by S. C. Adams
We are in a shopping plaza center near where I live and where Emma often goes to get her nails done. I like the job they are doing, and it isn’t as expensive as I feared it would be. Mason watches the TV they have on in the place, casually observing the romantic comedy that is playing. He waits there patiently, never looking bored. Often when I look over at him, he smiles and nods at me. A lot of the other women around me are as surprised by his behavior as I am. What man would ever willingly go and relax with a girl while she gets a Mani-Pedi? It makes less sense to me than getting pregnant after wearing a condom.
After my nails are perfect once again, we go to the store across from the salon to grab some prenatal vitamins that my doctor has prescribed for me. We look around, and I get a few other groceries for my apartment, and then we move on.
We go to the bookstore a few shops down and casually stroll through, looking at books, never lingering on an aisle for too long. I am lucky that we happen to be there because I am able to run and use their bathroom. I throw up a bit, feeling queasy as I hover over the toilet. I want to blame the breakfast Mason made, but somehow, I know I’m not sick from food poisoning.
When I return back out to the massive collection of books, I come across Mason reading “A thru Z: Baby Names For All.” He turns to look at me and smiles, holding up the book and raising his eyebrows.
“How can you be so perfect all the time?” I ask him.
“I’m not perfect,” he replies. “But thanks. Want to browse through names?”
“Read off a few you like, and I’ll read off some I like,” I propose.
“Sounds like fun.”
I’m not sure how long my good feeling will last, but I don’t expect it to go on forever. I want to keep trying with Mason, see where things go, and hopefully, he will help me make decisions to birth a nice, healthy baby.
But as we browse through the lists of baby names, I can’t help but wonder when it will end and I will return to reality. I never imagined getting into the situation I am in, and I feel sure that the catch is coming, and I will be knocked back to where I belong.
I look up into his ocean-blue eyes while they scan the pages of the baby book. I hope that our child will get his eyes and nose.
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
“I like that you’re interested in this,” I answer. “I’m grateful that you even want to be involved, let alone go with me to get vitamins and look at baby names! Really, I’m so glad that you’re here. I can’t go to my parents about any of this. They’re far too self-involved and oblivious to be of any help to me. Once I got away from them, I swore I’d never go back, you know?”
“I meant, what were you thinking were some good baby names.”
“Oh.”
We laugh, and I blush like a strawberry, wishing I could turn back time and stop from rambling.
“I get what you’re saying,” he says. “I’m glad I’m here, too.”
“You know, it’s weird,” I continue to ramble. “Think about it. The way we’re huddled together here, all three of us, it’s like a little family! I think it’s all really sweet, and I didn’t think it was possible to feel this good after knowing our lives are going to be changed so drastically forever.”
He smiles and turns to the next page in the book. We are in baby girl names, and none of them catch my eye.
“Sorry, I’m probably scaring you, right?” I ask.
“Not at all,” says Mason. “Believe it or not, I’m more sentimental and sappy than your average guy usually is.”
“I believe it.”
“I’ve always wanted a family of my own,” he tells me. “My parents didn’t get along much when they were married. My mom died when I was still in high school.”
“Wait, what?” I ask. “I thought your parents got divorced.”
“They did get divorced.” He nods. “Then my dad remarried, and then my mom got cancer and died shortly after the divorce, less than a year after she got the diagnosis. I really wish my mom was alive so I could talk to her about what’s going on. She was always a great listener and gave good advice. She was a real mom. She would’ve loved to meet her grandkid.”
I feel like touching him sympathetically to let him know I am still here, but I don’t want to seem cliché.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say.
“It’s fine,” he proceeds. “Anyway, with her gone and my dad basically gone—I’m not close to him, my stepmom, or my stepsister at all—I don’t have a family. I have some great friends, and Luke is basically my brother from another mother. It’s not the same, having friends and having a family. In a way, I almost feel like I never really had a family—a real one, at any rate. So, I’ve always wanted one of my own.”
That time, I smile and flip the page in the baby book while he looks down into my eyes.
“Sorry, now I’m rambling,” he says, embarrassed.
“No, you’re not,” I say. “I like hearing you talk. Have you actually always wanted kids? I’ve never really wanted kids, so this has all been a pretty huge slap in the face.”
“Hey, no need to feel bad about that,” he says. “No, this sucks. Babies are loud, expensive things that can’t live without us and cry for years before speaking clear English. This is a massive slap in the face, no doubt about it. But we’ll figure it all out. We’re going to go through this together, missy.”
Just as he says that, I begin to feel slightly queasy again. I know that soon, vomit will be coming up.
“Sorry!” I bellow as I rush back to the bathroom.
I hate becoming a slave to the morning sickness, but it only keeps hitting harder as the day progresses. I am spending more time in the bathrooms at places than I am seeing the actual places we’ve gone to see.
