by Piper Lennox
“You’re kidding. Nobody would ask their sister for that, I don’t care how spoiled she is or—or how much of a doormat you are. You must’ve misunderstood her.”
“Trust me, I know my sister. She didn’t have to spell it out. I know that’s where her mind was going.”
“And where’s yours?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I want kids.” She leans down, plucks a blade of grass, and splits it with her thumbnail. “But Vi does.”
“What?” This time, my laugh sounds like some noise a drowned cat would make. “Juliet, you can’t give her your baby. Surrogacy is one thing, but—”
“I didn’t say I was,” she snaps. I shut up.
“It is an option, though,” she goes on, after a beat. “If I decide...I really don’t want kids.”
“Okay, but what if I do? I mean, I assume it’s mine, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have stalked me across town to tell me.”
“God, Cohen.” She shakes her head, jaw tightening. “Can you not make jokes for just a few minutes?”
I didn’t actually mean to; they come automatically. “Sorry. But it is mine, yes?”
“Yes. And I’ll get whatever tests you want to prove it. I don’t expect you to take my word for it, or whatever.”
My watch beeps. I slap the netting of the house. “Sorry, guys, time’s up!” While the kids commence their whining, I step up beside her. “You don’t have to get tests if you know it’s mine. I believe you.”
She reels a little. “Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why do you believe me, just like that? You don’t even know me.”
I squint at her, head tilting back. “Do you not want me to believe you?”
“No, but it’s weird. I’m a stranger.”
“You don’t feel like a stranger to me.”
Her eyes hover between mine, brow furrowed. Like I’m a riddle she used to know the answer to, but forgot.
“Okay.” I clap my hands. “What’s our plan?”
“I have no idea.” She wipes her eyes. “Telling you was about as far as I thought ahead.”
The same kids who staged a mini-protest in the bounce house while it was crumbling around them are now, once again, refusing to move. “Out,” I bark, officially done with this shit. Levi made it clear the refund portion is coming out of my paycheck, so I’m booking it out of this Richie Rich backyard as fast as I can. They grumble at me, flop onto their behinds, and scoot towards the entrance.
“Let me get this thing packed up,” I tell Juliet, starting for the outlet behind the house to undo my extension cord, “and we’ll go somewhere to talk. Figure stuff out.”
“Okay,” she says, sounding confused. Like she sees no possible solution, much less one that I, of all people, would be able to find.
When everything’s packed, my stack of business cards back in my pocket (miraculously, four people still took one), I get in my van and tell Juliet to follow in her car. We go to Adams Park, a few miles down the road from the rich neighborhoods where most of my jobs have taken place, lately. Levi’s trying to scale up our clientele. Which would be a hell of a lot easier if he wasn’t also a cheapskate on supplies.
“Swings?” she asks skeptically, after we’ve parked and I lead her to a playground on top of a hill. It’s deserted; kids are throwing bread to the mallards down in the lake.
“Never too old for swings.” I brush one clean with my palm and offer it to her. She hesitates, then sits.
The chains pop into place as we twist back and forth, dragging our feet through mulch chips. I wait for her to start. When she doesn’t, I cough into my elbow and spiral to face her.
“You okay?”
“No.” She laughs, breathless, and kicks a chunk of mulch into the air. “How can I be? One day my sister’s asking me to carry her kid, which I still hadn’t wrapped my head around, and the next—before I can even make a decision—I find out I can’t, because I’m going to have a baby. And with some guy I don’t even know!” After her voice bounces back to us from the slide, she catches herself, quieting. “No offense.”
Hearing the situation summed up like that makes me feel a little breathless, too. This isn’t how I thought I’d become a father. I never thought about it much at all, really, beyond some fuzzy daydream.
“What the hell am I going to do?” she whispers. In the shifting light, I see tears on her lashes.
“We.” I sway myself closer and hook the seat of her swing with my feet, turning her to me. As we rock back and forth like pendulums, not quite in sync, she stares at the coffee stain on my khakis. “You won’t go through this alone.”
“We should have used a condom.” Her voice hitches again. “I can’t believe I did something that stupid.”
It’s not clear if she means relying solely on the Pill, getting wasted, sleeping with me, or some combination of all three. I know better than to ask.
“Do you want to be pregnant?”
Her eyes flash. “Are you asking if I did this on purpose?”
“Not even a little.” I hold up my palms. If I had a white flag, I’d wave it high. “I meant it, like, do you want to...carry to term.”
“Oh.” She loosens her grip on the chains. “Sorry. I’ve been snapping at everybody lately. I don’t know why. It’s always the dumbest, tiniest thing, and—”
“Hey, don’t cry.” I get the swings’ momentum going again. “You’re stressed, I get it. We’ll figure this out.”
She nods, seeming to believe me a little more this time, and sniffs. “It feels like a million decisions to make at once, but really...it’s just one.”
“But a giant one,” I remind her, “so it’s okay to freak out and not know. Let’s look at everything objectively, though. Like, forgetting about the end result for a second—you know, a baby—the only real question here is whether or not you want to carry this.”
