Jump Then Fall

by Alyssia Kirkhart

  “Allow what to happen to me?” Anger flared in his eyes. He set a hand to the cushion behind my head, waiting for my reply.

  “What they’re saying about you, the gossip, the mean comments on social media. People are saying they’ll never go to another one of your shows, Lawson. Never buy another album. Your Instagram posts are flooded with hatred, your—”

  “You think I give a damn what people say?” His eyes homed in on mine and invisible nails pinned me to the half-a-square of couch I’d committed myself to. “I’ve been doing this too long to pay attention to any of that, Harper. They can say whatever they want about me. Doesn’t make it true, doesn’t mean I should allow any of it to sink in.”

  “You’re that impenetrable?” I meant it to lighten the mood. We’d created an ease, Lawson and I, and I didn’t want to lose sight of it.

  Regardless I’d made my mind up not to stay.

  But Lawson was still caught up in my worry for his reputation. “No, I’ve just been burned that many times.” His face was close to mine, less than a foot. “You think you’re the first girl I’ve dated who’s made headlines?”

  I looked away. I didn’t want to hear about his previous relationships. Didn’t want to know what they’d said about her. Or him. Or them together as a couple, good or bad.

  Lawson clasped my chin in his fingers, forced my gaze to his. “Do you think this is the first time they’ve latched onto a morsel of gossip with the hopes of bringing me down?”

  I licked my lips. Took a breath that was far too wobbly, but I couldn’t help it. Crying came so easily these days. “This is because of me, Lawson. Don’t you get that?”

  “No.” He drew out the word, shaking his head. “This is because of me. Of who I am, who I choose to be.”

  My brow furrowed. “How can you say or believe that? My dad—”

  “I know what your dad did, Harper.” He let go of my chin. Dropped his gaze to his lap. “What I’m about to say is going to sound arrogant, but it doesn’t make it any less true. The press loves and hates me. They have for a while now.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I try to keep a level head. Let my heart lead the way, sappy as that sounds. Turns out, the press loves a do-gooder, someone who treats his fans well, commits time and money to charity, keeps his nose clean. But they’re also lying in wait. Holding their breaths for that first slip, the instant I turn away a fan begging for an autograph. Never mind I’m about to miss a flight. Or when I decline to donate to save the dolphins, regardless that I just wrote a million-dollar check to a charity that ships medical supplies to impoverished countries.”

  “Or when you date a girl who’s got a criminal for a dad.”

  A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “That is a pretty good one.” His eyes found mine, sparkling, full of patience and understanding. “They’ll have fun with it for a while, sure, but…” He shrugged, sighed. “It’ll pass just like everything else, darlin’.”

  I wanted to tell him he was wrong. He may have thought he had the gravity of the situation all figured out, but he’d never dealt with this level of crazy before. I opened my mouth for a rebuttal, but he put a hand on my knee and warmth shot up my thigh.

  “You’re not a lawyer yet, so don’t try and dispute the testimony. Besides,” he said, leaning closer, “this is one argument you won’t win.” His mouth was so close to mine I felt every breath. “Counselor.”

  That he managed to sexually charge the air when I’d fallen into the deepest, dampest, ugliest well was maddening. He threw me off balance. Defied logic. Broke rules. I despised rulebreakers.

  “Rockstar,” I countered.

  His throat bobbed. “Don’t leave me, Harper. Not yet.” He gripped my leg, gently coaxed me into his lap. I straddled him, looped my arms around his neck.

  His fingers traced the arch of my brow, trailed down my temple, my cheek. His eyes followed the movement.

  “I would do anything for you, you know that?”

  “Lawson…”

  “Anything you want, anything your heart desires, I’d exhaust all resources, drain bank accounts, set cities on fire, tell the press to piss off and go to the ends of the earth. On foot, if I had to.”

  I searched his eyes. “Why?” I breathed.

  “Why? You know why.”

  I answered him with a kiss.