Finally, Mason implores that we stop working my body and allow it to rest. He takes us over to my place, and he walks me in. At first, I think he is going to drop me off and carry on his way back home to Wrightwood. Instead, he chooses to stay with me even longer. He wants to make sure I am taken care of while my body begins to fall apart. I am really sick that night, so I am beyond relieved that he is there.
Then, he manages to amaze me even further. While I sit on the bathroom floor, regretting my life and hating that stupid, ineffective condom, Mason is busy working in my kitchen making me soup. At times when I can control my breathing, I can smell the delicious aromas from where I am sitting.
When I am able, I stumble out from the bathroom and collapse onto the couch. Mason comes over to join me, carrying a bowl of soup and a blanket. He sits next to me and wraps the blanket around me, tucking me into a couch cocoon that will surely make me into a couch potato. I sip on my hot soup while we watch TV in the dark.
Once I know I’m not going to finish everything in my bowl, I hand it to him, and he puts it on the coffee table. I scoot over onto him, laying my head down in his lap, wrapping myself up tighter in my blanket. He reaches his hands up through my blanket barrier so he can wrap his arms around my warm body. I grab hold of one of his hands, and I close my eyes.
We cuddle, and it is the definition of perfection. I don’t just have an active baby-daddy; I have a partner that is trying to nurse me back to health and take care of his baby’s mother. I wonder if it is so that we can all maybe become a happy family one day.
He kisses my forehead, caressing my skin and stroking my hair. I can’t help but think, I could get used to this.
“I don’t think I mentioned in the bookstore,” Mason says to me at random. “I liked the name Adolf for a boy or Gertrude for a girl—thoughts?” He laughs.
32
Mason
I wake up in Jillian’s bed the following morning to quite an unexpected and delightful alarm. My vision is still blurry, but I realize what is happening: Jillian is sucking my cock.
I still have the covers on. I can’t see her, but I can feel her soft, warm lips as they go up and down my shaft. Her hand is wrapped around my base, and she is taking s
o much of me in her mouth. I keep the covers on for a while, reveling in what is happening to me. I am growing so hard for her, filling up her mouth nicely.
I pull the covers up to watch her engulf my cock, slobbering on it, bobbing for it, and slurping as much of it up as she can fit.
“Oh,” I murmur. “I love that, baby.”
I am in love with her mouth and how she moves it. Every time I moan, she sucks harder and goes deeper. I have to keep the covers on top of her. I know that if she looks up at me with her glistening eyes with her mouth full of my wood, I will likely burst instantly and the pleasure will cease. I don’t want her to stop.
I finally do stop her once I can feel myself begin to surge under her remarkable skills. I put both hands on her face and lift her head up off my cock. She is breathing rapidly, making up for the breaths she missed while servicing me.
“I’m about to come,” I say in a deep voice. “I want to fuck you first. I want that pussy, baby.”
Before I can move, she flings the covers off the bed, exposing the two of us and our naked bodies. We admire each other for several seconds before she starts moving toward me. I want to run my fingers all over her body, tracing lines aimlessly just for an excuse to touch her.
I don’t need an excuse to touch her, though. She climbs on top of me, shoving my dick deep inside her. Now that we know how good it feels to have her on top, we are immediately ready to relive it. She is moaning loudly and grinding on my dick hard. Her mouth hangs agape, her eyes are closed, her perfect breasts are bouncing, her back arches, and her ass sticks out. How I haven’t ejaculated within sixty seconds of entering her is a mystery to me.
She plays with her tits, pinching and pulling at her nipples with obsessive fervor. When I take over and cup her breasts, she belts out:
“Mason!”
She continues to exclaim, emitting a long-held orgasmic note; it is like she is singing. It’s one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen in my life.
I flip her over and get on top, still inside of her, throbbing and ready to shoot my load. I put her legs on my shoulders and my hands on her sides. We are loving it, and we haven’t even started moving yet. We look into each other’s eyes, smiling. Waking up this way on a regular basis is something I could get used to.
We don’t fuck for long, but we fuck hard and good. After we each share multiple orgasms, we are left breathless and spent. We stay in bed, silent except for our heavy breathing, snuggled under the covers for so long that I wonder if she’s fallen back asleep.
Then, she sneezes. It’s a loud, shrill sneeze that startles me.
“Bless you,” I say.
“Thanks.”
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Never better. You?”
“I’m—I—so—”
“Cat got your tongue?” She giggles.
“Just, thank you.”
She laughs, smacking my arm. “What are you thanking me for?”
“You know damn well what,” I say.
She giggles again, kissing my arm. “Well, thank you.”
She gets out of bed and goes to use the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. I stay in bed, playing on my phone while I wait for her to return.
I’ve missed a text from Luke that read, “You coming into town tomorrow night?”
I reply with, “I’m actually in LA right now dude.”
Less than a minute later, I get a call from Luke. I quickly throw the covers off and look for my clothes.
I pick up. “Yo.”
