by Simply BWWM
That was a loaded question indeed; Elizabeth almost laughed, realizing the irony in it. There she was, with information that could create a massive change in how Luke felt, and he’d finally come around. She’d been so concerned with how she was going to deal with him pushing her away to keep their situation as uncomplicated as possible, and now when she was at the point of having to decide how to deal with that, Luke had changed everything.
Did she owe it to him to confess that she was fairly certain she was pregnant? Or should she wait until the doctor’s visit anyway, just because she didn’t know for sure--there was, after all, an outside chance that the positive was false--and because she wasn’t sure how much Luke had really changed his mind? Was it so bad of her to want what he was now offering?
“I’m okay,” Elizabeth said. “It’s just a big change from where we left things the other day.” Luke knelt in front of her and looked up into her face, smiling hopefully.
“I figured you were right,” he said. “Even if this isn’t the kind of thing that can last forever, there’s no reason at all not to enjoy what it is while we have it. I have feelings for you, and it’s not fair to you to sort of...almost punish you because those feelings scared me. Not to mention the fact that the sex with you is so good I can’t even stand the idea of just...stopping.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Okay, that last part I can definitely believe,” she said. Her heart had slowed down slightly in her chest, and she decided--on impulse--to save the question of whether or not to reveal the result of the test to Luke until at least after the date he’d come to take her on was over. She would see how things were between them now that Luke had changed his mind about pushing her away, and then she would decide whether or not to tell him. “I guess I just wasn’t expecting anything like this,” she added.
“Yeah, I thought about calling, but I just sort of...went on impulse,” Luke said. “I’m not even sure whether you like daisies anymore.” Elizabeth stared at him in shock. He’d actually remembered that she had loved daisies when they were together in high school; she still did, but she had thought that the choice of flower was random.
“I do,” she said. She smiled and took a quick, deep breath. “Let’s go to the zoo and then dinner.” Luke rose to his feet, and Elizabeth did as well.
“Do you have anything to put these in? I probably should have gotten something just in case,” Luke said sheepishly. Elizabeth laughed, relieved that she didn’t have to think about whether or not to tell him the news for a while longer.
“I have a vase,” she said. “I bought it last week, actually.” She led him into the kitchen and filled the vase with water, along with some of the little packet of preservative that the flowers had come with, and put the daisies in the vase. She set it aside on the kitchen table and turned to Luke. “I definitely want to hear more about this thought process of yours,” she told him.
“I am happy to talk about it,” Luke said as they left the apartment. Elizabeth led the way towards the elevator, feeling the tension humming in her body, but she reminded herself that there was no need to tell him, yet, the news that she had just gotten. “First, I realized that I felt better having you in the townhouse than I had for years living in there alone,” he explained.
“Well, that could be explained in part by great sex and lots of it,” Elizabeth pointed out.
“I did try to rationalize it that way,” Luke agreed. “But it was more than that. It was that I feel comfortable with you. I like being around you, and I think you like being around me.” Elizabeth had to nod at that; it was true.
“So, you decided that you’re okay if this gets complicated?” Luke put his hand on the small of her back and steered her into the elevator as its doors opened.
“I am definitely okay with it--or at least, I’m more okay with it than with the idea of pushing you away.” Luke leaned in, hesitating just a bit, and Elizabeth closed the last distance between the two of them to give him a quick kiss on the lips.
“Sounds like you’ve gotten a lot smarter in the past week,” Elizabeth said with a little smile.
“I want this to work out for both of us,” Luke told her. “I want you to feel comfortable and supported carrying my baby, and I want to just...enjoy this while we have it. Are you on the same page?” Elizabeth, remembering--until she was able to push the information down again--that she was already pregnant, nodded. It was going to be complicated, and she knew that, but at least it was going to be less complicated than being pregnant while Luke kept trying to push her away would be. She leaned in closer and kissed him lightly on the lips again.
“I hope you don’t plan on taking me somewhere crazy expensive,” she told him. “Because after all that time in the zoo, I’m going to be starving.” That was as close as she would let herself come to confessing to Luke just yet, but Elizabeth was fairly certain that she wouldn’t be able to hold back the news the entire time they were both supposed to wait until the next doctor’s appointment. It was only a matter of finding the right moment to reveal what she knew.
Chapter14
“No sex tonight, right?” Luke looked at Elizabeth as they walked towards his house together. Elizabeth laughed.
“I mean, if you want to have sex, we can talk about having sex,” Elizabeth said. “It doesn’t have to purely be for the purposes of knocking me up.”
The date had gone even better than Luke had hoped; when Elizabeth had agreed to come back to his house with him, even with the expectation that they would just be watching TV and enjoying each other’s company, he knew that he had--at least in theory--managed to repair the break that he’d created. He had mended fences with her, and things felt better.
“I think it might be nice just to hang out,” Luke said. Considering how precarious things had gotten between them--to the point where they had almost called the whole arrangement off--he didn’t want to test things in regards to sex until they knew one way or the other about whether they needed to continue having sex to get Liz pregnant.
