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__________
Galadriel is almost twenty-nine when she starts fucking her fiancé’s roommate.
Old enough to know better, she thinks one night while her ankles are over his shoulders and she's just this side of completely cock-drunk. She’s old enough to know better than this.
But she’s also old enough that she’s starting to feel strangled by her grown-up life, by her job wrangling a team of fratty bros and manic pixie dream girls at her nearly dead-end marketing manager gig, by the million things left on her wedding checklist.
She’s feeling kind of claustrophobic when she thinks about what she's doing this year. Panic starts to whisper when she thinks about changing her name and looking for a bigger apartment and spending every single night for the rest of her life with the guy she’s planning to marry. The last time they had dinner with his family, she was ready to bolt for the door before the amuse-bouche arrived on tiny china plates.
It’s hard to explain, even to herself, what feels so wrong about something that’s so perfect on paper. But ever since New Year’s Day, when the wedding countdown app on her phone starting chiming with daily reminders that she has less than a year until she becomes Mrs. Doriath, she’s been feeling out of sorts.
Probably because planning the wedding means dealing with Celeborn’s family - old money, people who unironically talk about summering in the Hamptons and have always managed to look down on Galadriel's CEO dad and homemaker mom. Her betrothed is the youngest of three brothers, each with impressive resumes and extremely symmetrical faces and careers that either rake in high six figures, or come with government clearance. He’s the last to marry, and he recently reminded his future in-laws over brunch that he doesn’t want any children, so they should talk to one of their many sons about grandkids.
That part - Galadriel found herself fuming, unexpectedly, suddenly angry that it feels like that decision has already been made for her, remembering a time when Celeborn would at least pretend like he'd consider changing his mind about having a family if it was important to her. It’s not like she has forever.
Thirty is getting way too close for comfort, if she’s honest. She overheard some of the other women at work talking about “hitting the wall,” starting to get Botox, plucking their grey hairs, freezing their eggs. It’s some stupid misogynistic bullshit that feels, at the same time, like a painful biological truth.
Maybe she should freeze her eggs. Just in case. She’s not getting any younger, and lately it feels like she’s not really getting anywhere at all.
It’s starting to feel like she’s drowning.
Until the guy she’s hardly even spoken with for the last four years is sucking on her nipples and pressing his fingers inside her and growling against her sensitive skin how fucking wet she is, how sweet her cunt is.
And suddenly she can breathe again.
It’s not like she doesn’t feel bad about it. She does. Really bad.
But she can’t stop.
__________
The guilt is never as bad when the sex is rough.
When it's furtive, quick, aggressive - when they're kind of angry at each other, although she's never quite sure what they have to be angry about - the sex is good and the guilt is manageable. It feels detached when it's just her face pushed up against the shower wall while he fucks her from behind, like it could be anyone, like it's not quite real.
It's worse when he's gentle with her, when he's holding her like a precious treasure he's discovered in the room she's not supposed to enter.
Like she's his, and they're not stealing a night while her fiancé travels to God knows where to do who knows what for the job he can't tell her anything about. Like her clothes aren't spilling out of her drawer in his dresser one wall away, where no one will sleep tonight.
The guilt is worse when they're kissing, and he's telling her how perfect she is, how beautiful, so hot and tight and fucking perfect. When she's spread open like the pages of one of his artsy coffee table books, and she's coming again and again as he drives so deep inside she knows she'll be sore tomorrow.
It's like the worst hangover of her life the next day, when she's aching between her legs and in her chest, after those nights when she lets him come inside her, when she falls asleep as the little spoon wrapped up in his big warm arms.
But the sex is never better.
__________
It started with a push-up bra.
It caught her eye as she walked home from work a few weeks before Valentine's Day, a fire-engine red lace and silk getup in the front window of a lingerie shop she'd walked by a hundred times without stepping inside. The mannequin, all smooth plastic limbs and a blank, expressionless face, had a sign attached to her lifeless hand.
VALENTINE’S DAY IS COMING - ARE YOU?
“Not lately,” Galadriel muttered, shaking her head and glaring at the plastic woman with her perfect tits. She should have just kept walking.
What's the point, Galadriel? It just gets ripped off anyway.
