If she can tell, it must be bad. “I think I have a stomach bug. I should probably go home. The smell of coffee is making it worse.”
Emily stands so suddenly it makes my head spin. She makes wide, dramatic circular motions with her hands. “Oh my god,” she says.
“What?”
“Oh my god.”
“Just tell me already, you’re stressing me out. What’re you oh-my-godding about?”
She hesitates a moment longer before saying, “You’re pregnant.”
My hand freezes in mid-air as I’m handing a customer his extra-large peach tea. “What? No I’m not. I just had my period …” I quickly do the math in my head and suddenly my stomach drops. “… six weeks ago.”
Shit.
I’d meant to get to the pharmacy several times, but kept forgetting until after Paul and I had sex. I kept thinking I had plenty of time and told myself each day, I’d make it there eventually. But it seems I may have run out of time.
I break out into a cold sweat.
“Miss, my tea,” the man says.
I shake my head, snapping out of my reverie. “Oh, sorry,” I say and hand it to him.
“We’re going to the pharmacy,” Emily says.
* * *
I leave work early. I just can’t do the coffee smell any longer. Seeing the green hue of my skin, my boss happily lets me go home. But I don’t go home. Emily and I go straight to the pharmacy and pick up three reliable brands of pregnancy tests.
If I’m actually pregnant, I have no idea how I’m going to tell Paul. I don’t know if I could take him flying off the handle, or blame me for not using birth control. Although he didn’t do anything about it either. What the hell was I thinking? —Oh, right, I wasn’t. Not about that anyway. I was too worried about eye-crossing orgasms. Remember when I said Emily was a better adult than I was? These are the sorts of things I was talking about.
My thoughts are on a Tilt-a-Whirl, spinning through my head until I’m dizzy: If I’m pregnant what would that mean for me and Paul? What about graduating? I’m so close! No matter what, I’m finishing and getting my degree. And my parents. Jesus, they’re going to kill me.
We stop at a gas station because I’m too impatient to wait long enough to get to my apartment to see the test results. We have to step through a puddle of beer-vomit and over a homeless man lying on the pavement singing drunkenly to get into the bathroom, but I don’t even care right now.
Emily fixes her makeup in the murky mirror while I pee on each of the three sticks. I play Candy Crush on my phone while I wait for the results, panicking when a text pops up from Paul asking where I’m at. He must’ve stopped by the coffee shop and I wasn’t there.
“What should I say?” I ask Emily.
I should probably tell him what’s going on, but I don’t want to worry him unnecessarily if there’s no reason for it.
The lights flicker and buzz. There’s a glory hole in the wall and an advertisement written in black Sharpie that says, “For a good time call …” and someone’s number next to it. Great place to find out if I’m pregnant or not.
“Tell him we’re shopping,” Emily says.
“I don’t want to lie to him.”
Emily uses her nail to clean up the edges of the red lipstick she just applied. “Fine. Tell him you’re pissing on a pregnancy strip at a stop-n-rob in the slums.”
I text him back and tell him I’m shopping with Emily.
The timer goes off on my phone. Emily and I look at each other.
Here we go.
“It’ll be okay,” she says without any confidence in her delivery what-so-ever. She’s trying to be comforting but right now that’s the opposite of how I’m feeling.
The tests are on the back of the toilet. I remind myself to stop into the store on the way home for a large bottle of hand sanitizer. I pick one test up and stare down at the little square. It shows two pink lines.
I grab my stomach. “Oh shit.”
Emily takes it from me. “Holy hell.”
I pick up the next one, a different brand than the first. It has a plus sign.
“Double shit,” I say. The nausea is back.
My breath is coming in whooshes and vertigo is setting in. I try to calm myself by lying and telling myself everything is going to be okay, but I know it’s not. Nothing is okay and might not ever be again.
The third test simply says ‘pregnant’, and all I can think is, I’m so fucked.
* * *
At home I need some time alone to process everything and get right out of my head. I decide to watch TV. Maybe some mindless entertainment will help relieve some stress. Except every time I change the channel, there’s a cartoon on, or a commercial for extra-absorbent diapers. Suddenly, everything is about babies. I turn off the TV and curl up in a blanket even though it’s fairly warm in my apartment. Right now I just need the comfort of it wrapped around me, like my ratty old woobie from when I was a kid whose corners I used to suck on until the blanket was soaked in my slobber.
Time to read a book instead. This was a better idea. A nice horror about a stalker breaking into a woman’s house is just what I need. I spend all day reading and have nearly finished the entire thing when there’s a knock on my door.
I don’t want to see anyone. It’s probably my mom. She’s definitely the last person I want to see. Scratch that. My dad is actually the last person I want to see. What if it’s both of them? Where’s a tropical storm and road closures when you need it?
Filling my lungs with air, I open the door. There’s a deep ache in my chest when I see Paul standing there, looking so brilliantly handsome. But this time it’s not necessarily a good ache. Now might be the one and only time I’ve ever not been thrilled by his presence. He’s still lovely and makes me weak in the knees to see him, but I’m afraid—terrified, is probably a better word for it.
All it takes is one look for him to know something’s wrong with me.
