and helped her on to the bed.

"Har." She whimpered, running a hand down her face. "Har, what the hell is going on."

"You're pregnant." I poked at her stomach. "And it's totally normal for you to be scared out of your damn mind, Ash."

She started to deny my words, but was interrupted by the tech coming in and asking a bunch of questions. Once they were settled I turned toward the large screen and watched as a little baby appeared in front of us. The doctor had been right, of course, as the baby on the ultrasound looked a lot like Danni had around my anatomy ultrasound at twenty weeks.

"Measurements are putting you at seventeen weeks five days." The nurse mumbled, then looked between Ash and I, asking, "Do you want to know the gender?"

Ash inhaled sharply, "You can see that already?"

"Yes. Though we'll double check again at your anatomy ultrasound in a couple weeks."

Ash looked to me and I reached out and squeezed her hand for comfort, she looked at the screen and nodded, "Yes. Tell us the gender."

The wand moved quickly down toward the bottom of Ash's stomach and the nurse wiggled it a few times before the image appeared and I laughed. "That's definitely a girl. Looks just like Danielle's did."

Ash looked to the nurse for confirmation.

"She's correct." The nurse smiled. "That is definitely a little girl. If you look here, you can see the three lines."

She explained everything to Ash, and though it was not the right place or time to say it, Ash huffed out a very loud, "Oh thank God."

*

I wasn't sure what route my best friend planned to take in breaking the news to Chris, but I surely hadn't expected her to cross the living room as soon as Scott invited us in and throw the sonograms and her paperwork from the hospital on his lap.

James, joining the guys in the living room again, paused behind his friend on the couch and stared down in surprise.

"What's this?" Chris asked, confused, as he eyed Ash beside me in front him.

"Your weak pull-out game is what that is, Christopher." Ash snapped, crossing her arms, but as I watched her take in his expression, there was more than irritation and fear in there. There was hope. She hoped he wouldn't freak out. She liked him. Ashley had finally met her match.

"Y. . . you're pregnant?" he sputtered on the words, and for a moment I braced myself for the same words Dalton had spat in my face.

Are you sure its mine?

To my shock and relief, it never came.

"Yes." Ash shook her head. "Almost four months along, apparently. It had to have been from the first night we hooked up. Oh, and it's a girl."

James coughed and continued his trek to greet me with a kiss, but Scott let out a whistle. Chris flipped Scott off, then stood and heaved out a very exhausted sigh. "Well, I guess I better give coach a call."

"Huh?" Ash and I both blurted at once.

He shrugged a shoulder as he looked to James, "I'm sorry, man. I know I made promises but—"

"Family comes first." James finished for him, waving him off dismissively. "No worries, bro. I get it."

"Wait, no, hold up." Ash stalked across the room so she was in front of Chris. "You are not giving up your football career for me."

"You're right, I'm not giving it up for you." Chris said, pulling her into him. "I'm giving it up for our family and future. I don't want to hear your complaining about it either. It's my life."

My hand found my chest and I swooned as they headed for his room at the end of the hall, Ash doing exactly as Chris had anticipated. Fighting him on everything.

"Well, that was unexpected." Scott muttered, kicking his feet up on the coffee table as his eyes swept over his best friend and me. "Are y'all hiding something too?"

James chunked a pillow at his friend, but I held my hands up in surrender and joked, "I learned my lesson years ago."

*

I hadn't stopped to consider James' feelings on the situation until I had put Danni down later that night and joined him in bed, eying the new baby monitor I'd set in my daughter's bedroom. He was folding his shirt over the end of the bed, but he'd been so quiet and lost in his thoughts since we'd picked Danni up a few hours ago, it was unlike him.

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked, setting my phone down and sitting upright. "I didn't even ask how you felt about all of this."

"I'm good." he joined me in bed. "I'm happy for Chris. Dude has always wanted a big family. Though with Ash's reaction to all of this, I'm wondering if he's going to get any more than this little girl."

I smiled. "She likes him. I could see it when she was waiting for his reaction. She might act like a bitch on the outside, but inside she's yearning for someone to see past it and love her. To challenge her. Chris does that."

"I was thinking a bit too."

"About?" I leaned over and rested my head against his arm. "Talk to me."

James shrugged the shoulder my head was against. "I don't know, I guess I'm kind of. . . jealous? Envious? Despite all the shit my own father put me through, I always loved kids, and hoped at some point in my life that I'd have broken the cycle and could heal my own inner child by raising a kid my way. You know what I mean?"

Tears stung my eyes at that. James hardly, if ever, talked about his past. When he did, though, he was more vulnerable.

"You want kids?" I asked.

"Eventually, yeah." he mumbled. "Right now, it's obviously not in the cards. Not with my career about to take off. But I love Danni. I. . . I would at some point want to grow our family."

I stared at him, wanting to shake my head, but the fact he'd been so cautious of how he phrased his response had butterflies fluttering in my stomach.

"What about you? D. . . did you plan on having anymore after Danielle?"

"I always promised I'd be one and done with Danielle after. . . after the hell I endured during my pregnancy and after she was born. I'd never put another child through that. But. . . but maybe. Maybe I'd be open to starting a family with you in the future, James."

The conversation was so serious that both of us were tense. After accepting my answer, he flipped me so I was under him, his lips against my ear. "We could get some practice in until then, hmm?"

I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck and pulled him into me. "Practice makes perfect, right?"