Celeborn never did care much for sexy lingerie. And she doesn't even always wear a bra, so there was no point in wasting money on buying any more of it after she asked what he thought of that black negligee she wore on vacation one time.
But their sex life started dwindling after he slipped that three-carat rock on her finger last spring. And it was starting to get to her, the way Celeborn didn't even seem to care anymore about getting in her pants, once she said yes to his proposal.
Maybe it really was just stress, like he always claimed, stress from his extremely important job that paid for the diamond ring, but she was starting to feel unattractive, insignificant - like maybe he just didn’t plan to try anymore now that they were engaged. And she knew she wasn't, objectively, unattractive.
She couldn’t remember the last time they had sex, but she’d definitely gotten better acquainted with her vibrator lately.
So, on impulse, she walked into the shop and bought the whole set, push-up bra and lace g-string and spiky red heels with sparkles on them. And it looked perfect in the mirror at home. Just on the far side of sexy, veering into a little slutty.
Just the right look to remind her fiancé why he proposed.
But when she prowled up the stairs on Valentine’s Day in nothing but her sexy underwear, stilettos, and a silk trench coat belted just tightly enough that she wouldn’t flash the cab driver, it wasn't Celeborn who answered the door.
It was his roommate since college, Halbrand, the guy who gets annoyed if you forget to use a coaster, who rolls his own cigarettes on the fire escape and usually has some hottie hanging on his arm, whose eyes widened in a flash of shock at the sight of her, making her blush hot and fast.
They've never been friends. Polite hellos and goodbyes and happy holidays, that kind of thing. The kind of guy she keeps her distance from but keeps a curious eye on. He's good looking, not in the perfect, pretty way Celeborn is, but in a disarming way, all expressive eyes and little smile lines and curly hair that always looks a few weeks overdue for a haircut. He works for some hotshot architecture firm downtown.
She's never been quite sure why the two men continued living together after both of them could clearly afford their own place. They're not exactly friends, either, they just know how to live together after being assigned to do so freshman year at NYU.
"He's not here," is all he said at first, on Valentine’s Day, leaning on the door frame and almost completely blocking the doorway with the sheer size of him, and Galadriel realized she was staring at his naked upper body, her eyes sweeping from his rumpled hair and broad shoulders and the weird tattoo on his ribcage and -
"Oh," she muttered, tearing her gaze off of his six-pack and the criminally low-riding sweatpants hanging on his hips. She reached for her phone to check for a missed call, a text, anything to suggest Celeborn hadn't simply forgotten about their date. But there was nothing.
"Do you want to come in and wait?"
She should have said no.
She should have known better. That nothing good could come from spending any more time with a guy who looked that good in fucking sweatpants.
She should have texted Celeborn letting him know she was going home, walked back down the stairs and hailed a cab.
But instead she nodded and walked into the apartment.
For a split second she forgot what she was wearing under the coat and started to take it off, the silky fabric slipping over her shoulders, Halbrand's eyes following its journey and catching on the sight of her tits in that stupid, sexy, uncomfortable push-up bra. She watched his eyes widen for a second before he looked away, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and motioning towards the kitchen with the other.
"There's dinner in the oven."
Galadriel just nodded and went to get her old Northeastern sweatshirt from Celeborn's room, its timeworn hem brushing the tops of her thighs. She reached for a pair of pajama pants, and then stuck them back in the drawer and pranced back into the living room in her stilettos and the sweatshirt.
She wasn't sure why she did it. But if her fiancé couldn't even be bothered to let her know he was going to be late on Valentine's Day …
He didn't call until later, all apologies, but by then it was too late.
To his credit, when she emerged from the bedroom, Halbrand just looked at her and didn't say a word about her lack of pants as he handed her a plate of homemade shepherd's pie, saying something about how it's not romantic but it's his favorite comfort food. Galadriel hasn't forgotten that detail.
She didn’t ask why he was home alone in sweatpants cooking a goddamn casserole on Valentine’s Day. It was not what she expected. But there he was, letting her pick out a movie, handing her food and a can of fancy seltzer, not even trying to get rid of her.
