“That’s...gentlemanly of him.” It’s nice to know he’s kept his side of the bargain and not said anything.
Josiah murmurs in his sleep as Megan shifts him to her other hip. “Then did something happen?”
She wants details. And she’s my friend, so details would be fair, if I were into Chase for real.
But, I’m not.
So I tell her the truth. Sort of. “Nothing happened on our date. I’ve sworn off men. Remember?”
“But you’re here at our house for breakfast.” She blinks and corrects herself. “His house.” She corrects herself again. “Pop’s house.”
“I am.” I know exactly how it looks. It looks intimate. This was why I was against coming here in the first place.
I take a breath and attempt to paint a better picture. “It’s no big deal. Chase offered me breakfast while I got to know your grandpa. To see if I thought I could help him.”
“With his computer.”
“Right.” I sigh. “I know it seems weird, but this isn’t anything. Really. One date with your brother didn’t change my life plans.” And that is the truth. I still want my baby. I’m still on track for that and nothing else.
“I’m sure he’s dismayed about that.”
“Well.” I think I have her convinced but I take it further to be sure. “Yes. He is. Poor guy. I think he really has a thing for me. I felt bad. It’s why I said I’d help out your Pop.”
Megan shakes her head. “You and your bleeding heart. It’s going to get you in a mess one day, Liv.”
“Probably sooner than later,” I mumble more to myself than her.
“Oh, while I have you…” She puts her hand on my upper arm. “I’m supposed to go to a wet lab at the police academy Friday after next, but Phil has a department dinner that we need to go to. Want to take my place?”
“What’s a wet lab?”
She drops her arm so she can hold her toddler with both arms. “It’s this thing where the academy pays for volunteers to get drunk so that the recruits can practice field sobriety tests on actual drunk people. I’ve been doing it since Chase was in the academy himself. Anyway, it’s fun. Free booze!”
I hesitate because that’s two weeks away, and I could be pregnant by then. “I don’t know…”
“Come on,” she says. “How can you turn down free alcohol?”
“I’m sort of going easy on the drinking.”
“Why? You pregnant or something?” she laughs.
I nearly choke, and I don’t even have anything in my mouth but my own saliva. “What?”
“I’m kidding. I just couldn’t think of any other reason to be sober on a Friday when I didn’t have to deal with my kids.”
“Oh. Haha.” But it’s too close to the truth. “Email me the information. I’ll go.” If I have my period by then, I’ll go. If not, I can just play sick. No big deal.
“Everything good out here?” Chase asks, coming into the living room.
“Yep!” Megan says with her extroverted gusto. “But I’ve got to be going. We have a to-do list a million miles long. Keon, put Pop’s cane back where you found it. It’s not a light saber.”
I say goodbye to my friend, and then while she’s herding her son out the door, I slip off down the hallway in search of a bathroom. The house is small, and I find what I’m looking for on the first try.
When I’m finished, the house is quieter. Megan must be gone, and I plan to tell Chase to take me home now too.
But something catches my eye in the room across the hall—the edge of a black and white poster that goes almost from floor to ceiling.
I’m curious, and the door is already half open so I take the liberty of pushing it open all the way.
The thing that had caught my eye? It’s a giant poster of Jessica Alba in a stripper’s outfit from the movie Sin City.
“Oh my God.” I say it to myself, but it’s out loud.
“Don’t go in there!” Chase shouts in a panic running toward me.
But it’s too late. I’ve already seen what he doesn’t want me to see. I scan my eyes around the room, taking it all in. There’s a poster for the movie Gladiator and another for the original X-Men. The bookshelf has a shelf dedicated to Avengers comic book memorabilia. Next to it is a student desk—the kind you buy from Target and put together yourself—and above that is a corkboard with photographs and concert tickets hung up with pushpins. There are also more pictures of scantily clad women, though nothing as in-your-face as Jessica, who seems to be the focal point.
This is a teenager’s room. A teenage boy’s room.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Chase says, now at my side.
