Spring Semester

by Tyler, Q. B.

  “Well, I’m sure Skyler and Peyton would have wrangled me in when you guys got…drunk?” She raises an eyebrow and points at the three shot glasses between us.

  “I learned some interesting news today, and they were kind of talking me through it until you got here.” I let out a sigh, and she turns to look at me.

  “Do I need a shot?” She rubs her thighs nervously and I grab her hands and pull them to my lips.

  “I’ll let you hear the news first.”

  “Okay…”

  I launch into everything that happened earlier with Alli and when I finish, Leighton looks like she’s going to be sick, but she jumps to her feet. “I KNEW IT! That conniving bitch!” She stamps her foot and puts her hands over her eyes, digging the heels of her palms into them. “How could she do this? Why? She needs help. Like professional help. She’s certifiable.”

  “Okay, well before we go admitting her to a psych ward, I need to find out if it’s true.”

  “The fact that she’s been lying about only being with you, something tells me it’s probably pretty true.”

  “Baby, come sit down. You’re making me anxious.” I need my hands on her, and given that we’ve always fed off of each other’s emotions, her getting worked up is successfully getting me worked up. I need her calm, so I’ll stay calm.

  She comes back around and sits in my lap. “I know we’ve been hoping for this, but the way it sounds like this might play out, I’m in shock.” She swallows. “I’d accepted the fact that the baby was yours.”

  I let out a breath. “Yeah, me too.”

  “Do you know who the other guy is?”

  “No…I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know, nor do I care. I’m not mad that there was another guy, obviously.”

  She nods and stares off into the distance. “Do you want me to come?”

  “Yes…but also no.” I begin stroking her hair, running the strands through my fingertips and letting her silky mane calm me. I stroke the skin on the back of her neck under her hair and she practically purrs in my arms. “I want you with me always, but…I don’t want to worry about you flying off the handle. I think it’s just something I need to deal with alone first.” She doesn’t put up a fight and just rests her head on my shoulder. “I just…I need to know…”

  “Know what?”

  “No matter the outcome…” I start.

  She flips her wrist over and shows me her tattoo. “No matter where, no matter what.”

  We’re sitting in the waiting room of her doctor’s office; a chair between us because I moved the second she tried to sit down next to me.

  “You’re being really childish, Everett,” she snaps and her icy blue eyes flit around the waiting room to the other expectant mothers, and she can’t be serious if she thinks that I’m going to put on some fucking show or even appear cordial to her right now.

  “I wouldn’t start, unless you really want to see how childish I can be.” I watch as a mother in the corner gives me some significant side eye, and I fight the urge to tell her to mind her business.

  She sighs defeatedly and presses her fingertips to her temples. “Everett…can…can we just not do this here?”

  “Are you going to tell me the truth? About anything?”

  “I’ve told you as much of the truth as I remember.”

  “Have you?” I ask her. “Because anytime we talk about anything, I feel like you’ve been vague and you try to talk me in circles.”

  “I haven’t, I—”

  “Allison Jeffries?” Her name is called and I’m on my feet instantly, following her back to the examining room.

  Here we go.

  Two days. That’s how soon I’ll have an answer about whether I’ll be a father or not. I cross my arms over my chest as we walk to our respective cars. “Who’s the other guy?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, but I mean…does he know he might be a dad?”

  She swallows, and I look at her wondering what’s causing her silence. “I tried reaching out and…”

  “And he ghosted you?”

  She lets out a sigh. “I didn’t tell him anything via text, I just said we should talk. He didn’t respond.”

  “Was it only once?”

  She leans against her car, a white BMW, and picks at her nail beds. “More than once.”

  “While we were together?”

  “Everett, we weren’t sleeping together…you wouldn’t touch me! And you were so obsessed with Leighton! Do you know how much it hurt that it felt like my boyfriend didn’t like me? I was lonely and jealous and…he paid attention to me.”

