Kind of Cursed

by Stephanie Fournet

  The one who worries me the most, though, is Luc. He’s been sullen and brooding since he showed up tonight.

  Come to think of it, something’s been a little off since Monday. Since we made love.

  And. What. The. Hell?

  I was there. It was spectacular. Unparalleled.

  Not that I have much of a frame of reference.

  But even without that, it was incredible. Cosmic. Otherworldly. I couldn’t have been the only one who thought so. In fact, while we cuddled, he’d said it was, and I quote, “the single best moment of my life.”

  I’m sure those were his exact words because I think they’re now tattooed in a place of honor on my soul.

  So why does he seem so distant? And, I can’t be sure, but I’d swear he was totally pissed at the game. Though I’m pretty dang sure it wasn’t at me.

  But he says he wants to talk, and it makes me nervous. And I’ve got enough to be nervous about in my life.

  Still, Luc does us a solid by picking up Judice Inn burgers after the game so we can come straight home. I send Harry up so he can shower first. Maybe it’ll help put him past the loss. Emmett feeds and plays with Clarence, and Mattie is finishing her homework when Luc comes in with dinner.

  Emmett is about to nosedive into his when I stop him.

  “Hey, buddy, let’s wait for Harry and eat as a family, ‘kay?”

  He slumps. “But I’m so hungry.”

  I’m about to negotiate with him when Luc cups an ear and cocks his head at the ceiling. “I don’t hear the shower,” he says, then gestures toward the stairs. “Why don’t you go up, jefe, and tell him grub’s here. Let’s see how fast you can do it.”

  Emmett perks up. “Time me.”

  Smiling, Luc digs his phone out of his back pocket before tapping on the screen. “Okay… Go!”

  My little brother takes off.

  “Tell Mattie too!” I call after him.

  “That’ll mess up my time!” he shouts back, stomping up the stairs.

  Neither one of us responds because for the first time since Monday, we’re alone. Sadly, the length of the dining table separates us.

  “You’re so good with him.” I’ve said this before, but he needs to know how much it means to me.

  He shrugs. “It wasn’t that long ago when Alex was his age. I remember some of the tricks.”

  I move around the head of the table, take two steps toward him, and stop. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but you’re making me nervous.”

  His expression clouds. “Nervous? Why?”

  Heat rises to my face. “You said you wanted to talk.”

  The corners of his mouth turn up, but his dimples stay hidden. “And talking’s bad?”

  “Well, duh,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest, my nerves escalating by the second. “Everyone knows talking’s bad.”

  Luc’s brows lower and he stalks toward me. When he’s in my space, he grabs me by the belt loops of my jeans. “What about talking like this?” He pulls me to him until my nose brushes his collarbone and his lips meet my ear. “Is this bad?”

  He smells amazing. Clean, like cut cedar. But warm and unmistakably male. I wrap my arms around him and inhale. His arms close around me too.

  “Not bad, right?” he whispers.

  I shake my head. “Not bad.” I’ve kind of already forgotten how we got here, my nerves vegging out in the pheromonal glow of his body.

  Rhythmic thumping overhead, the sound of Emmett on the stairs, kills the moment. I move to pull away, but Luc grabs me by the elbows and our eyes lock.

  “I don’t know what it was like for you before, Millie,” he says, his gaze searching. “But talking with me won’t ever be bad.”

  Wow. Okay. I feel a little better.

  Enough to put away a Judice Inn burger, harass Emmett into taking a bath, and finally get the kids upstairs at eight-thirty. The twins won’t be asleep for hours with all the homework they have, but Emmett should konk out by nine.

  I find Luc on the sectional, but not sprawled out with one arm resting on the back like I’d prefer. He’s sitting, but with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped.

  Shit.

  He looks up when I approach. “They’re all good?”

  “Yeah.” I know I should join him, but my feet don’t want to move.

  Luc smacks the cushion next to him with two swats. “Come sit by me.”

  I make a hesitant noise. “Mmm. I have a bad feeling about this.”

  He cracks a smile. “What’s it telling you?”