“This is your room, isn’t it?” I ask, laughing. I don’t need him to answer. I know it’s his room. It’s him as much as the tattoo he wears on his arm.
Still giggling, I walk inside so I can see things better. It’s just so amazing. From the graphic novels and yearbooks on his bookshelf to the collection of DVDs in the case next to the bed, there is so much to look at. So much to learn.
“Look,” Chase says. “Be fair. I was a kid when I put most of this stuff up.”
I raise a brow. “Most?”
“All,” he corrects hastily. “All of this stuff.”
“And you’re thirty-three and just haven’t gotten around to taking any of it down yet?” I already know I’m never going to let him live this down.
He throws his head back in frustration. “It’s been like this since I moved out for college. Okay? Pop wasn’t concerned about redecorating, and I didn’t have any reason to come back and do it, so it’s been a sort of museum of my teenage years. I only moved back in about a month ago when Pop had his knee surgery, and no, I haven’t gotten around to taking any of it down yet. But I’m planning to. Soon.”
“Right,” I say skeptically. I cross to his bookshelf and skim a few of the titles. There’s some Alastair Reynolds and Stephen King and Ray Bradbury. I wrinkle my nose at a Beastie Boy autobiography, but the beat-up copy of American Gods makes me feel remorseful for assuming he only read Playboy.
Honestly, I’m grateful to be wrong.
“I actually tried to convince Pop to take my room so he wouldn’t have to deal with the stairs, but he’s too proud and stubborn.”
I lift a shoulder nonchalantly. “Or maybe he likes his bedroom. Maybe it has memories for him just like yours has for you.”
I can feel his eyes on me as I wander over to the corkboard. The photographs pinned here seem to be from various occasions in his life. In some he’s a teenager. He’s thinner and beardless, but still attractive. Still as cocky, if I’m interpreting his expressions correctly.
In others, he’s younger, and I wouldn’t recognize him if it weren’t for his nose and eyes.
Then there are pictures of family.
“Is this is your mother?” I ask, pointing to a woman with a round face who looks like a cross between Megan and Pop.
Chase moves up next to me, presumably to see what I’m looking at. “Yeah. That was not too long before she died.”
“And after she died you moved in here?”
He nods. “Dad was killed in a car accident when Megan was just a baby. I don’t even remember him. So when Mom died, Gran and Pop took us in.”
“When did your Gran pass?”
“A few years ago. That’s her with Keon.” He points to a photo of an elderly lady with Chase’s chin holding a newborn baby. There’s something so sweet about it, something so honest, it makes my chest pinch, and I have to look away.
I find a picture where teenage Chase has his arm around a blonde with her hair in retro cinnamon buns, Gwen Stefani style circa 2001. “Is this your high school girlfriend?”
“One of them. You jealous?”
“No!” I’m a little bit jealous. Which is stupid.
But I remember being that age. I still believed in relationships back then. Still believed in happily ever afters. What would it have been like for us if I’d
met him back then?
Butterflies stir in my stomach, the kind that have less to do with lust than they do with infatuation. They haven’t stirred in so long I barely recognize the feeling.
“Did you ever bring girls back here?” I ask, broaching dangerous territory. I’m thinking dangerous thoughts. Having dangerous fantasies. Wanting dangerous things.
“Never,” he says earnestly.
“Yeah, I don’t believe you.” I cross over to his DVD case by the door, pretending to be curious about what he liked to watch when he was a teenager—and I am—but really, I just need to have some space from him before I let this crazy twitterpated feeling get the best of me.
But Chase follows me. “I’m dead serious. Pop has a shotgun. He was always threatening to shoot my dick off if I knocked a girl up. Scared the shit out of me.”
I laugh nervously, keeping my eyes on the movies. “And here you are trying to knock a girl up now. You must have gotten over your fear.”
“Pop has arthritis. He’d have too much trouble loading the gun.” There’s a soft thud of a door closing, and I look up to see that he has shut us in. “And I have always regretted the lack of action this room has seen.”