They ate dinner on the couch, her legs tucked beneath her and her heels kicked off, and when she took their dishes back to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of wine, she paused in front of him, blocking his view of the TV, just a second too long.
“What are you doing?” he said, looking up at her, just the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. She shrugged. She wasn't sure.
“I’m lonely,” she said, biting her lip. It was true, but it’s not like it was his problem. It’s not like that meant anything to him. Until it did.
That's when it started, when she set the wine on the coffee table and stepped between his knees, bare skin brushing the soft grey sweats he wore. He hadn't bothered with a shirt, not after she didn't even put on pants.
“It’s Valentine’s Day,” she heard herself saying, wondering who or what was possessing her, even as she put her hands on his bare shoulders and looked at him closely for what felt like the first time, watching the curiosity, amusement, even a little hint of annoyance in his face shift into something darker, something that matched her racing heart and shallow breathing.
By the time Celeborn called to tell her things had gone off the rails that afternoon and they were drowning in paperwork that couldn’t wait until morning, the lace thong was ruined. The push-up bra was on the floor - those little tits are perfect just the way they are, baby - and she was dozing off with her head on Halbrand’s chest.
The phone woke her up, and she spoke as little as she could before she turned the ringer off and threw the phone on the floor, mumbling, “He’s not coming back tonight,” as she closed her eyes again.
__________
She's never thought of herself as the cheating type.
It never even occurred to her before that night - that she might be capable of it, might have enough darkness inside herself to justify doing something so clearly wrong.
But she made the first move. He didn't resist. He said something like, this is a bad idea, hands already under her sweatshirt, and she agreed, it was, so bad, but already so good, she just knew it was going to be so fucking good. And neither of them pulled back, neither of them stopped.
It was supposed to be just that night. Just one time - well, just a few times - just a little break from that growing feeling of loneliness and suffocation.
They didn't really talk about it the next morning as she hurried to get her stuff and get out of the apartment before Celeborn returned. But when she started trying to apologize for what she did, what she dragged him into, suddenly realizing she didn't even know his phone number and she was only about seventy-five percent sure of his last name, Halbrand just shook his head and hugged her.
"Shit happens," he said, and she almost wanted to be offended that he could just shrug it off like that, but it wasn't like she had any right to be upset - any right to feel anything other than guilt. She definitely had no place asking for his number or wanting to do it again or feeling a flutter in her belly when he kissed her goodbye.
It was the middle of March before it happened again. But that time, neither of them could say shit happens, and that time, she did ask for his number, and he saved it in her phone with his full name. And after that, the next time she saw him with some tall, dark-haired woman whose cleavage had its own gravitational pull, she wanted to throw up, and he wouldn’t really look at her.
As winter slides into spring, it grows a life of its own, fueled by her resentment for her absent fiancé who used to adore her, and the way she loses track of time and reality and how many times she's come when they're in bed together.
Why she doesn’t just end one relationship and dive into the other, she can’t really explain, even to herself, but Halbrand never asks. Their situation doesn’t seem to bother him. Or if it does, he hasn't said so - and she hasn't asked. When they're together, she doesn't want to think about anything else, doesn't want to waste time talking about messy details.
The ever-present hot chicks start dwindling, though. At some point when the trees are starting to bloom and the snow has finally stopped, she realizes it’s been awhile since Galadriel saw a woman sneaking in or out of the apartment in the early morning or late night hours. She never says anything about it, but she notices.
Celeborn is on an assignment that takes him out of town more and more, and she knows it’s a big deal, a big step on the promotion ladder she only knows hazy clues about. He works for the government. He told her the first night they met, I could tell you what I do, but then I'd have to kill you. At the time, she just giggled, charmed, and she took that to mean he works for a three-letter agency, but probably doesn't do anything that important - or at least, he didn't when they met.
At any rate, he’s gone a lot during the spring and summer leading up to their wedding, which is set for December 23. And Galadriel finds that she doesn’t mind. She’s quickly settled into her new little routine when he’s gone. Send her fiancé off with a peck on the cheek and a promise to talk later. Go to work. Go home to an apartment that isn't hers.
It's almost like playing house, she thinks one warm June evening when the windows are open, the news is on, and she's putting away leftovers while Halbrand smokes a cigarette on the fire escape. She never sleeps alone anymore while Celeborn is gone.