  I don’t mince words. “That you’re about to say something I won’t like.”

  Luc presses his lips together and tilts his head to the side, considering. “You probably won’t like it, but we’ll deal.”

  We’ll deal?

  It’s the we part that frees my feet up to move toward him. “Is this about why you seemed angry earlier?”

  I’ve taken him off guard. I can see it in his eyes. “Angry?”

  “At the game.”

  A shadow passes over his face. “Oh. That… That was Papi.” Luc shakes his head, his gaze dropping. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  I nod, but I don’t like the look he’s wearing. It’s like a little of that anger from earlier has come back. Luc shakes his head again, almost like a dog shedding water.

  “Come sit.” He pats the couch again. I take two more steps.

  “I’m just reminding you,” I say softly, “that you said talking isn’t bad, so I expect you to keep your word on that.”

  I say this—mostly—to make him laugh, and it works. If he’s laughing, I can relax. At least a little.

  He reaches a hand to me, and I take it, moving the rest of the way toward him before sitting.

  “Even if we have to talk about something bad, like I said, us talking won’t be bad.” He cocks a brow at me. “This is ours, remember?”

  At this, warmth pours through me. “I remember.” And I squeeze his hand.

  “Okay,” he says, as if it’s settled. Then his eyes narrow like he’s wincing. “I gotta tell you something—”

  “You’re married,” I blurt.

  His brows shoot up. “What?! No! What the hell, Millie?”

  I shake my head. “Sorry. Sorry. I just went with something really bad. Like ripping off a Band-Aid,” I blather. “Now, anything you say will just pale by comparison.”

  Luc blinks at me, looking both confused and mildly concerned. I take a cleansing breath, rub my free hand up and down one thigh, and nod. “Okay, I think I got that out of my system. Go for it.”

  His brows downshift again. “Okay… So… On Monday?” He says it like a question, his voice dipping low, making it plenty clear he’s talking about when we had sex. I bite my bottom lip because I just knew something was wrong.

  Is it me?

  Is there something wrong with my junk? Like a freak-of-nature thing? “Did you know that male cats have barbed penises?”

  Okay, even I can’t believe I just said that.

  “Wh-ha-hat?!” If Luc looked confused and concerned before, he’s downright horror-stricken now.

  And, God help me, I can’t shut up. “Yeah. They’re covered with all these little spines that appear to make cat sex really painful for the female,” I explain, my vet school training kicking in hard core. “But it’s believed that the spines trigger feline ovulation.”

  “Millie—why?” Luc asks bug-eyed. “Why are you telling me this?”

  I let go a breath. “Well… just that… maybe if something didn’t feel quite right when we… you know—”

  “Stop.”

  I stop.

  Luc squeezes his eyes shut and runs a hand down his face. Then he blinks at me, looking like a man who has just been put through the wringer. He takes my hands with both of his, bouncing them on my knees with each word.

  “Everything. Everything felt right, Millie. I swear to Christ.”

  “Then what—”

  “Mil
lie, the condom broke.” He says this, and I realize that his face is going red, and it’s getting redder. “That’s all. I should have told you then, but I didn’t want to freak you out.”

  I swallow. “Oh.”

  “Oh?” He blinks four or five times. “You mean, you’re not freaked out?”

  “Well…” All things considered, it’s better than him telling me that sex with me felt like banging a cactus, but, honestly, it doesn’t feel like news. “To tell you the truth, I’m not all that surprised.”

  This time when his brows fly up, I can see he’s genuinely stunned. “What do you mean? Why?”

  I lift and drop one shoulder. “Of course something like that would happen. To me, I mean.”

  “Why should that happen to you?” he asks, surprise morphing to curiosity.

  “Because of The Cur—”

  “Don’t call it a curse,” he interrupts, glaring a little.

  “Okay, fine. Because of the supernatural-phenomenon-surrounding-my-fertility-and-that-of-every-woman-I’m-descended-from.” I frown. “Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, does it?”

  Luc visibly fights a grin. “Millie, I’m being serious.”