“Is everything all right?” he asks, concern knitting a line into the skin between his eyes. He steps past me, into the apartment. I close the door behind him and lean against it. My legs are barely holding me up.
“Um, yeah, things are fine,” I say, voice wavering. “Can we talk, though?”
“Sure.” He starts to head for the couch but I stop him.
“Can we go somewhere? I’m sick of being in my apartment.”
“Of course.”
We go downstairs and get into his truck. Before, when I smelled the oil and gasoline, I’d liked it. Now every smell makes me feel sick.
The sun is setting. I hadn’t realized how late it had gotten. We go to the cliffs on a piece of private property my dad’s friend owns. No one ever goes up there and it’s fenced off from the public so I know we’ll be alone without interruption.
He turns off the engine and twists in his seat to look at me. “What’s this about? You’re starting to scare me.”
I’m scared too. Mostly of what his reaction will be. But I can’t keep this from him.
I can’t seem to get the words out so I reach into my purse and hand him the three tests.
He studies them, face unreadable.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. Tears well up in my eyes. As soon as I blink they streak down my cheeks. “I didn’t do this on purpose. I would never try to trap you.”
He still hasn’t said anything, just stares down at the tests. Several seconds pass, but they feel like minutes.
“Fuck, Rachael,” he finally says, sounding furious. I flinch. “I thought you were breaking up with me. I was half out of my mind.” He lets out a long breath and sinks back into his seat.
Wait, what? He’s more upset at the thought of me breaking up with him than me being pregnant?
“So … you’re not mad about the …?” My voice trails off.
He starts to laugh. I don’t know what the hell is going on. He’s not being loud but it feels that way, trapped in the cab of his truck.
He takes my hand, face eas
ing into a smile. “How can I be mad? I’m going to be a dad—the father of our child.”
That was not the reaction I was expecting.
He unlatches my seatbelt and pulls me toward him, wrapping me in a tight hug. He continues to laugh and pets my hair. “We’re going to make great parents. You and this child will never want for anything.”
I lean away from him. “Paul, I don’t know. I have school—”
“And you’ll continue on with school. I’ll stay at home with the baby while you get your degree, and if you want to work after that, you can work. Or if you want to stay home, you can stay home. I’ll do whatever you want to do.” He leans away from me and takes my chin in his hand, lifting it so our eyes meet. “Rachael, I love you. I want to be with you forever. I want us to be a family.”
Suddenly I see a vision of our little family so clear in my head and happy tears begin to toddle down my cheeks. He wipes them away with his thumb. “What about my parents?” I say.
His smile falters. “You leave your parents up to me. I don’t want you stressing about anything right now.”
He presses a delicate kiss on my mouth and down my neck. He takes off my shirt and then my bra and finds a nipple. I close my eyes and bask in the feel of having my breast sucked.
“That feels amazing,” I tell him.
He moves to my other nipple, giving it plenty of attention too. By the time he’s done, I’m wetter than I’ve ever been before. I reach over and unbutton his jeans and release his meaty cock. It bounces out from the open hole of his boxer briefs as if it were spring-loaded, reaching up to his belly button. I suck the head of it in my mouth, teasing, running my tongue down his length. His hand is on the back of my head; not pushing me down, but helping to keep the pace. I can tell by the way his hand shakes that he’s showing great restraint. He’s being careful with me when he doesn’t need to. If he wants to fuck me like a porn star, I’m all for it.
I come up for air and look at him. “Do whatever you want with me. Don’t be gentle just because I’m … I can take it.”
He laughs. “You have no idea what you do to me when you talk like that.”
I glance down at his massive cock, the way the veins strain and protrude. “I think I have an idea.”
“Open your mouth,” he says.
I do what I’m told.
“Wider.” He licks his lips. “Good girl. Now suck my cock.”
I go down on him, relaxing my throat so he slides all the way in and my lips touch his pubes. I’m able to breathe through my nose and get air around my lips when I open wide enough. He’s grunting and moaning and I gag several times, but it’s so hot I don’t let go when he tries to stop.
“Wait, I don’t want to come in your mouth,” he says.
This time I release him and sit up.
He smiles at me and wipes my lips. “God, you give one hell of a blow job, you know that?”
He lays me down on the bench seat. It’s a big truck, but Paul’s a big man and there’s not much room. Still, we move easily enough. He takes off the rest of my clothes. Grabbing me behind the knees, he folds me in half, placing my ankles on each of his shoulders. The entire time his eyes lock on mine. He enters me in one long, slow push. His gaze never wavers as he moves in and out of me in languid, swimmer strokes.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says as he makes love to me.
I always hated that term, making love. Sounds sappy and old fashioned. But this isn’t some fast and furious fuck, a race to get each other off. This feels like love. Full, and content, and emotional enough to make me cry. I don’t do that though. I’m not trying to scare him away. Instead, I watch his face, long for him, consume him, absorb him inside of me until we melt together into a single organism.