The zoo had been amazing: the perfect kind of low-stakes date that would let them regain an even keel, going from one exhibit to another and talking about nothing at all. On the way back from the zoo, headed towards the main part of the city, they’d detoured for Korean barbecue at Tozi, and that was when Luke had proposed that instead of dropping Elizabeth off back at her house, he could have David drop them both off at his place, and he would take her home himself later in the evening.
“That beef was pretty damn amazing,” Elizabeth said as they went into the living room together. She looked as adorable as ever in the simple dress and socks, and Luke couldn’t quite believe that he had nearly pushed her out of his life for fear of how his feelings towards her would make things complicated.
“It really was--delicious midwest beef,” Luke agreed. He turned towards the kitchen. “What do you want to drink? I can get you coffee, a soda…” He remembered that they’d both agreed that Elizabeth was going to give up alcohol after the three days she’d been ovulating, to get the ball rolling on doing that before she even got pregnant.
“You don’t happen to have any tea, do you?” Elizabeth gave him a wry grin. “I mean, considering you’re a guy, I don’t have high hopes…” Luke snorted.
“I will have you know that I am a man of many and varied interests,” he told her with mock firmness. “I do happen to have some tea. Would you like to have chamomile, earl gray, or green tea?” He’d looked into tea when he’d been doing some personal experiments on caffeine intake; since he didn’t have a constant job, he had plenty of time for that kind of experimentation.
The chamomile he’d bought because one of his doctors had suggested it as a good, refreshing drink to have--iced--when he didn’t want juice or beer or something of that nature. It had come in handy to have tea on hand with the last woman he had dated before giving up on finding someone, so he’d kept it, just for the sake of convenience.
“Chamomile would be good, actually,” Elizab
eth said, rising to her feet.
“I’ve got it! Just stay right there,” Luke told her, turning to go into the kitchen. He got to work, making a cup of chamomile for Elizabeth and a cup of earl gray for himself, while Elizabeth tinkered with the TV in the living room, looking through his Netflix. As he waited for the water in the electric kettle to boil, I’m actually kind of glad, Luke thought, that I’d managed--at least for now--to fix things between us before we have to move on to the next step.
He was torn between wanting to know if they would be continuing to try and get Elizabeth pregnant in the next month or if they’d already succeeded; there was no real way for them to know until the doctor’s appointment in another week, but Luke didn’t think he was the only one waiting on tenterhooks to find out.
Having more sex would necessarily mean getting closer to each other, becoming more invested in each other emotionally, but Luke had already decided that having Elizabeth in his life--even for just the short time of her pregnancy--was worth the pain of losing her at the end of it. Besides, he thought, if things really did get serious between them beyond the contract they had signed, it would be possible for them to work something out. And the child he would have by Elizabeth could know who its mother was.
“Can we talk about the possibilities for a minute or two?” Luke carried the mugs into the living room where Elizabeth sat, comfortable on his couch.
“What do you mean?” Elizabeth sat up slightly.
“I mean, we have these feelings for each other, right?”
“That has been established, yes,” Elizabeth said drily. Luke sat down, setting their mugs on the coffee table.
“I mean...what if things get serious between us? I’m not against the idea of that happening. I mean, it could be the best luck I’ve had since I saw a dip in Bitcoin coming and cashed out,” Luke said.
“Luke, if you were replaced by a pod person, you can let me know,” Elizabeth said. “I won’t kill you, but I’m not sure I can have a pod person’s baby.” Luke laughed and shook his head.
“What?”
“I just mean that last week you were talking about disengaging from me and disconnecting because you were afraid of how things could become between us, and now you’re talking about it being great luck,” Elizabeth explained.
“I realized I was being an idiot,” Luke said. “I wanted a kid--and I still do--but I’d given up on finding love. So, it is kind of stupid of me to throw it away or push it out of my life if I think I might have a chance at it, you know?” Elizabeth held his gaze for a moment.
“What if it doesn’t get serious?” She pressed her lips together. “I mean...what if by the time I give birth to the kid, we don’t really have feelings for each other anymore? It’s still really early days, Luke.”
“It is,” Luke agreed. “And if it doesn’t get serious, if the feelings go away, then we part as friends. Right?” Elizabeth considered that and then nodded.
“As long as you’re not like...already deciding where we’re going to get married or something,” she said.
“No, nothing like that,” Luke said. “I was just thinking that if things are good between us, and if they keep on being good between us...why try and make it end if it isn’t supposed to?”
“That sounds...great, actually,” Elizabeth said. She looked down at her hands for a moment, and Luke wondered if she was just telling him what she thought he wanted to hear; if she was just going along with him because she didn’t want to risk the sudden enlightenment he’d had about how shitty it would be to treat the woman who would carry his child as if she were nothing more than a broodmare.
In truth, that had been the reason he’d come around: he’d realized that if he pushed Elizabeth out of his life because he was afraid of his feelings for her, he would be treating her like nothing more than a vessel for his kid. And she deserved better than that.
“What’s up?” Elizabeth took a deep breath and looked at him.
“I’m probably pregnant,” she told him quietly.
“What?” Luke stared at her.