  “Me too.” I nod. “But, honestly, when you put it on—the condom, I mean—there was a part of me that literally thought why bother?”

  “Seriously?” Astonishment rings from the question.

  I shrug again. “Granted, I wasn’t at my most rational at that juncture,” I admit. “But, yeah, kind of. I mean, if my parents resorted to a vasectomy, and even that failed in the face of cosmic interference, what good is a little latex balloon?”

  Luc narrows his eyes in a sinister expression. “Little?”

  I smile huge. “Massive. Massive latex balloon.”

  Hello, dimples.

  “Anyway, I figure we both know the score. You were warned at least.”

  Luc rolls his eyes. “I’m just glad you aren’t upset. At first I wasn’t going to say anything about it.”

  Something in his voice snags my attention. “What made you change your mind?”

  “Because.” Luc’s face hardens in a way I’ve never seen before. “If you wanted to do something about it, there’s still time.”

  Later, I’ll look back on this moment and realize just how naive I am. But right now, I still have no clue.

  “What do you mean?” Honest to God. No clue. “Time for what?”

  His expression doesn’t change. It’s as hard as granite. “To get a prescription.”

  I stare at him, still completely sans clue.

  “You know,” he says with a shrug and a disconcerted frown. “Plan B.”

  When the penny drops, it’s with a trumpet blare of adrenaline. I swear, I hear the blast as it enters my bloodstream. My vision tunnels, and my mouth turns to cotton.

  “Plan B,” I parrot. “Right.” The words sound as dry as cornhusks.

  I realize I’ve been standing in the center of hope, rocking in its orbit, like a girl with a hula-hoop. And it just clattered to the ground.

  I’m not taking Plan B. I’d never take Plan B. That’s not the problem. The problem is that I would have never expected Luc Valencia to suggest it. And because I never expected it, I feel like the dumbest person in the world.

  Because it’s too much to ask.

  My life. Everything I am. What I’m destined to be. It’s too much to ask.

  And I knew that before I fell for him, and I still let myself fall.

  Stupid.

  Stupid.

  Stupid.

  “Millie? You okay?” he asks, eyes searching.

  I paste on a smile. “Yeah. Fine.”

  He frowns. “Did I say something wr—”

  “No. No.” I shake my head. “I just… That’s not for me. Plan B, I mean.” I don’t tell him how much I wanted the baby I lost. How if I things had been different, she—if she was a she—would be due in three weeks. If I had been able to keep him—if he was a him—I’d be complaining about my swollen feet and my sore back and needing to pee every ten minutes.

  And loving every minute of it.

  My dry mouth suddenly floods with saliva, and I swallow hard.

  “I wasn’t—” Luc stops, frowning. “I didn’t mean to suggest—”

  Reaching over the two inches that separate us—two inches that now seem like two miles—I pat him quickly on the knee. “No, no. Of course.”

  His frown etches deeper, and he sits up straight. “Because if you were preg—”

  I shake my head hard. So hard, my brain might rattle. “I’m sure I’m not.”

  This is a lie. I’m sure of nothing. Not a damn thing.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  It’s the fourth time I’ve said it this morning, and for the fourth time, Kath gives me an exasperated stare. “Stop saying that. You know it’s too soon to tell.”

  I make a noise of dispute in my throat while she unwraps her chopsticks. We’re between appointments, and Kath grabbed Peking Gardens takeout for lunch. I poke at my Singapore Mai Fun, trying to decide if I’m nauseated or just too stressed to eat.

  Reading my mind, Kath points her chopsticks at my to-go plate. “You’re hungry. You told me yourself you skipped breakfast. Eat.”

  Repressing the urge to snarl, I hook a bite of noodles and shrimp and shovel it into my mouth. And it’s good. Really good. When I eat another bite, Kath chimes in.

  “See? You’re getting yourself all worked up for no reason.”

  I shake my head, mouth still full. “Oh, there’s reason. How could I have been so stupid?” I stab a fancy cut carrot with a chopstick. “I’d just had a shot of antibiotics. While on the Pill. I know that antibiotics mess with the Pill. Not that the Pill even works for me,” I add with a shrug.