My heart rate picks up, and immediately, my panties are soaked. I’m already half fantasizing about what it would have been like to be his teenage girlfriend. Sneaking around, fumbling and fucking behind my mother’s back, convinced that he and I are meant to be forever.
But all this is wrong. The fantasy, the location. The motivation.
“Chase.” I shake my head, insistently. “No. We can’t.”
“We can. We should.” His eyes darken and he starts for me.
Facing him, I back away. “Your grandfather’s just in the other room!”
“He’s taking his morning nap.”
My backside meets the desk behind me. I’m trapped. I have nowhere to go. A thrill runs through my body.
With a wicked grin, Chase moves in until he’s nearly pressed against me.
“What if we wake him up?” I ask, already breathless.
“He has his hearing aids out. He can’t hear shit.” Chase pushes up my dress and rolls his thumbs over my clit through my panties.
I gasp. “I mean. I guess this is still within the window of ovulation.”
“Exactly why we should,” he agrees.
But, really, I’m barely thinking about my fertility cycle. It’s just an excuse to play out this fantasy of mine. A fantasy that’s for me alone. I’m not willing to share it, not even with Chase.
I bite my lower lip when I notice the outline of his cock, pushing thick and large against his jeans.
He follows my gaze. “See how hard I am for you, kitten?”
“Uh-huh.” I shudder as he presses harder against my nub.
He bends down so his mouth is near my ear and whispers, “There might be a baby in there right now, just waiting to be made. All it needs is your tight. Warm. Pussy.”
Fuck. I’m done for.
Fingers shaking with anticipation, I start working the button of his jeans.
“Turn around,” he commands, urgently, before I’ve gotten his pants unzipped.
I turn and gather my dress around my waist and hold it in place with my elbows. Then I lay my palms flat on the desk, bracing myself for what I know is coming.
Like I imagine he does with the people he arrests, Chase kicks my feet apart, spreading me as much as he needs. Then he moves in closer behind me. He’s so frantic, he doesn’t even pull my panties down. He just pulls them to the side to make room for his cock.
I’m so wet, he slides right in.
“If I’d have known you when I was a teen, I’d have beat myself raw,” he says, pumping into me with vigor. “I’d have imagined fucking you just like this.”
“Keep talking,” I pant.
“Oh, you like that, do you? I knew my librarian was a naughty girl.” He slows down ever so slightly so he can snake an arm around me and up my dress. He tugs the cup of my bra down and releases my tit from captivity and squeezes. “Teenage Chase would’ve had to have you. He’d have done all sorts of nasty things to you in the back seat of his Acura Legend.”
Even as I’m gasping from pleasure, I giggle at the image of Chase in what was likely his first car. Damn, I would have loved to have done that too. Sneaking around without my mother knowing. Getting fingered in his car when we’re supposed to be at the library or the school play or the game.
“For you, I would have found a way to bring you back to my room instead,” he says. God, he’s so there with me, putting all my naughty thoughts into words. “Fuck Pop and his gun. I would have told him that I was helping you with your physics homework. And then I would have fucked you against this very desk.”
I close my eyes and moan, picturing our open textbooks falling to the floor as he pounded into me from behind. My belly starts to tighten and pull. I’m so turned on, I’m already feeling the crest of my climax approaching.
“But Teenage Chase wasn’t the Sex God he is now. I’d have to ask you what you wanted. You’d have to tell me how to touch you.” Pinching my nipple, he brings his other hand to brush along the skin of my pussy lips. “Right here, kitten? Like this?”
“Yes,” I whimper. “More. There.” I can’t talk in multi-syllabic words.
“Show me, baby.”
Without thinking about it too hard—if I do, I’ll get too timid—I take one hand off the desk and bring it over his so I can lead his finger between my folds to find my clit. Then, directing his pressure, we rub me to orgasm.
