Before he could speak, the bell over the door rang.

I looked up with a rush of excitement and a bright smile, expecting Natalie. But I found Wendy instead.

She looked like a different woman than the one who had come in here a few weeks ago, fresh and effortless, like she’d stepped out of an ad of a magazine. This Wendy was almost unrecognizable. Her blonde hair was dirty at the roots, dark and tangled up in a bun that looked like it had been slept on. The puff of her lids, the dark circles beneath, made her eyes look sunken and small, but they were bright, feverish, sharp with worry. Somehow, she managed to make a rumpled, oversized white T-shirt and leggings look stylish, but everything about her was frenetic, buzzing, humming, static electricity clinging to her, carrying her.

The shop went silent.

“Luke,” she croaked, tears streaming down her face at the sight of him. Her lips were dry. Pale.

My heartbeat doubled.

“Wendy, you can’t be here right now,” he said as he flew across the room toward her, the words both hard and comforting.

“We need to talk about this,” she begged, her face wrenched. “We have to figure this out.”

He snagged her by the arm and tried to steer her out. “I told you, we will. But the magazine will be here any minute, and I—”

“Figure what out?” Mrs. Bennet asked in a tone that stopped him dead.

Wendy laid a hand on her stomach, watery smile on her face as she said, “I’m pregnant.”

The room was silent again for a protracted moment before every voice in the room exploded.

Every voice but mine.

I folded in on myself, unable to parse what I’d heard. Wendy, hand on her belly and eyes adoring as she gazed up at Luke. My Luke, his eyes locked on mine, the heartbreak and apology on his face unmasked and raw.

Pregnant. She was pregnant. And judging by the look on his face, that baby was his.

Mrs. Bennet had started to cry, her voice high as she fired questions at him like a machine gun. Mr. Bennet had a hold of her arm, lips at her ear. Laney looked like she was about to claw Wendy’s eyes out, but Jett stood in front of her as she yelled around his wide shoulders. Marcus’s face was drawn, and though his lips were moving, he couldn’t be heard over the din. Kash had stepped toward them, but he wasn’t yelling at Wendy. He was yelling what seemed to be a string of obscenities at Luke.

Ivy stood at my side, repeating, “Oh my God,” on a loop, hands on her face and eyes big as ping-pong balls.

And I was somewhere separate, somewhere other.

A baby. Luke was having a baby with Wendy. She wouldn’t go away, wouldn’t disappear. He’d never escape her. She’d be a constant presence in his life.

In mine.

“Excuse me!” we heard over the din, and the room fell silent once more.