Run, Girl (If You Can)

Chapter 256: You Will Not Believe What Just Happened

When Keeley said she had something important happening on October 12th the last thing Jennica expected to hear was that she was marrying Aaron Hale!

She found a few hours to go get lunch with her former roommates towards the end of September and broke the news over the complimentary breadsticks.

"You\'re pregnant and marrying who?" Valentina screeched.

"Come on, Val, you know him! He was the best man at my wedding. The one with a black eye?" Jennica prompted.

She shook her head in disbelief. It was obvious that Aaron was madly in love with Keeley but how on earth had this happened? She hadn\'t pegged her friend as the type to sleep with someone she wasn\'t dating or at least in love with.

"Hang on, the ex-boyfriend that made you swear off of men forever? I\'m so confused."

Valentina wasn\'t the only one but Keeley refused to say more on the matter. She ended the discussion by simply stating that she was marrying him for the future of her child and that she wanted both of them to attend the wedding. They could wear any kind of dress they wanted as long as it was nice.

They were both bursting with questions for the rest of lunch but didn\'t want to piss their friend off so they kept things light. It was totally awkward though.

"Cam, you will not believe what just happened," Jennica said dramatically as she walked through their front door, bending down to pet Ziggy.

He looked up from his phone. "What?"

"Keeley\'s pregnant!"

Cameron\'s eyes shot wide open. He shook his head sympathetically. "Aaron\'s going to be devastated."

"No, no, you don\'t get it! He\'s the father. They\'re getting married in a few weeks!"

"Impossible," he declared. "Aiden has been around since this whole thing started and he filled me in. She would never marry him."

She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. "I\'m telling you, she is. I heard it come out of her own mouth. Ask Aaron! He\'ll tell you. We\'re both invited to the wedding anyway, you\'ll see it for yourself soon enough."

"I don\'t understand it at all. He wasn\'t having any luck with her last I heard, even if he has been in a weirdly good mood lately. How did he end up getting exactly what he wanted?"

Jennica had no idea. As much as they had teased Aaron on his birthday, she hadn\'t heard anything from Keeley about changing her mind towards him. It was all speculation. Who knew the speculation would be even less wild than the truth!

"Do you think Aiden knows?"

"If he did, he\'d be blowing up my phone right now," Cameron said dryly. "I\'ll tell him on Monday and we can ask Aaron together. It\'s been a while since we\'ve stormed his office at the same time."

She snorted. Those two were the perfect partners in crime despite being nearly a decade apart in age.

"Why not text him now?"

His smile turned flirtatious. "Because my beautiful wife just got home and I can think of several better things to do."

"Is that so?" Jennica asked with a raised eyebrow. She made her way over to him and parked herself on his lap as her arms encircled his neck. "Think you can tell me about them?"

===

Valentina could not believe that Keeley was marrying the man she had dubbed \'Crazy Person\' in her phone, let alone that she was pregnant. It was like she was living out a telenovela of her own!

She was confused by her friend\'s choice but that didn\'t mean she wouldn\'t support it. She would probably have to trade for a night shift to get the day of the wedding off but it would be worth it.

Besides, she felt she owed Keeley. She had been the one to make her homeless after all. Although…now that she thought about it, she didn\'t know where her friend had been living all of this time.

Keeley merely said she would figure things out and that Valentina didn\'t have to worry about it. Now she was pregnant. Had she moved in with this man because she felt like she had nowhere else to go? Had she been coerced? Was she a kept woman? Was this Valentina\'s fault?

No, she needed to stop thinking such ridiculous thoughts. She had watched way too many telenovelas. Real life wasn\'t nearly so convoluted.

Still, she had to wonder how Keeley ended up pregnant from a man she supposedly barely tolerated. She always seemed so adamantly against him. What had changed her mind?

These were the thoughts that plagued her throughout her rotation. She was reprimanded by her professor multiple times for spacing out. Whenever that happened she would hastily apologize and try to refocus. It wasn\'t working very well.

Valentina was worried about her friend. Keeley had said less than a year ago that she never wanted to get married. Based on that information, it seemed like she did it because she felt trapped. She definitely did not love this man.

A romantic at heart, she couldn\'t think of anything more upsetting. How could you marry someone you didn\'t love, even for the sake of a child? She couldn\'t imagine it.

On one of her ten minute breaks, Valentina got a text message from Ryan. She hadn\'t talked to him since his rather uncomfortable birthday party. She had shared a few classes with him in college too but Keeley was better friends with him. Not knowing anyone else there made things weird.

\'Have you seen Keeley recently?\'

She saw her less than four hours ago. That was fairly recent. \'Yeah\'

\'How is she?\'

An excellent question. She wasn\'t sure how to answer it. She couldn\'t exactly say \'good\' because Keeley didn\'t seem terribly happy when she explained her situation over lunch.

She seemed tired more than anything else. Tired and embarrassed that she had to explain herself at all. Poor girl.

Keeley and Ryan had been friends a long time…it would be okay to tell him what was going on, right? He would probably be invited to the wedding too. He had been at Jennica\'s after all and they weren\'t nearly as close.

\'She\'s tired but that\'s to be expected. Pregnancy is exhausting\'

A series of messages blew up her phone. \'WHAT?!\'\'When did she get pregnant?\'\'Is it her scumbag ex-boyfriend\'s?\'\'Why didn\'t anybody tell me about this?\'

Apparently Keeley hadn\'t gotten around to telling him yet. Strange. He was normally easier to get ahold of than her old roommates.

\'I only found out today. She hasn\'t told you yet? I\'m sure she\'ll invite you to the wedding and tell you then\'

\'She\'s marrying him?! Seriously?\'

Valentina was beginning to regret answering his original message at all. \'My break is up. I have to get back to work. Talk to her about this\'

She put her phone on airplane mode and got back to work, not realizing the trouble she had just caused.