  Doubtless we’d lost our minds. Emotions were high. Dad was locked up, wouldn’t speak to me. At least five times, Katie had chastised Lawson for his refusal to make a statement to the press, and those were just the conversations I’d overheard. Savana was mad at both of us. I didn’t know how the others felt, Lawson’s friends, but I imagined they, too, were weirded out. Lawson had extended the invitation for their regular weekly jam session, but each gave the excuse of a previous engagement. As if they’d decided amongst themselves to stay far, far away. At least until the media buzz died down, if it ever did.

  Of course that’s why he was making chivalrous proclamations. Of course it was. Romantic Lawson, high on emotions and earth-shattering sex, declaring he’d burn down cities for me.

  “Give into me, Harper,” he said, kissing me deeper.

  My bones liquefied and my legs trembled as Lawson held my face in one hand, his tongue sliding against mine. I clutched his arm. His whole body contracted against mine, electrical currents hummed between us. He tasted so good and his low groans sent warmth and desire on a spiraling chase that ended at a sharp point between my legs.

  I wanted more. Wanted his hands to roam my bare skin. And I wanted to touch him, too.

  I sat back on his thighs, tugged off my t-shirt. Dropped it over the back of the couch.

  Our gazes tangled, his hazed with need as he followed the line of my neck. My pulse rose at a steep angle as he took over the task of unfastening the front clasp of my bra. His hair brushed my nose. And when he pushed the straps off my shoulders, his lips found mine again.

  We kissed wildly, my hands surging up his back and into his hair. He gripped me, held me close, his hands splayed at my waist. His thumb brushed my spine. I pulled back, lifted the hem of his shirt. He raised his arms, his eyes trained on my face as I removed the light material and tossed it to the floor.

  I touched him. Smoothed his toned chest, the soft contours of his abs. He pulled in a long inhale, then slowly let it go, as if he’d been holding his breath for minutes.

  “One sec,” I whispered and kissed the tip of his nose.

  Gracefully as I could, I eased off his lap and removed my sleep pants, kicking them to the side.

  He murmured something, words I couldn’t decipher for the beating of my heart to my eardrums. I straddled him again, my knees hitting the back of the couch on either side of his hips.

  “Harper.” His hands took my face, his head angling as he kissed me hard, harder and harder still. “I’m crazy about you.”

  My hips ground against his erection, an instinctive cadence that turned our kiss into a series of gasps, nips, grazing of teeth and mating of tongues.

  “Harper,” he whispered again and without having to ask, I knew.

  Shifting to the side, we both worked to remove his sweatpants, stealing kisses in between, until there was not a stitch of clothing left between us. Then I was on top of him and we both gasped at the relief of skin against skin, of silky heat against velvet steel.

  His arms came around me, his chest brushing the pebbled peaks of breasts. “Are you sure?” His eyes penetrated mine and I understood.

  We didn’t have a condom.

  I kissed his forehead, breathed onto his skin. “I’m on the pill,” I whispered.

  His head jerked up and down. “Okay.” No further questions. No second-guessing.

  He gripped my hips, his eyes focused on my own, and urged me up, then down, down.

  A pained moan escaped him, and I gasped with equal parts reprieve and ecstasy, as his entire length slid inside me. Filling me to the hilt.

  We held still for severa
l breaths, feeling, taking each other in.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “for your father, for the press, for my part in your anxiety—”

  “Shh.” I pushed my fingers to his lips. “You don’t ever have to apologize for who you are. Not to me, not to anyone.”

  “But this is your life, too, Harper, and I—”

  I silenced him with a kiss, and he responded easily, kissing me back with a dire need I felt deep in my core.

  Together, we moved, finding a rhythm that ignited our bodies and sealed everything between us over the last weeks. He was careful, tender. Sinking into tight, wet heat over and over. His mouth opened on my neck. Then the space beneath my chin. I held on to his shoulders. Allowed my thighs to take the effort of keeping our bodies in sync.

  The burn inside began to build, and I tilted my head back, eyes shut, savoring the sounds we made, the scent of sweat and the earthy male spice that was all him. His warmth furled around me, awakened nerve endings. My body cinched tight. His blunted fingernails dug into my back.

  I cried out. Gasped his name.

