When Sophie got home, Gavin was still stuck at work.
She curled up on the couch, mindlessly scrolling through her phone until she drifted off to sleep.
When she woke up, she was being carried toward the bedroom in Gavin's arms.
"Why were you sleeping on the couch? You're going to catch a cold."
Sophie rubbed her nose, offering an embarrassed smile. "I was just looking at my phone and dozed off. I'm wide awake now."
Walking in to find her passed out on the sofa had given Gavin a scare. He had immediately checked her forehead, relieved to find she didn't have a fever.
But her hands were icy.
During the winter, Sophie's hands and feet were perpetually freezing. When they slept, she loved wedging her cold feet between his legs to warm them up.
Gavin laid her gently on the bed and reached for her feet. As expected, they were like blocks of ice.
"I won't do it again. Go take a shower, I'll heat up some soup for you." Sophie pulled her feet away, slipping out of bed and heading for the kitchen.
As she stood at the counter, she desperately tried to figure out how to broach the subject of him getting tested.
Lost in her own thoughts, she wasn't paying attention. A splash of boiling broth hit the back of her hand, making her flinch. The ceramic bowl slipped from her grasp, shattering violently against the floor.
Hearing the crash, Gavin rushed out of the bathroom just as Sophie crouched down to pick up the jagged shards.
He hurried over, grabbing her hand. The skin was already bright red.
He pulled her to the sink, running her hand under cold water. "Are you feeling sick?"
"No, I was just spacing out." Sophie berated herself for being so clumsy.
Gavin swept up the broken porcelain and went to the bathroom to grab the burn ointment from the first-aid kit.
As he pulled the plastic bin off the shelf, a few boxes tumbled out. Reaching down to fix them, he froze. It was a box for a pregnancy test. Glancing closer, he realized there were eight or nine identical boxes shoved in the back.
He walked back to the kitchen, carefully applying the cooling gel to her burn. "Why do you have a stash of pregnancy tests? Have you been checking constantly?"
Sophie flushed bright red. Every time she used one, she meticulously wrapped it in layers of toilet paper before burying it in the trash, terrified he would find out. She had hidden the unopened ones in the darkest corner of the cabinet.


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