They don’t really ever talk about it, about how they either can't stay away from each other or just don't want to, but -
Every time, she’s a little more annoyed when it’s over. A little more unsettled. Every time Celeborn comes home, putting her engagement ring back on and slipping back into her real life feels more and more like a facade.
The guilt starts to diffuse and float away, bit by bit, too, as time wears on and she can’t actually remember the last time they were rough or angry or even casual with each other.
No, it’s always something else now. It’s a comfortable silence as they eat dinner, it’s an easy dance as they clean up and put things away and drift into each other’s arms, it’s waking up in the middle of the night already half on top of him, kissing him awake until they’re tangled up together again.
It should worry her, how she stops feeling bad about it, how she’s living two lives.
It can’t last. She has a deadline. Everything changes on December 23. Until then, she figures it’s like her last summer before senior year of college. When she partied too much, fucked a few random guys she can’t really remember, tried to get it all out of her system before she had to buckle down, graduate summa cum laude, and lock down a decent job.
Which she did. She can do this, too.
Her family is pleased with her engagement, her mother still in denial about the whole “Celeborn doesn’t want kids” thing, her father quietly happy that his baby girl landed a guy who can provide, her brothers’ wives all just so thrilled about the wedding. Her family doesn’t know her that well anymore, she realizes.
Galadriel was happy about her engagement, though, too, when it first happened. She felt relieved. She can’t explain what’s changed. Maybe it’s just nerves.
It’s definitely not him. They’re just fucking. It’s just - whatever it is. Just going to brunch one weekend and getting tipsy and making out in the cab on the way back to her apartment. Just remembering each other’s order from the Indian takeout place across the street from his office or the coffee shop on the first floor of her building. Just laughing at some stupid movie until tears are running down her face and she’s snorting, and he just grins at her like it’s so cute.
It’s really not a big deal. But she still can’t stop.
__________
She gets lazy about her birth control pills. She mutes - or thinks she’s muting, but apparently cancels altogether - the alarm one morning when she’s pinned to the bed with her legs around Halbrand's shoulders. So that week she forgets to take the pills at all, and then her period arrives in a raging mess of cramps, but she doesn't bother refilling the pack after that. She’s not really sure why. Not like she’s going to think about it too deeply. But -
Her prescription coverage isn't that great, and it's not like her fiancé is fucking her, anyway.
And Halbrand always pulls out. Well. Except when he doesn’t. But that isn’t often. It’s not a big deal.
And how long did it take her sister-in-law to get pregnant? Seven years or something? It’s fine. She buys condoms and forgets them at her apartment the next time she goes over.
Her period is awful once she stops the pill, and she’s thinking about calling her doctor to restart the prescription, but then she notices she’s lost a few pounds, and her wedding dress looks even better than last time, darling, according to Celeborn’s stuffy, skeletal mother, who sniffs at her over a flute of champagne at the fitting.
For a split second she thinks, I don't have to wear this dress. I don't have to go to that wedding.
But she waves it off, lets the tailor pin the dress a little too tightly around her waist, and goes out for a shot afterwards to calm her nerves. Then she goes back to Celeborn’s apartment and crawls into Halbrand’s bed to wait for him to get home from work.
__________
Her period is due the same day they're tasting wedding cakes, and since her stomach is already clenching with cramps when she wakes up, she figures it's only a matter of time. She puts on her period underwear and a pantyliner and forces down a cup of coffee while Celeborn checks his email.
It’s been a few months since they’ve spent the weekend together. Whatever he was working on over the summer seems to have shifted, or resolved, or - well, she isn’t really sure she cares, but he’s been around more the last few weeks, as they’re getting into what he calls the “home stretch” before their Christmas wedding.
It's only a few more weeks until Labor Day. The unofficial end of the summer. It feels like the little dream world she's existed in for the last few months is starting to disintegrate. The long Saturday mornings spent in bed, the walks around the park holding hands because who the fuck is going to see them, the competition on Sunday morning to see who gets more answers on the crossword puzzle in the paper.
She’s been feeling a little queasy since Celeborn got back, since he started saying things like “the countdown is on” and “we should start looking at houses, we can’t live here with Halbrand after all.”