  I rub my head. “I don’t care that you were cheating on me. I care that you’ve been such a goddamn hypocrite about me and Leighton.”

  “I didn’t care about this other guy. It was just sex! I cared about you!” she exclaims, shooting her hands in the air exasperation.

  “Oh. That makes it better then. I’m the asshole because I’ve wanted to marry Leighton since I was nine years old though.” My lips form a straight line and I bob my head up and down. “I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up.” I snort.

  “Look,” she lets out a sigh, “I was drunk.” A tear rolls down her cheek and she brushes it away with the back of her hand. Her cheeks turn pink, and her teeth chatter slightly. “And upset, and I did care about you. I had just gotten dumped and everyone knew you were just there that night as a pity date. I tried to ignore how obvious it was that you loved Leighton, and the fact that you’d dumped me for her. I thought I could make you forget about her.” She wipes her face. “My friends made a joke about drugging you and making it look like we messed around. They were going to take pictures and we were going to send them to Leighton.” I see red. I would have ruined every last one of them. “You don’t understand, I was hurt and so hammered.” She puts a hand over her eyes, and I know if I snap now, I’ll never get the full story. So, despite the fact that I want to rip her head from her body at this confession, I stay quiet.

  “But I told them no. I told them I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to just let you go and forget about you. Maybe spread a rumor that you had a small dick, I don’t know.” She lets her head fall back and stares up into the sky. “I didn’t drug you, Everett.”

  “But one of your fucking friends did?!” My outburst causes her to find my eyes again. Her eyes are sad and tired and remorseful.

  Unlucky for her, I’m in no mood to grant forgiveness.

  “I don’t know, and none of them have owned up to it. But…you say you don’t remember and…I was so drunk. I don’t think we had sex. I just assumed when we woke up, and…”

  “You fucking bitch,” I growl. “I can’t believe you kept this from me for months! For what?!”

  “BECAUSE I WAS SCARED! This baby is real, Everett. A very real baby, I didn’t fake that. This wasn’t immaculate conception. This is someone’s baby! And for a while, I thought it was yours.”

  “Except you didn’t think you fucked me,” I growl.

  “I’d been sleeping with the other guy for about a month and then that night happened and…I don’t know! I was confused! Then I thought maybe we did?”

  “Forget my relationship with Leighton that this almost ruined. You almost ruined my life! Even if you thought we did have sex, I deserved to know about everything else. You tried to play me for a fucking fool!”

  “I know! I know. And I’m so sorry, Everett.” She cries.

  “Is there any chance this baby is mine?”

  “Yeah, there’s a chance…we may have tried that night? I don’t…I don’t know. It’s all so blurry!”

  “But knowing all of these facts three months ago would have been really fucking helpful.” I shake my head, thinking about everything I’ve been through the last semester. “Why are you just telling me this now? I mean what were you going to do in nine months if we waited till the baby was born? You couldn’t have thought that I would have suggested we just be some big damn happy family.”
r />   “I guess I was thinking…hoping, you’d get attached to me or the baby and you’d want to stick around and help or just be there.”

  “So you were trying to manipulate me. Not trap me because that would require a court to make me do something which would require proof of paternity.”

  “No! I just…” I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m telling you now because I watched you in there. I’ve been watching you for the past month. You’re so unhappy.” Her face falls. “I did that to you and I’m sorry. But I don’t want to bring a baby into a world where I’m causing this kind of pain. I don’t want my baby to have a mother like that.”

  “Well, it will.”

  She winces at the harshness of my statement. “I’m telling you now.”

  “Because you’re caught! Because in two days the paper is going to say Everett Cartwright 99.9% not a match for Alli Jeffries’ baby! Why are you making it seem like this is some moment of clarity and you’re doing the right thing?!”

  “I am trying to do the right thing!” She argues and I can hear the desperation in her voice to try and get me to see that.