“You can’t talk about pregnancy without thinking all the way through to the baby.”
“Why not? That’s what you were doing when you were going to be your sister’s surrogate.”
“I never told her yes.” She glares at me, but I can tell she knows her argument is tissue-thin. Just the fact she agreed to consider it proves my point: sometimes our decisions have to be made in the moment, forgetting about the future. Sometimes, you can only focus on the now.
“But that was different,” she adds, suddenly, “because that was never going to be my baby. It would have been their kid. Their genetics, right from the start. And to answer your question—no. I don’t want to be pregnant, but...now I am. So it is what it is.” She lets go of the chains and folds her arms across her chest. “I’m having it.”
“That’s all I was asking. See? We’ve narrowed down one option already.” I tongue my cheek and let go of her swing, both of us twisting harshly back into place. “So you don’t want kids. Is that a set-in-stone kind of thing?”
“I told you, I don’t know. I always thought I probably wouldn’t have any.”
“But,” I say, walking myself closer, “now you are. It is what it is.” I watch the sunlight move across her arm, catching the fine blonde hair. Almost like moonlight on glitter. “Knowing you are going to have one, no matter what…do you still not want one?”
“Oh, yes,” she spits, “this is every girl’s dream. Become a single mom after a one-night stand at her little sister’s wedding.”
“Juliet. Chill.”
“Do not,” she seethes, “tell me to ‘chill.’”
“Fine: please calm down. The circumstances aren’t...ideal.”
She snorts.
“But,” I go on, louder, “we can try.”
Her feet turn up more mulch, damp underneath. “What do you mean, try?”
“You and me. Us, doing the parenting thing.”
“Sharing custody?”
“Sure.” I shrug. “Or, you know—doing things the old-fashioned way. Dating. Maybe getting married down the road, if it works out. Being a family.”
“A family?” She laughs, still kind of crying; the echo sounds strangled. “Cohen.”
When she gets up from the swing, I follow. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“That you’re insane?”
“That we don’t know each other. But we could.” I dart in front of her and hold out my arms, so she can’t scoot around. “We’re going to get to know each other throughout all this anyway, right?”
There go the folded arms, again. “What makes you think that?”
“Because that’s my kid.” I point at her stomach. She pulls her arms even tighter against herself. “I’ll be at the doctor’s appointments. I’ll be at the birthing classes, the hospital tour—”
“The what?”
“I’m going to be around you,” I say, stepping forward, leaving only a couple inches between us, “for nine months. It’ll be impossible not to get to know each other.”
She rubs her face. “Seven,” she mumbles.
“Seven? Seven what?”
“It’s seven months, not nine. I’m almost eight weeks now, because the date of conception is considered—”
“Okay, okay.” I wave my hands. No point arguing the finer points. “You know what I meant. We’re going to be involved in this pregnancy together no matter what. And when the kid is born, we’ll have to co-parent and get along. So why not give dating a try?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Get dinner with me. Tonight.” I check my watch; it’s almost six. “Now, actually, if you’re hungry. I know I am.”
“Cohen, not this again.”
“Yes, this again.” I wet my lips and risk stepping even closer. She doesn’t move away. If I wasn’t positive she’d slap me, I’d grab her face and kiss her. An entire month of pretending I don’t want her, telling myself I didn’t care if she never called, is getting to me. Screw patience: I want Juliet. Whether we crash and burn or end up happily ever after, I want to know we gave it a fair shot. Especially now.
“Your reasoning before was that you didn’t see this going anywhere.” This time, we both glance at her stomach. “Now it is.”
I reach for her hand, undoing the spring-loaded coil of her arms. Slowly, she lets me.
“One dinner,” I say again. “One night. At least give me that much before you say no.”
I know Juliet is taking stock when she looks me over, head to toe: judging the way my hair’s still stuck up from work, the weed in my pocket she can probably smell for miles. The mud stains on my sneakers—or the fact I wore sneakers to work at all.
I’m not an idiot. I know I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, the kind of man Juliet Brooks would ever choose to date or marry, or pick as the father of her future kids.
But she did pick me, once. This baby isn’t hypothetical.
“You know,” I add, “not to sound shitty—but you really don’t have anything to lose.”
“I despise that saying. There’s always something to lose, even if you can’t see it until it’s too late.”
“What? Tell me what we’d lose, if we go on one date and it doesn’t work.”
She draws a breath and holds it, then lets it trickle out instead of answering.
Then, a few seconds later: “I’ll think about it.” She pulls her hand back gently. “Not tonight, though. Just...eventually. Maybe.”
My laugh blooms out of my chest; I find this genuinely funny. “You’re keeping me on the backburner? Wow. Getting a kid in the uterus doesn’t even get my foot in the door.”
“No backburner,” she shrugs. “If you want to take some girl out at any point during the next seven months, be my guest.”
I lean on the merry-go-round, cross my ankles, and smirk. “Nah. Wouldn’t want you getting jealous in such a delicate condition.”
She digs her keys out of her purse and starts away—but not before kicking the merry-go-round as she passes. It spins just enough for me to lose my grip and stumble, landing on my ass in the mulch chips.