7
A week later we go to an OBGYN for the final confirmation and to make sure everything is okay with the baby. When Paul hears the little heartbeat, he’s all smiles and laughter. I’m still slightly freaked out, but once I see the tiny bean in the ultrasound photo, something inside me changes and everything I thought was important yesterday feels like nothing, because all I care about is the person growing inside of me and the person beside me who helped make him/her. We made that. Paul and I, together. That’s insane.
And scary, because I barely know how to use a washing machine, let alone raise another human. Thank God Paul is by my side. I don’t think I could do this without him.
On our way back to my apartment, Paul says, “It’s time to tell your parents.”
I’ve been avoiding it. I even contemplated waiting until I was too far along to hide it anymore. I just really don’t want them to ruin my happiness by telling me what a horrible decision I’ve made or by hating Paul. My parents were only seventeen when they had me, and according to my grandmother, I ruined their lives and stole all their options. She seemed to believe that since I was born out of wedlock I’m somehow marked by Satan.
My parents insist that’s not the case, and that not one day goes by that they regret having me, but I’ve heard my mom over the years long for the experiences she missed out on. That’s why they were so happy for me to get my degree. I wanted that for myself, of course, but they always wanted it just a bit more.
I stare out the window at the cars flashing by and sigh. “I know.”
* * *
I call my mom and tell her everything over the phone—I can’t bear to say it face to face. I have a whole speech written out, but by the middle of it she’s asking questions and shrieking, and I end up going completely off script. There’s a lot of crying on both our parts. When she asks me who the father is, I hesitate. And then I tell her. The line is dead silent and at first I think she’s hung up on me. But then I hear her muffled cussing and she’s back on the phone.
“Paul,” she says, “your dad’s Paul.”
“I’m so sorry, Mom. We didn’t mean for things to go this far. But we’re in love.”
“You’re in love with Paul … your dad’s Paul.”
I suppress a sigh. Damn it. This is harder than I thought, and far more annoying than I imagined.
“Yes. Dad’s Paul.”
“And what does Paul think about all of this?”
I glance at him. He sits on the couch, watching my end of the conversation and biting his nails. “He’s happy. We’re both happy.”
More silence. More cussing. “What about school?”
“I’m going to finish school. I promise. There’s only a few more months before I graduate. I’ll just be in my second trimester at that point, so this shouldn’t affect my attendance, or grades, or my graduation plans at all.”
Suddenly my mom squeals. “Oh my god, my baby is having a baby. I’m going to be a grandmother.” It takes me a moment to realize she’s laughing while she’s saying this instead of crying like I initially thought. She starts talking about baby clothes, showers, decorating a nursery. She asks where we plan to live and tells me I sure as hell won’t be moving across the state with her grandchild, and that Paul better figure out a way to move back or else.
By the time I hang up my head is spinning. “I think Mom’s on board,” I tell him. “Now for my dad.”
* * *
Mom holds my hand while Paul and my dad talk in my dad’s office. They’ve been in there for hours. At first there was yelling. Their voices were too muffled for me to hear exactly what was being said, but telling by the sounds of their voices, it was heated. More time passes and … is that laughter?
Paul comes out of the office. He comes up to me, leans over like he’s about to kiss my lips right there in front of my mom. I turn my head and let him kiss my cheek instead. I’m not quite ready for PDA in front of my parents even though they clearly know things have progressed beyond that point.
“Rachael, come in here,” my dad says from his office in a flat voice that camouflages his mood. I have no idea what I’m getting myself into walking in there. Every atom in my body wants to run. Instead I stand on wobbly legs.
I’m too old to be running away from my problems. I’m going to be a mother. It’s time I learn to face my fears, because God knows things only get more frightening from here.
Paul takes my hand. “It’s okay. I’ll be with you.”
I slowly walk toward the office and poke my head in.
“Shut the door behind you,” my dad says.
Once the door is shut, Paul and I sit in the seat across the large oak desk. It’s a beautiful, regal office with stained wood paneling and a floor-to-ceiling library that houses mostly non-fiction about American wars and biographies about generals and world leaders.
My parents didn’t come from money but they have plenty of it now. My dad had to work his way from carpet cleaner to owning his own trucking company. All of that while raising a family of his own at the age of seventeen. He could’ve walked away and not too many people would’ve blamed him for doing so. But he didn’t do that. He’d stayed and worked hard and sacrificed to give me and my mom everything we could want or need.
Knowing I’ve probably broken his heart is more than I can bear. I don’t know what I would do if he looked at me any differently than he always has. I’m his little girl. I don’t want that to change.
He sits behind his imposing desk in a leather high-backed chair. On the desk is a photo of him and Paul at a Giants game. Next to it is a photo of me and mom. Three of the people he loves the most and two of those people have betrayed him.
He stands and walks around the desk, sitting on the edge beside me. He lets out a long sigh and shrugs his lips.
I apologize before he gets the chance to spew venom at me. “I’m so sorry I went behind your back,” I say. “Please don’t hate Paul. I don’t think I can stand it if you two weren’t friends because of me.”
He drops his shoulders and glances at Paul before looking back at me. “I can never hate Paul. He loves you. He’s going to be the father of my grandchild and he’s family. But I want to make sure this is what you want. You’re still young. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. You have options.”
Happily Ever After with My Dad’s Best Friend Page 7