“I know we said we’d find out at the doctor’s visit, but earlier today I went out and got a pregnancy test because I couldn’t stand not knowing,” Elizabeth explained. “I thought that maybe, if I knew where I stood--or at least, if I was pretty sure where things were in terms of the pregnancy--that I could kind of...prepare myself for if you really went through with the decision to pull back from me.”
“Wow,” Luke said, sitting back slightly. He hadn’t expected Elizabeth to take the initiative like that. He hadn’t expected to get any kind of news--much though he had wanted it as soon as possible--for another week. He’d almost been working up to suggest that they get her a pregnancy test “for fun.” And here she’d pre-empted him.
“I mean, it’s not perfect; it could have been a false positive and all,” Elizabeth said quickly. “But I think those aren’t as common as false negatives.”
“I could look it up, but I think…” Luke shook his head. “I’m just...I guess I’m stunned. I didn’t really expect that it would take the first time, I guess.”
“Me either,” Elizabeth agreed with a slightly wry smile. “I figured that it would take at least another month, maybe two, before we got me knocked up.”
“So, you’re pregnant,” Luke said. “Or at least, probably pregnant.” Elizabeth nodded.
“I’d just found out when you came to take me out,” she admitted. “I was about to leave the apartment to do something--anything--to kind of clear my head and figure out whether I wanted to tell you and what I wanted to do.”
“I’m glad you decided to tell me,” Luke said. He shook his head again, not quite able to completely believe it. “You’re not...you’re not just telling me this to see how I would react, are you?”
“If you want to go to the closest pharmacy and get a pregnancy test, I will pee on it for you,” Elizabeth said. She raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t use this as a test. I wasn’t even sure I was going to really tell you until I did.”
For a few moments, they were both silent, and Luke tried to wrap his mind around the fact that Elizabeth was--in all likelihood--at that moment pregnant with his child. It was no longer a theoretical child that they would have together, that she would carry and deliver for him; it was a reality. At least, as much of a reality as they could count on before the doctor confirmed it.
“We’re supposed to go to the doctor in like...almost a week, right?” Elizabeth nodded. “Wouldn’t it still be a little early for a pregnancy test to come out positive?” Elizabeth shrugged.
“The one I took said it was accurate up to a week before the missed period,” she said. “And so, I figured if my period is supposed to start in a week, that it was the earliest that I could find out.”
“So, you...you think it’s really there?”
Elizabeth smiled nervously.
“I do,” she said. “I really think it is. I’ll take another test in the morning if you want.” Luke nodded.
“Stay the night,” he suggested. “We’ll make some popcorn and watch a movie and just...enjoy being around each other, and tomorrow we’ll go get a pregnancy test, and you can take it again.”
“You’re not getting cold feet now, are you?” Luke shook his head vehemently.
“No! No, I just want to make sure of it,” he said. “If you are pregnant already, that’s amazing. But if you’re not...if it was a false positive...there might be something wrong, and we need to take care of that.”
“Okay, then,” Liz said, smiling at him. “Then we’ll do another test in the morning--or I’ll do the test, and you’ll watch, I guess.” They both laughed at that mental image. “And then we’ll go to the doctor next week, and she’ll confirm it, I guess.”
Silence came up between them, and Luke felt the strangeness, the awkwardness in it. Acting on impulse, he reached out for Elizabeth and pulled her to him, pressing her body against his. He kissed the top of her head and then tilted her fa
ce up and kissed her on the forehead, and then finally, lightly on the lips. The kiss heated up between them almost immediately; Luke wanted--needed--Elizabeth to feel how happy he would be if she was pregnant. He wanted her to feel how much he wanted the pregnancy to be really there.
Luke pulled back slightly as their hands wandered over each other’s bodies. “I will never, ever get cold feet on you,” he told her in a murmur against her lips. “This is amazing news, and I don’t want you feeling stressed out at the thought that I’m going to abandon you or something.”
“It’s all happening really fast,” Elizabeth said. Luke nodded, returning to kissing her for a moment.
“It is, but I actually think…” he dipped down to the column of her throat, “that it’s probably for the best that way. Don’t you? No time to overthink things.” Elizabeth murmured a faint, wordless agreement, and Luke brought his mouth back up to hers, kissing her hungrily.
They kept going until clothes started to come away, and Luke forced himself to slow down, to pull back. “I thought we agreed no sex tonight,” he said, smiling slightly.
“If you’re really insistent on no sex happening tonight, then we can just...cuddle,” Elizabeth said. “Although I think you would be the first guy I’d been with for both a forty-eight-hour sex marathon and a night of just cuddling.”
“Well, how many forty-eight-hour sex marathons have you had in your life?” Elizabeth snickered.
“Okay, that was the first one,” she admitted. “Especially a sex marathon centered on getting me pregnant.”
“And apparently, that’s what it took,” Luke said, feeling better about the situation just from having had a little time to absorb the information. “I’ll make us some popcorn, we’ll put on a cheesy movie, and if sex happens later on, it happens. But I want to just...be with you. And I kind of want to just hold you like this.” He kissed her forehead again. “I mean, you might be pregnant with my child right now! I think that calls for something a little more affectionate than just screwing each other’s brains out.”