  “When we get these test results, pending that I am not the father, I will probably never speak to you again. I’m not going to press charges for whatever bullshit you and your friends potentially did to me. I just want you out of my life.”

  “Fair,” she says sadly.

  “I don’t wish bad things on you Alli, and I hate that the other potential father doesn’t want to be involved. I don’t wish that for you. But this is the worst thing anyone’s ever done to me and I won’t be forgiving you all that easy.”

  “I know.” I look away from her, this enlightening conversation weighing down on my shoulders. “I am sorry, Everett.” When I turn to her, her eyes look sincere, but I don’t know if it’s all an act. The phrase way too little and far too late flashes through my mind, but despite my anger, I just want it to be over. I don’t want to argue with her anymore.

  “I know you are, and I’m sorry that I hurt you, in any capacity.”

  It doesn’t excuse what she did, but I am sorry. I don’t want her baby to be born into a world where it has to witness men hurting its mother. I want better for this new life that maybe I didn’t help create but have thought about quite a bit the past two months.

  I want better for all of us.

  Leighton is sitting on my bed next to me as I hold the envelope in my hands. When I got home two days ago and broke down and told Leighton everything, I practically had to pin her down and sate her with orgasms to calm her. She was ready to burn the sorority house to the ground, and I can’t say I wouldn’t have handed her the matches.

  She rubs her nose on my shoulder, and I turn to look at her. She holds her wrist up as she snakes her hand up my shirt and rubs the tattoo on my side. I nod in response to her message. After we’d made love for hours, we’d had a long talk about a lot of things. In light of this new information, it did seem like the chances that I was the father were slim, but we wanted to wait until we had everything in black and white. I’d informed my parents, leaving out the part about being drugged because I knew that was the fastest way to get both of my parents out here. Though I wanted to keep it from Leigh, I couldn’t, and I know it’s taking every ounce of restraint she has not to tear Alli a new one and go to someone high up in the Panhellenic Council to report what happened. Maybe nothing would come about without proof, but the seed would be planted and at very least an investigation would be conducted for any kind of paraphernalia in the house.

  Leighton’s wearing one of my lacrosse sweatshirts and she rubs the sleeve against her lip. “Don’t be nervous,” I tell her.

  “I’m not. No matter what, I’m not going anywhere,” she tells me and it makes me think we really were meant to be together forever. If we could get through the past two months, we would get through anything. My eyes flit to her left hand, picturing the ring I’ve already picked out sitting proudly on her finger.

  Her eyes follow my gaze to her hand and then looks at me. “One day,” she whispers. I grab her left hand and rub her ring finger before pressing a kiss to the knuckle, and she smiles before grabbing my face. “I love you,” she whispers.

  I press my lips to hers before turning to the envelope again. I tear it open, revealing the one sheet of paper folded into thirds neatly. I open it up, steeling myself for the results and I hear her gasp the second I read over the words.

  Not. A. Match.

  I read over the words over and over and over, making sure I’m not hallucinating or my mind isn’t making me believe what I want to see and not what’s actually there.

  “Oh my God!” Leighton is off the bed and jumping up and down. I look up just in time to see her flying at me, wrapping her body around mine and kissing me passionately. “That means I’ll get to be the mother of all your babies.”

  “Fuck. I’m not…just you…just you.” I chant as her hands reach for my shirt pulling it off of me and forcing my shorts down. I yank my sweatshirt off of her revealing a tank top underneath and no bra. I immediately latch down on her breast and suck the nipple between my teeth, wetting the white fabric with my tongue. I rip her tank down the center, pushing her breasts together and running my tongue over the dark pebbled nipples. I pull her shorts and panties off and then she’s on top of me, riding me. Hard.

  I reach up, holding my hand around her throat and I pull her down so that I can whisper in her ear. “Mine. Fuck, you’re so mine.”