They’ve talked about moving into her place for a while until they find a new apartment together. Her lease is month to month; it’ll be easy to relocate once they find a place. But neither of them have made any move to start the process.
This morning, the shower is running and Galadriel is suddenly impatient to get out of the apartment before it stops and the bathroom door opens. It's been months since they've all been in the same room at the same time.
"I think he's seeing someone," Celeborn said off-hand, a week ago, when he was deadbolting the door for the night and Halbrand wasn't home yet, and Galadriel looked away, forcing her face back to neutrality as her stomach turned. “Maybe she’ll want to move in!”
Galadriel didn’t say anything at that, but when she sniped at Halbrand a few nights later, "Are you seeing someone else?" he just scowled at her and muttered, "Are you?"
It was the closest they’ve come to talking about reality. He never really answered, though. It’s not like she can say anything, if he is seeing someone else, or a dozen someones. But still - the thought of it made her feel - ugh, awful. Angry. Unsettled.
Now, her stomach is turning over and over as she and Celeborn climb into a cab and make the cross-town trek to City Cakerie, where she has to stop and take a few yoga breaths to fend off sudden nausea as they step into the sweetly scented bakery. A warm whiff of cinnamon-sugar hits her like a tidal wave and sends her stumbling for the nearest chair to hang onto while she tries not to lose her breakfast all over her shoes.
“Wedding jitters?” guesses the perky little apron-clad brunette who greets them, giving Galadriel a knowing smile, and she nods, making some vague agreement about how it’s all so exciting.
She barely tastes the cakes. She doesn't even really like cake.
When they've agreed on a classic sponge cake with raspberry filling, Celeborn heads off to the gym with a little peck to her cheek.
Galadriel starts walking home. It's laundry day, and she has to schlep her growing pile of dirty clothes to the washomat around the corner from her building. But she only makes it two blocks before the nausea is back, and she’s throwing up every bite of chocolate and lemon curd and red velvet she just forced down at the bakery.
__________
Denial lasts a few weeks, even as she starts waking up around three every morning to pee, even as her boobs grow tender and swollen like a bad case of PMS and her stomach churns every time she smells food.
When her period is so late that she can’t call it late anymore and has to admit the whole thing just went missing, she takes the train across town to duck into a drugstore in a neighborhood where no one she knows has any reason to be. At the self-checkout, she pulls her hat low over her eyes and pays with cash as the security camera's infrared eye keeps a silent, judgmental watch.
Then she hurries to the restroom and locks herself in the first empty stall. She bought a two-pack, just in case.
But she already knows, as she waits there on the toilet watching her phone timer count down from five minutes to zero, what the pregnancy test is going to say.
It's positive.
It could be worse, she decides. She could be unemployed and uninsured, she could be sixteen and not twenty-eight, she could be a person who never ever wanted to have a baby, or isn’t ready to have a baby now, but as soon as she sees the little plus sign on that stick, that’s it. She’s ready, even if she really isn't, even though she wasn't planning for this.
It’s an instant spark of clarity, a glimpse of what she really wants flashing through her mind so quickly she almost dismisses it, then the heavy weight of dread that settles in her gut knowing what she has to do next.
Yeah, her situation is pretty fucked up, she thinks as she faces herself in the bathroom mirror, her face looking a little thin and pale, her eyes strangely bright. It’s not ideal. But it could be worse.
The baby could be Celeborn's.
But it's not.
Maybe she shouldn't be so relieved, but she is, even though she has no real sense of how Halbrand will react, either. Maybe he’ll be furious. Maybe - maybe he won't, though.
"Don't worry," she says, patting her belly as if whoever's getting started in there can already hear her. "Don't worry, baby. We've got this. I've got you."
__________
"I'm pregnant," she tells Celeborn, without preamble, on Sunday morning, a few days later.
They're sitting at the kitchen table looking at floral designs, photographs of mockups the florist created, couriered over on glossy cardstock. Galadriel is supposed to choose a bouquet for herself, a design for her bridesmaids, and centerpieces for the reception.