  Kath winces. “I did read an article about that once. The pill doesn’t work for a small percentage of women. Like not at all.”

  I snort. “Nothing—short of celibacy—works for me. And clearly not even that because…” I open my mouth to say Luc’s name, but then shut it, afraid I’ll start crying.

  Why did I think this time would be any different? Why did I think he would be any different?

  Because, a voice from deep within me whispers, he’s Luc.

  My throat wants to close on a sob. I shove another bite of noodles into my mouth and swallow them almost without chewing to force it open. The battle between constricting muscles and Chinese takeout is epic. Thank goodness the noodles win, or my life might hang in the balance.

  As I recover, I admit to myself why I believed things would be different with Luc. Because he knew, even better than Carter did, what he might be getting into. He knows the Delacroix day-to-day—better than Carter ever did because Aunt Pru was still with us back then. Helping out. Keeping us afloat. And back then, we were still in a state of shock.

  But Luc has seen us as a family redefined. He knows us from the inside.

  And he was warned. Carter never took me seriously when I said my chances of getting pregnant were astronomical.

  But Luc did.

  At least, I believed he did.

  How could he think for a minute I’d—

  “Have you talked to him about it? Since Wednesday, I mean?” Kath asks.

  I roll my eyes. “No.” It’s Friday, and although I’m spending time with Luc, I’ve made sure we’re never alone when I do. Luckily, Emmett had to make a diorama Thursday night, and last night was another away game. “I know I need to talk to him. I just want to wait until I’m sure.”

  Kath raises a brow at me. “And what then?”

  I swallow. “Tell him I’m pregnant—”

  “You’re not pregnant.”

  I sigh. Kath has no appreciation for the power of The… The… Whatever We’re Calling It. Honestly, I can’t even bring myself to think Curse anymore. Because if I am pregnant (who am I kidding? I’m so totally pregnant) it’s Luc’s.

  And how could that be a curse? How could that be anything but wonderfu
l?

  I sigh again, but this one sounds completely different. Worshipful. Hopeful.

  Yes. I hope I’m pregnant. (Again, who am I kidding?)

  But I’m hoping for more than that. So much more. And this hope is almost too big to let myself feel.

  “Fine,” I concede just to move the discussion along. “If I’m pregnant, I’ll tell Luc. I’ll tell him everything’s cool. That I don’t expect anything from him. He doesn’t even need to pay child support—”

  “Millie!” Kath scolds with a scowl. “That’s crazy!”

  I shrug. “It’s not like I—” the word halts in my throat, and I make myself say it hard, “need him for a roof over my head or—or to pay the bills.”

  This much is true. I don’t need him for those things.

  Not those.

  I press my lips together and move my gaze to my lunch. The Singapore Mai Fun is suddenly no fun at all. The noodles now look like tapeworms, and I toss my chopsticks on the table between us, my appetite long gone. “Besides…” I say on a forced exhale. “I know better than to ask so much of someone.”

  “What do you mean, Millie?” Kath’s frown deepens. “A father taking responsibility for his baby isn’t too much to ask.”

  I shake my head. “Normally, I’d agree with you, but my situation isn’t normal.”

  Kath just stares like she’s waiting for me to elaborate, so I do.

  “Luc has a pretty good idea of what it would be like if he stuck around,” I explain. “If he really wanted that, why would he even bring up other options?” I try to make it sound like it’s no big deal. Like I’m not involved.

  Like my heart isn’t either.

  She so totally calls me on my bluff. “Do you care about him?”

  I swallow. “Y-yeah.”

  Kath makes owl eyes at me. “I think telling a man you care for that you don’t need him is a bad idea.” Seriously, I feel like a field mouse under that stare. Then she goes in for the kill. “And I know I never knew them, but I think your parents would have too.”

  I want to curl in on myself like I’ve been stabbed. Not really because Kath said it. But because she’s right. I resist the urge. Keep myself open and hold her gaze.