  “No. You’re fucking mine.” She growls between thrusts and me letting her throat go ever so slightly. I roll us so that I’m on top of her and squeeze slightly. She grips my hand, squeezing it around her throat, and I know she must be getting light headed because she’s squeezing down on my cock so hard. I can feel her juices dripping out of her and down my balls and I already can’t wait to suck her hot clit into my mouth. I continue to thrust, feeling myself nearing the edge. “I…I…love…you…” she blurts out before her teeth sink into her bottom lip and she squeezes her eyes shut. I can feel her pulse in her neck flickering against my palm, and it’s moving in sync with the pulsing in her sex.

  “You come for me, Leighton Alexandra. You come for me right the fuck now.”

  “Mmmm,” she whimpers.

  “You come for me, so I can give sweet little kisses to your pussy. Would you like that?” I growl in her ear as she nods her head vigorously. “You’re doing so good, coming for me like a good little slut.” I let her neck go so I can bite her at her pulse point and the second I do, she explodes around me.

  “Oh God, YES! Yes yes yes!” she screams. She pulls at my hair and pulls me away from her neck and latches her mouth to mine. “Fuck me fuck me fuck me.” She arches her back off the bed and I think her orgasm is still going based on how hard she’s squeezing me so I reach between us and rub her clit and she practically breaks the skin when she runs her nails down my back.

  “Fuuuuuckkkkkk!” I groan at the delicious pain causing me to unleash my seed inside of her. I pump and thrust rope after rope of hot cum inside of her. I don’t know how long I’m coming, but at some point, I feel myself soften inside of her and pull out begrudgingly from my favorite fucking place. “God, you are sex personified, Leighton Mills. You’re going to be the death of me.”

  Her body that was previously taut and stretched and tight, is now loose and languid and lying beneath me under a layer of sweat looking like a sex goddess.

  “Fuck, that was so good.” She giggles as I pull her into my arms. She rests her head on my chest and I begin to stroke her hair as she runs her fingertips over my torso.

  “Marry me,” I whisper into the room.

  She freezes and looks up at me, confused. Though, if I know her like I think I do, she’ll say yes despite my completely impulsive, completely unromantic, ringless proposal. “You’re asking me now?”

  “Will you? When I ask?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I want to hear you say it
.”

  “I love that you ask, like I have some sort of choice.”

  I chuckle at her humor and pinch her side. “Leighton.”

  She doesn’t say anything for a moment before she looks up at me, love and lust and adoration shooting from her eyes as she nods her head. “I’d marry you tomorrow, Everett Cartwright.”

  Six Months Later

  My heels click against the marble tile of the hospital as I move through the halls with the small pink bear in my hand preparing myself for when I hit room 404. I make it to the door and stand there for a moment before I knock twice.

  “Come in!” I let out a breath and push through the door. I see who I assume to be Alli’s parents, and a guy in the corner holding a pink bundle and then I see Alli in the center of the room on the bed, looking like she’d just gone for a light jog. Of course she’d look gorgeous right after labor. Bitch.

  No. Be nice.

  “Hi! Are you a friend of Alli’s? I’m Alli’s mom.” She smiles and I smile back despite how uncomfortable I am.

  “Leighton?” I hear Alli’s voice.

  “Hey…” I look around the room, and I pray that no one knows who I am. “I ummm…I heard you had the baby, and I just…I thought I would stop by.”

  It was impulsive. I was on my way to meet Skyler, Aidan, and Everett for drinks now that the three of us are twenty-one and seniors. The four of us have become pretty inseparable and go on double dates at least once a week. I’d say Peyton is about ready to kill us, but something tells me those double dates were about to turn into triple dates soon.

  “I’ll have to say I’m surprised to see you,” she says softly.

  “Well…ummm…” I hand her the pink bear with the phrase You Are Loved written across its stomach. “I wanted to bring the baby something.”

  “Do you mind giving us a second?” Alli says to the three other people in the room. The guy hands her the pink bundle before they disperse leaving us alone. “Do you want to see her?” she asks, and I nod once before making my way closer to the bed.