Instead she drops a bomb on her entire four-year relationship and watches as Celeborn nearly chokes on his coffee at her announcement. Droplets of dark roast land on the pages in front of him and he dabs at his mouth and then the photos with a napkin before speaking.
Halbrand is gone for the weekend, which is why she delivers the news this morning - she didn’t want to tell Celeborn about her pregnancy with both of them in the apartment.
She doesn't know where he is, or why, and she doesn't care, she doesn't, really. She caught something about the Hamptons and somebody’s beach rental, even though it's after Labor Day, but she tried to tune it out when she overheard him on the phone this week, and she didn't ask.
That's part of their thing, too. Sometimes they don't ask questions they don't want answered.
It feels like it's happening more lately, but maybe she's just paranoid.
She hasn't actually seen him since she took the pregnancy test, so she hasn't told him yet, and she's not sure how to bring it up. Hey, you know how we've been having an affair for six months and you always "forget" to pull out? Well, I forgot to tell you I went off birth control, so … congratulations?
She's not even sure if he wants children. Let alone with her. They’re just - well, they’re just - whatever it is. They’re just fucking. But now she’s just thinking about how a tiny newborn would fit right in the crook of his arm, and how nice it would be, to share this with someone who isn’t glaring at her like she’s committed a war crime.
Which - to be fair - she kind of has. She’s been sleeping with his roommate for months. She’s let it go on so long it took having another man’s child in her belly to even say a word about how unhappy she’s been, how she doesn’t think they should get married after all. She's let it all build up to this, until she had no choice but to confess, the decision made for her.
She's always known deep down that Celeborn wasn’t going to change his mind about having a family. And it was never really a big deal for her either way, until suddenly it is.
And it turns out he has kept something from her, too. Because when he speaks, he calmly informs her that's not possible. Not just because it's been months since they've had sex, but because he had a vasectomy when he was twenty-three - a whole year before she even met him - and didn't bother to tell her until now.
He said he figured it could be reversed if they ever decided they wanted to have a child, but -
It's her turn to nearly choke on her coffee.
She isn't sure if she's even supposed to be drinking coffee, but until her first appointment she's going to assume it's okay. One cup of coffee per day seems like it should be fine, and she could really use the caffeine boost these days. She's exhausted.
"You had a vasectomy and you never told me?"
Her voice sounds shrill, but then suddenly she starts laughing, the absurdity of the conversation tipping her over the edge. It's a deranged sound and it matches how she feels, suddenly wondering how the hell a guy that young just got a vasectomy without the fifteen obstacles and waivers a woman asking for a tubal would get.
"You're pregnant?" he fires back, narrowing his eyes as he mentally calculates how long it's been since they slept together and how distinctly not pregnant she looks. "Whose is it?"
When she doesn't answer for a moment, and then for another moment, the silence becomes too long and too awkward. She doesn't have to answer at all. He glances from her to the closed bedroom door and gives a disgusted snort.
"Got it," he mutters, shaking his head. "That's just fucking great, Galadriel."
His tone says it's anything but great. But for just a second, she thinks, yeah, it is, isn't it?
"I'm keeping it," she says, to cut off any suggestions he might make.
And she is, even if she has to do it alone. That's fine. Plenty of people do it. Her bedroom is big enough to squeeze a crib in there somehow. She can do this. When she closes her eyes she can almost see the cherubic little face of her daughter. She knows it's a girl. She just knows.
"You're leaving me three months before our wedding to have my roommate's baby?"
There's venom and disbelief in his voice. And yeah, it sounds crazy.
But she nods. She takes off her ring, and sets it on top of the photos of the flowers that she will not be choosing for a wedding that will not be happening.
"I'm sorry," she says, rising from her chair, but he’s already gathering up the photos and stalking over to the recycling bin to shove them under an old pizza box. He doesn't speak to her again. He ignores her while she gathers her things from his room, stuffs them into her overnight bag, and leaves.
__________
Hi. We have a problem. Call me before you go home.
Galadriel sends the text as soon as she’s outside the brick building, where she can’t remember whose name is on the lease, who bought the couch, who pays the power bill, who’s more likely to throw a punch at whom.
Maybe she should have told Halbrand first.