“What’s going on?” Luke asks. “You’re in L.A.?”
“I am.”
“What are you doing right now?
“I’m busy.”
“Doing what?” he prods. “Where are you right now?”
I slide my boxers on and search for my socks. “I’m hanging out with a friend.”
“What kind of friend?”
“Just a friend,” I reiterate.
“Like a special friend?”
“I’m just chilling with a friend, relax,” I say. “Give me like twenty seconds. I’m getting dressed.”
I finish getting dressed and quietly make my way out of the apartment to continue my phone conversation.
“What were you and your friend up to?” Luke asks.
“We were hanging out, watching TV,” I reply casually. “Having sex—you know, what friends do.”
“We’ve been friends a long time you and me,” says Luke. “I haven’t had sex with you, and I’m okay with us keeping it that way.”
“So am I!” I laugh.
“For real, who are you hanging out with?”
“My friend that I took back to your place a few weeks ago,” I say.
“Oh,” says Luke knowingly. “It all makes sense now.”
“Yes, and she keeps giving me the best sex I’ve ever had, no joke,” I rave. “Dude, this chick—you don’t even know. She’s so good, I can’t even believe it.”
“Well, damn.” He laughs. “I’ll let you get back to it then.”
“Real quick: guess what I woke up to this morning?”
If I’d known that Jillian could hear me all the way from inside her apartment, I wouldn’t have finished my story to Luke. In fact, if I could turn back time, I would never have answered Luke’s call that morning to begin with.
33
Jillian
I don’t want to listen in on Mason’s phone conversation, but he isn’t exactly talking quietly. And the more that I listen, the more taken aback I become.
I assume he is talking to Luke, although I’m not entirely sure. They spend the majority of the time having in-depth discussions about all of the sex we are having. He is going into so many explicit and graphic details that I feel sure someone else is going to step out of their apartment and tell him to watch his mouth.
I don’t mind the fact that he is openly discussing our sex life. He’s a guy, and I know that guys don’t talk about deep shit or things that really matter to them. And I know that while girls like to talk about love, guys like to talk about sex. I’m not offended.
What does offend me, and what upsets me way more than it should have, is how he chooses to describe him and me. I don’t expect him to make me seem like such a friend when I have been thinking there is a little more to it than that. At that moment, I feel like all I am to him is a notch on his bedpost. This feeling is amplified by my realization that he doesn’t once bring up the pregnancy during his talk with his best friend. I am worried that might mean he hasn’t even brought up the pregnancy to his closest companions, which makes me feel even cheaper.
I feel terrible. I know we haven’t known each other for long, and everything is happening too fast for me to keep up, but I can replay his words in my head, certain passages haunting me on repeat. I’ve really believed that he is starting to actually like me, but his phone call shows me otherwise. I just want to be alone and think, but that is hard to do when I know he will be coming back inside at any minute.
I keep trying to tell myself that it’s silly to overreact to hearing one side of a conversation, but I can’t help but fill it all in. I feel like it’s obvious. I’m a friend—if that—we met, we fucked, and I got knocked up on accident. Even though I am carrying another life inside of me, I feel like I am nothing. I wonder like a maniac about what else he and Luke talk about whenever I am the topic of discussion.
He comes in about ten minutes after he stepped out to take his call. He’s still smiling and jubilant, whereas I can hardly muster a grin.
“Luke says hi,” says Mason.
I chuckle weakly, unable to look directly into his eyes.
“You feeling any better?” he asks.
“As good as I can.”
“I think you need rest and plenty of fluids,” he recommends. “You can’t be on your feet all the time. You’ll wear yourself out.”
“I can take care of myself just fine, thanks,” I snap.
“I didn’t say you couldn�
��t,” he says. “I’m just saying, you’d probably feel better if you lounged around or something. Let me take care of you. I’ll do whatever you need around the place, while—”
“I think I’d like a little alone time to myself to think,” I interrupt.
“Huh?”
“I forgot that I actually have plans this afternoon,” I lie. “It totally slipped my mind.”
“Oh,” he says, raising his eyebrows, not believing my lame, obvious excuse.
“For real,” I say, aboard my sinking ship. “She called me while you were out there on the phone. We’d made plans for Sunday, but she had to push them up.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, so I’m going to need to leave here soon.”
“Which means I should be on my way, too,” he says.
“Yes, go and see some more friends,” I say bitterly.
“With all due respect,” he says. “I thought you said you wanted time alone. How are you going to get that if you’re meeting up with someone?”
“It’s not going to go on forever,” I respond childishly. “Really, I’m going to run late, so if you could go please.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I have plans I forgot about. I don’t mean to just kick you out.”
“It’s fine,” he says. “Whatever you want, missy.”
It shames me to admit it to myself, but at that moment, I want him really bad.
He doesn’t have many things to grab on his way out. He finds his keys on the floor and twirls them in the air, with both of us wondering how this day is going to end.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks.