“No, no. I did. I mean, it’s not his.” I frowned, never quite capable of looking Leaf in the eye. I wanted to explain but it was so hard to get it out. The words were stuck, like I’d have to hock a loogie just to expel them. “It messed me up, the breakup. Aaron broke my heart, and when he went to a party with his new girlfriend, I got stupid. Drank, met a guy, hooked up. Boom, baby. I don’t even know where he is now. The baby daddy, I mean. Aaron is probably rotting in hell. Or, at least, I hope he is.”

Leaf reached out a hand and gently placed it on my shoulder. “My sister had a baby at eighteen. That’s a little older, but she’s happy. My niece is great. Are your parents good?”

“My mom. I don’t know my dad, but she’s good. And my grandmother, she’s good, too. I’ll be okay.” The last I added as an afterthought, mostly because I didn’t want him thinking this was a pity ploy. No, this was worse in a way, because I was warning this nice guy who was interested in me away from liking me because I just so happened to be...you know.

Preggers.

“If you need anything, I’ll help,” Leaf said. “We all will. I don’t think it’ll change much.”

“Thanks. I think I’ll be okay. I’m guessing the kids at school will be weird about it.” I shivered as another breeze shredded through my hoodie and made my bare toes curl.

Stupid flip-flops.

Leaf tsked, reaching for my elbow and gently pulling me back toward Morgan’s house, his hand curled around my arm as he guided me up the porch steps. “You’re cold. That’s not good for you or the baby.”

He smiled at me.

It was different. I couldn’t tell you exactly how it was different—it wasn’t in the way his lips tilted or in the slash of white against brown skin—but it was different. It was warm, but a different warm, like by announcing I was full of kid, I’d gone from potential girlfriend material to someone he needed to coddle. I’d literally lost all of my sex appeal with one declaration.

It’s not good for you or the baby, he said.

He didn’t mean it to be a slap in the face, but...

Well? My face stung.

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

“Okay, queen of all that is dead cow and ketchup, I bequeath unto you a double bacon cheeseburger and a chocolate shake,” Devi said, plopping a paper bag in front of me. I was sprawled out in my room, in the same clothes I’d worn to Morgan’s house, my hair in a clip, a Jupiter-sized zit developing in the middle of my forehead.