Chapter 2

“Very funny, you two.” He glanced between us with a scowl.

“Careful sweetheart or you’ll end up with wrinkles,” Dale pointed out and Lee’s face softened.

“I wouldn’t want to end up looking older than you now, would I?” Lee joked affectionately.

“Ha ha, very funny, but you forget you’re already a year old than me as it is.” Dale wrapped his arm around Lee’s shoulders and gave a squeeze.

At times like these I became overly jealous of their relationship and the affection they showed each other. I hadn’t had the best of luck on the dating front, and over the years things just seemed to be getting worse.

“Shall we get this over with?” I suggested before they started on one of their snogfests, which was only awkward because I’d often felt the urge to join in. When your best friend and his husband were so hot, they compete with the sun, it was hard not to.

“As the lady wishes.” Dale nodded and gestured me further into the house. We walked down the hallway, turned left, and came to the room that I now had a love-hate relationship with. I’d always felt comfortable in the bathroom, bathing in bubbles that caressed my breasts and tickled the back of my neck when they popped. Yet over the last eighteen months it had become the place where all my hopes were dashed to the wind.

When I entered, I automatically noticed the package sitting on the counter beside the sink. My heart had been pounding ever since I got up that morning and had been all day, but now it was practically in my throat.

“Hey, Rhea.” Lee’s voice called me back to him. I looked over my shoulder to see them where they stood in the doorway looking at me. “We want you to know that no matter what, we really appreciate all you are trying to do for us.”

“That and we love you.” Dale pursed his lips and blew me a kiss. The words only made me feel guilty. I was almost sure that I already knew what the answer was going to be when I left this bathroom. The same it has always been.

“I love you both too.” I smiled, but I couldn’t keep the sadness from my expression.

“You’ve got this.” Lee stepped forward and wrapped me in his arms. I clutched tightly to him for a moment. Ever since the failure of round one I felt both slipping away from me. It wasn’t because of them. It was my problem. I didn’t really perform well under pressure, at least not this kind.

“Thanks, Lee.” I playfully pushed him backwards then. “Now get out so that I can pee.”

“Yes boss.” Lee smirked at me. “Remember, we love you.”

He then closed the door behind him, leaving me alone with the test.

I closed my eyes for a moment and took several deep, calming breaths before picking up the box. The premise was simple. Two lines was good. One line was bad. The only problem was that no matter what the lines said, my life would change forever.

I opened the box and pulled out the foil packet. Ripping it open with my teeth, I pulled the protective cover off the end of the pregnancy test and placed it on the counter closest to the toilet.

Unzipping the uncomfortable pencil skirt I’d been wearing all day for work, I dropped my panties to my ankles and hovered over the toilet to pee on the stick

All that was left to do was wait. 2

I hated these tests. I wanted to throw this one clear across the room and watch it break against the back of the bathroom door. No matter what I did they always said the same thing: Not pregnant.

For the third time in eighteen agonisingly long months I was heartbroken. Not just for myself, but for my best friend and his husband, who were waiting eagerly on the other side of the door.

I was a woman. I should have been able to do this. I should have been able to at the very least give them this. It was the one thing I had been placed on this planet to do and yet I just couldn’t do it. There was something in my body that was saying no, turning down the promise of new life that I had tried to give it three times over. Three rounds of in vitro fertilization had failed and now I had to tell Lee and Dale that.

My heart had stopped the moment that the timer went off for the end of the developing time. I’d picked up the test from where I’d hidden it beneath its own packaging and looked. There it had been, that one lonely line.