But she didn’t, and now her hands are shaking as she shoves the phone back into her pocket. She feels cold, even though it's probably close to seventy out, the air humid and heavy, foreboding.
Her whole body starts shaking as she hurries to the train station, glancing up at the heavy grey sky with dark clouds gathering fast. By the time she emerges from underground near the steps to her building, the sky has broken open and a downpour soaks her and the bag of her random stuff from Celeborn’s as she dashes for the front door.
Locked into her little one-bedroom apartment with its tiny galley kitchen, tiny living room, tiny bathroom with an old claw foot tub, she strips off the wet clothes and pours a bath.
Not too hot, because the internet told her that might cook the baby’s neural tube before it’s fully formed, and she already feels attached to the little stowaway who’s had her on the edge of puking every moment of every day since that cake tasting. But she lounges in the lukewarm water and shaves her legs and reads a magazine and tries not to check her phone repeatedly.
When he hasn’t called her by noon, she puts on sweats and orders delivery Thai food, not exactly hungry but knowing she needs to eat something. She’s hoping the fragrant broth and steamed vegetables will calm her stomach.
There’s an old season of The Bachelor on television, and Galadriel quickly realizes it’s the one where the guy picks nobody at the end - a real “I choose me” moment for reality TV’s anchor program - and she settles in to watch the show and not check her phone repeatedly and not google pregnancy symptoms all afternoon.
By the time she’s almost reached the climax of the show, Galadriel is ready to throw her phone out the window. She sends another text. Seriously you need to call me whatever you’re doing can wait.
Nothing. He hasn't even read the first message.
Why didn't she ask where the hell he was going? Whose damn Hamptons rental did he visit, and since when does he even go to the Hamptons? In September? I think he's seeing someone, her ex's voice suddenly taunts her in a memory, and she lets out a frustrated groan.
Just a couple hours ago she was assuring herself that she did not care where the father of her child was today, or whether he wanted any involvement in that fatherly role, anyway. Apparently that was not remotely true, if the knot in her stomach means anything.
She's a mess.
Onscreen, Bachelorette Number One leaves, sobbing in the limousine, bronzer and tears streaking her cheeks as she manages to sniffle that she hopes her now-ex and the other woman he’s been dating will be very happy together.
Galadriel reaches for the last spring roll on the coffee table and cringes at the montage of Bachelorette Number Two getting ready, twirling around in her sparkly gown and daydreaming about getting engaged to the love of her life. If that's what you can call a guy you met in front of a camera six weeks ago.
But Galadriel's starting to wonder if she’s going to end up in the same predicament as the I-choose-me Bachelor, two messed up, overlapping relationships swept away in the course of one day, leaving her all alone.
Well. Not alone. She pokes at her stomach.
It still doesn’t quite feel real. But the second test, the one she’s been carrying around in her purse, turned positive so fast she didn’t even have to set a timer when she took it this morning before breaking the news to Celeborn. She took it just to be sure, before she blew up her life. But she’s definitely pregnant. Probably two months along already. She needs to call her doctor tomorrow and make an appointment.
It’s almost seven by the time she hears thudding footsteps in the hall, and then someone bangs on her door so hard she’s afraid it’s going to knock the old hinges loose.
“What the hell,” she mutters as she drags herself from the couch. She didn’t order any more food. She yanks the door open.
“Is it true?” Halbrand asks, stepping around her and into the apartment without saying hello or waiting to be invited in, dropping his backpack on her kitchen floor. She shoves the door closed and crosses her arms over her chest.
“You were supposed to call me before you went home,” she mutters, and he spreads his arms wide, making a face like, no shit, I figured that out.
He's breathing hard, hair and shoulders wet from the rain, looking like he ran all the way from the train station to her front door. He's staring at her, eyes blazing, and she can't tell if he's furious or -
“My phone is in the Atlantic fucking Ocean," he says without offering further explanation. "And there's not a replace your phone on Sunday you dumbass place in East Stuck-Upsville. So imagine my surprise when I got home and my roommate was pissed, and when I asked why, he told me to ask my baby mama."
He makes air quotes around the last four words, eyebrows rising with each syllable.
“Where were you?” she asks, feeling petty and childish and possessive, scowling at him. As her face crinkles into a frown, suddenly on the verge of tears, she watches something change in his face, too.