As soon as I explode, he focuses on pursuit of his own climax, squeezing my breast and rutting into me wildly as he praises and adores me. “Jesus, Liv. You’re so sexy. So tight. So gorgeous. Right there. Right there. I’m gonna come, kitten. I’m gonna come.”
He stills, bursting inside me, and I wonder as he grunts and relaxes behind me, if we were both young and stupid, would I have hoped he’d be filling me with a baby then, too? The way that teens in lust-that-they-think-is-love often do? Not to trap him, but to solidify what we had. To hold onto it for as long as possible.
I almost wish we really were that age, just so I could feel that way about him and not worry about the things I know now about love and relationships and men who don’t stick around.
“I’ll say it again, Liv,” Chase says, kissing the back of my neck before pulling out. “You’re fun.”
I don’t argue this time. I simply smile and put my dress back in order while I scan the photographs in front of me a final time. “It’s kind of a shame all of this is going to come down. It gives a pretty vivid picture of your youth.” I’ve committed as much as I can to memory, though. Recording what might be useful when I’m raising his offspring—no other reason.
Chase buttons his jeans and glances around the room. “Well. Not all of it’s coming down. Jessica will stay.”
“Oh right,” I chuckle. “Of course.”
Silly as it is, I find myself wishing I was Jessica Alba. Wishing that I too could stay.
11
Livia
Stairwell at Corinth.
I hit SAVE on the entry I’ve just added to yesterday’s date in my Google Calendar. Then, after thinking about it a second, I click the entry again and hit “edit.” In the notes section I add one word: Twice.
I hit SAVE one more time and then click on VIEW so I can see the entire month at once.
I quickly count the dates that have entries. There are eleven in total.
Holy shit.
That’s eleven times that Chase and I have had sex in the last two weeks! That’s a fuck lot of fucking. And that isn’t counting extra for the entries that have notes like yesterday’s stairwell incident.
Mmm. The stairwell.
My toes curl just thinking about the way I had to clutch onto the railing so that I wouldn’t collapse from the punishing sequence of orgasms he delivered.
Yeah. The stairwell was nice.
&nbs
p; It’s really probably not an entry I should include on the calendar. I’m well past my fertile period, and my “meetings” with Chase are now primarily about keeping him satisfied—the man has a voracious appetite. But I included a couple of the times right after I was ovulating, in case I have my dates wrong. Once I decided to include those, I didn’t know where to draw the line, so I’ve continued recording them all.
I figure it’s better to have more data than not. That way I’ll be able to accurately quantify the sacrifices I made in order to get pregnant.
I chuckle at the thought. As if having sex with Chase could ever be considered a sacrifice.
My humor quickly fades as I realize something else from looking at my calendar—my thirtieth birthday is even closer than it was a month ago.
Funny how that happens.
The familiar dread and death thoughts settle over me, making me feel antsy and anxious. I’m old. My body is old. My legs ache. My back aches. My breasts ache. Death is near.
Maybe I’m just fussy because I’m pregnant.
Or it’s PMS.
And if it’s PMS, why the fuck am I not pregnant yet? After eleven times with Chase’s so-called super sperm, surely I should be knocked up by now. Is it me that’s the problem? Can I not get pregnant the natural way? Will I need infertility treatments to get my baby?
I’ll have to get a second job for that. A third job.
Which wouldn’t leave any time for the actual banging.
Of course, if I am pregnant, there won’t be any purpose for banging.
I throw my head back and groan. I want a baby, and the sooner the better. But the idea of no more sex with Chase is so horrible, it makes me want to puke.
Wait.
Do I actually need to puke? I sit back upright and concentrate on the way my body feels. Am I nauseated? Is this morning...er—I look at the time—early evening sickness?
Maybe I should take another test. Yes, I’ve taken five already this week (one just this morning), and all of them have been negative. But my period isn’t actually due until tomorrow so maybe it was still too early. And twelve hours could make a big difference in hormone production. Probably.
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