  God, this is everything. He is everything.

  I trembled, the orgasm undulating through me, but I didn’t stop. I held him. Loving his breath on my skin, the strength in his touch. I said his name again and his release came—hard. He buried his face in my neck, groaning as his body shook.

  We stilled. Our lungs taxed. Bodies humming. A bead of sweat skimmed the length of my neck, traveled between my breasts and pooled in my navel.

  “Harper,” he breathed, and gooseflesh rose all over my skin.

  “I know.”

  chapter twenty-two

  In theory, and in the spirit of bad decisions, the morning I realized I hadn’t started my period should’ve arrived weeks after our grand idea to have sex without a condom. Because we hadn’t just stopped there on the couch in the music room. I’d announced I was on the pill, which was true. At fifteen, irregular periods had my female-terrified father pushing me front-and-center with a gynecologist. But since I’d said it aloud to Lawson, we’d quickly, perhaps foolishly taken that as our sign to ditch condoms altogether.

  We had sex everywhere that day. On the couch, the kitchen counter, the dining room table, the shower, the floor of the media room. “Give me thirty,” Lawson would say in between and we’d spend the next half hour kissing, touching, leading up to another round of unprotected love-making.

  Soreness didn’t bother me anymore, not like the first time or the second or even the third. Now, I felt only blissful satiation. Followed by a building hunger for more. More kissing, more exploring, more of him inside me, bringing my body to orgasm again and again.

  So, yeah. If the pills were destined to fail, by all reliable sources on the internet, I should’ve known a few days after my first missed period.

  Problem was I’d lost track of time. Strike that, I’d lost all concept of time. Wasn’t until I opened my laptop, intent on sending an email to Cambridge’s housing administration—Lawson had won that argument—that I saw the notification from the menstrual cycle app I’d installed last year. I pulled up the app, checked the calendar. Felt my brow pull. Flipped back a month. And gaped at what I saw.

  Two weeks.

  I was two weeks late.

  The blood in my face drained south, taking with it my stomach and a few other internal organs.

  “Oh my gosh.”

  Yesterday morning, I’d felt nauseated, waved off Lawson’s offer to join him for sausage with white gravy and biscuits. Couldn’t even sit in the same room with him for fear I’d vomit all over the kitchen floor. Stress, I’d chocked it to. Stress over Dad’s refusal to speak to me, over the horrible stories in the media.

  “No, no, no…shit.”

  I called Savana.

  She answered on the third ring. “Hey, what’s up?”

  Not her usual greeting, but I pushed past the tension between us and added even more. “Hey, I know it’s a lot to ask, but do you think you can come over?” Today was her day off, so unless she had plans with Chris, I knew all she’d be doing is either sleeping or binging One Tree Hill on Hulu.

  “Uh…sure?”

  I shut my eyes, exhaled with relief. “Thank you.”

  “Is everything okay?” A note of concern. I took that as progress.

  “Honestly? I don’t know.” I drew in a shaky breath. “Can you do me a favor on your way over?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Can you pick up a pregnancy test? I’ll pay you back.”

  The request had exited so fast, I wasn’t surprised when Savana said, “What?”

  Bile rose up my throat. “A pregnancy test,” I repeated, my teeth chattering.

  “No, no, I heard you. Are you…are you serious, Harper?”

  “Afraid so. I mean, I don’t know for sure.” My heart was beating fast, way too fast, and my hands were clammy, and trembling and I wondered if it was possible to turn back time.

  “Okay.” She hesitated a tick. “Give me like an hour. Is Lawson there?”

  “No, he had to go into the city.” To meet with his agent, he’d said. To go over the new project, flesh out some tour dates, et cetera. But I had a feeling their plan to meet had less to do with music and touring and everything to do with the continual slandering of Lawson’s name by the media.

  “Okay.” Another pause. “Okay,” she said again as if she’d resolved to bungee jump off the AT&T building. “Be there shortly. Just…sit tight.”

  When Savana arrived, she didn’t text or call, she didn’t knock or ring the doorbell. She barged through the front door, ran up the stairs like she was being chased by a herd of demons and poured into Lawson’s bedroom—yes, I’d moved in—with a CVS bag in each hand and an elephant-sized chip on her shoulder.