“Team building weekend,” he says, tilting his head as he looks at her, gaze softening. "Didn't I tell you that?"
She shakes her head, biting at her bottom lip. "How did your phone get in the ocean?"
"What - Galadriel, for fuck's sake. Are you pregnant?"
She nods.
“With - are you sure?”
She keeps nodding, yes, she’s sure she’s pregnant, she’s sure it’s his. Her face scrunches up as she braces for whatever he's going to say, reminding herself again that she can totally do this alone.
"I'm keeping it," she says for the second time today, quiet but determined.
But he's nodding, too, and he’s smiling as he answers immediately, “No shit you are.”
Her stomach flips, and for the first time in days it's not from nausea.
"Yeah?" she says, voice so soft, a sudden swell of hopeful joy starting to grow where it’s only been dread and nausea and aching worry, all day.
“Fuck yeah.”
She's never heard him sound like that before. Vulnerable. Awestruck. Fuck yeah. They’re both moving at the same time, suddenly, her arms dropping from their defensive posture and Halbrand taking two steps towards her, pulling her close into a hug that melts away the tension in her shoulders and the gnawing fear in her gut.
“Holy shit,” he’s murmuring against her hair, kissing the top of her head.
“You don’t have to,” she starts, and then falls silent, pushing her face into his chest and inhaling the scent of him, so familiar now.
He doesn’t have to do anything, doesn’t have to be with her just because of this, doesn’t have to worry about it. She had a whole thing prepared about how he can just dip out if he wants to. But all of that seems kind of silly now, honestly. She doesn't want that at all.
“Are you serious right now? We’re having a baby.”
He holds her shoulders and gently pushes her back, so she has to look up and see the emotions she's never noticed before all swirled in the bright flecks of green and golden-brown in his eyes. Neither of them are quite smiling, but it's almost there, she feels it in her own face and she can see it starting to bloom on his.
"My phone is in the ocean because my drunk associate threw it off the deck when I was about to text you yesterday."
She laughs, and one of her hands comes up automatically to cover her mouth. He chuckles.
"You can get a new one tomorrow," she says, moving her hand from her mouth up to touch his cheek, and he nods, leaning his face into her hand. "It's definitely your baby," she adds. "We haven't - it's - I don't know what I was thinking. I'm sorry. I should have ended that a long time ago."
"That’s correct."
He's smiling, though, teasing. She feels lighter than she has in months. It's the strangest thing, all of this. They’re probably going to need so much counseling in the future. She doesn’t even care.
“I think you should pay for my new phone,” he says, still teasing. “It wouldn’t be in the ocean if I hadn’t caught fucking feelings for you.”
Her heart swells at that, a pleasant ache replacing her worry, but she fakes a pout. “I’m giving you an entire human being. Isn’t that enough?”
And all the teasing is gone at that. “Yeah,” he says, a reverent exhale. “That’s more than enough, baby,” as she’s rising onto her tiptoes to kiss him.
“That’s what I thought.”
__________
"We do have a problem," he says, later, lounging between her legs, head on her thigh, one hand warm and heavy on her belly.
It's late, after midnight. They've been in bed for hours, since he carried her in here and set her down on the bed so carefully she almost laughed, assuring him she won’t break, whispering, “fuck me, Daddy,” into his ear. Since then, he’s only moved from bed to grab the DoorDash order, and she’s been dashing to the bathroom, because seriously, why does she already have to pee all the time? Her stomach is calm, though, her limbs warm and loose, her heart finally beating normally again.
She makes a noise like hmm? His stuff might be on fire on the sidewalk right now a couple miles away. That would be a problem. She combs her fingers through his hair.
“I need a new place to live.”
She laughs. Yeah. Yeah, he does.
“And this place is way too small for a family,” he adds, and her laughter freezes and her hand stills for a second, but then she looks down and sees him looking up at her, not teasing in the slightest, just - just whatever this is. Whatever it's become while she was pretending it wasn't anything.
It’s all there in the way he looks at her, all suddenly so obvious, such a really fucking big deal.
“Yeah,” she agrees. “Yeah, it is. Let’s find a new one.”
__________