  “Let’s get one thing straight.” I’d never seen her so mad. In true Savana fashion, she was dressed in jeans and sparkly boots with an off-the-shoulder top and makeup that made her look like she was late for a photoshoot. “I am so fucking pissed at Lawson Hill right now, it’s a good thing, I mean a really good thing he’s not here or I just might kill him myself.”

  “Thank you for coming,” I said, “but why are you pissed at Lawson?”

  She dumped the contents of both bags on the bed. Six pregnancy tests, all different brands, scattered over Lawson’s gray comforter, along with a Snickers bar, two Kit-Kats and a Twix. “Because not only is he refusing to make a statement to the press, he fucking knocked you up. Wait.” She paused, arched her brows. “It is Lawson’s, right?”

  “First of all, I don’t know for sure that I’m pregnant. Second, I haven’t slept with anyone else.” My cheeks flamed and I tugged at the hem of my tatty, over-sized tee. “Ever.”

  “Ever?” Savana threaded her fingers in her hair and pulled, eyes wide, processing. “You mean to tell me he not only refuses to make a statement to the press, but he knocked you up and popped your cherry?”

  “Well, not in that order. And I don’t really know if I’m—”

  A surge of nausea squelched the remainder of my sentence and I bolted for the bathroom, knees hitting the cold tile, and braced the toilet seat. I vomited. Retched as if my body was trying to rid itself of my stomach altogether. Chills raced up my spine as I heaved, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. When my belly stopped convulsing, I sat back on my heels, rested my forehead on my hand that was still clenching the toilet seat.

  A gentle hand, Savana’s, laid between my shoulder blades. “Just breathe, Harper.” Her voice was soft, soothing. She mimicked a slow inhale and exhale. “Breathe. It’s going to be okay. We’ll get through this.”

  “I can’t get through anything.” Tears leaked from my eyes onto my hand. “I don’t have time. I don’t have time for any of this.”

  “And yet it’s happening.”

  I peeked at her through a curtain of hair that had fallen over my face.

  She smiled, a warm, beautiful thing that made my heart cinch inside my chest.
Her manicured fingers moved the hair back from my face, tucked it behind an ear. “Let’s take the tests, okay?”

  “All of them?”

  “Hey, you wanna be certain, right? I’d wanna be certain.”

  Turns out peeing on a stick wasn’t the easiest, but I managed all six, rinsed them off and laid them on the bathroom counter. I set the timer on my phone for ten minutes. Savana dug into the chocolate while we waited on the bed like a couple of tweens at a sleepover.

  If only it were that simple.

  “Sure you don’t want any?” She held up a Kit Kat bar, waved it back and forth. “I thought maybe you could use some chocolate courage.”

  “No, thanks. The thought of eating anything right now makes me sick to my stomach.”

  “So, how late?”

  I picked at a loose thread on my fuzzy socks. “Two weeks.”

  “Shit.” She swallowed the lump of Snickers she’d been chewing. “Vegas, right?”

  I froze. She was right. Almost four weeks ago we’d been in Vegas for the awards ceremony. And that night…

  “We used a condom.” It sounded stupid, even as the words left my mouth. Regardless, it was true. We had used a condom. Several, actually. Condoms were supposed to prevent pregnancy. My stupid, ineffective pills were supposed to prevent pregnancy.

  “Maybe you’re not pregnant,” Savana offered. “Maybe you’re just stressed, you know…” She lifted a shoulder. “With your dad and all? Stress can cause you to miss a period, too. Sometimes several.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “Maybe.”

  But deep in my gut I knew. I’d been stressed before. Keeping a perfect GPA and passing admissions to one of the most prestigious schools in the world caused heaps of anxiety, but I hadn’t missed my period then. Why now? Because it wasn’t stress related. The nausea wasn’t stress related. Neither was the incessant rumbling in my belly, a stir I couldn’t explain, other than it was different. Different than getting sick on bad food or nervousness before a test.