Juliet bursts out laughing, and I have to, too. Cheering her up in any capacity is well worth the embarrassment.
11
“Are you super horny yet?”
My drink shoots down the wrong pipe when Abigail, in typical Abigail fashion, blurts this question out at Dad’s weekly Sunday dinner. Thank God our father, Lionel, and Marco are outside.
“Jesus, Abby.”
“What? It’s a serious question. I was only a couple weeks along with Stella when I suddenly went crazy. Ask Lionel.”
“I would really rather not.” I wipe my mouth and glance at Viola, who’s stirring green beans on the stove. She’s pretending she can’t hear us.
Actually, I wish I could pretend I don’t hear us. Not only am I the most modest in my family by far, I’m also scared to admit that, yes: I am super horny. Almost always.
It’s a new symptom, preceded only by random nausea (still ongoing) and constant fatigue (decreasing each day, thankfully). No matter how much I tell myself it’s just hormones, I can fight this...it keeps getting the better of me. A few hours ago, I got to know my shower massager in a way I’d never dared; last week, a tight pair of pants plagued me all through work, until I had to duck into the bathroom and handle it.
None of that is nearly as frustrating as the fact Cohen keeps appearing in my dreams. Every single morning, right before I completely wake, I see him. It doesn’t matter what my dream’s about. I’m at work: Cohen’s in the elevator. I go for a run: Cohen catches up from some unknown starting position. I’m in the supermarket: there’s Cohen, grinning at me when I turn the corner to the cereal aisle.
Sometimes we make conversation. Sometimes we just stare at each other.
Always, he kisses me.
I inevitably can’t take the pressure of his erection against me instead of inside me, and beg him to fuck me senseless in whatever locale my brain’s conjured for the day. He teases me with his fingers, first, then fills me all at once. It doesn’t matter if we’re alone or not. He touches me like we are.
“Come for me, Juliet.” The rolling thunder of his command sets my nerves on fire, every time.
Twice now I’ve woken up having an actual orgasm. It’s thrilling but hollow, my sex quaking around nothing while my brain still imagines him inside me.
Then comes the part I really hate myself over: when I’m completely awake, dazed and hungry for more. My hands glide beneath the sheets.
I’m always wet.
Two fingers. No—three. This morning, it was four. My other hand strokes my clitoris like the heavy flutter of his tongue the night we met.
At least I can take pride in one thing: I never moan his name. I think it, about a million times in a row while I come—but I don’t dare say it out loud.
Now, while Viola stirs green beans and Abigail teases me, I ignore the mounting pressure between my legs and all thoughts of Cohen. Easier said than done.
“You never did tell us who the father is.”
I see Viola glance up at Abby’s observation, but she doesn’t add any of her own.
“His name’s Cohen.” For the love of God, calm down, I instruct my body.
Abby waits. Viola taps the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot, hard, then asks, “Cohen...?”
My face burns. I muffle my answer with a sip of tea. “Fairfield.”
“Whoa,” they say together, although Viola just sort of says it; Abby practically shouts. “The baby daddy is a Fairfield? You failed to mention that little fact!” Her laugh fills the kitchen like steam.
“The family that owns the Acre Hotel?” Vi asks. She tastes the mashed potatoes, pitches in more salt, and stirs. It’s hard to tell, but I think the resentment I’ve sensed—or imagined—from her since I got here has faded. Back to sisterly love.
“And the train station, yeah. But he’s not—”
Abby slaps her hand on the table. “Marry him.”
“We had a one-night stand, you guys. I barely know him.” This isn’t a to
tal lie. Cohen and I have texted occasionally since last week, but I still wouldn’t classify us as “knowing each other.” Definitely not couple status, or anything that would lead to wedding bells.
“Juliet Fairfield,” Abby goes on, ignoring me. “It has an impeccable ring to it.”
“Cohen Fairfield,” Viola says slowly, while Abby’s still talking. She tastes the potatoes again. “Why does that sound familiar?”
“Holy shit, Jules, you’re going to live in an actual mansion.”
I hold my hands up at both of them, even though Viola, for once, isn’t joining Abigail in getting on my nerves. “First of all, I’m not after his money. And second, he’s not one of those Fairfields, exactly. His mom was, like, a hippie. It’s his uncle who’s loaded.”
“Still.” Abby grabs an orange from the fruit bowl and rolls it on the tabletop with her palm. “Not a bad family tree to latch onto. Oh, come on, quit glaring at me—I’m teasing. I know you’re not like that.” She rolls it to me and asks, “Are you two dating now, or what?”
“No. He’s nice and all, and he wants to take things further, but...he’s not my type.”
“Cohen Fairfield,” Viola says again as she takes a seat. “Wait, Cohen—the cotton candy guy from my reception?”
Abby snorts in her throat. I feel most of my blood relocate to my face.
“I didn’t know he was a Fairfield. I knew the owner was, but I figured it was distant.”
“They’re brothers, actually. Their mom shunned the family wealth or something, so she moved them to this nudist colony thing when they were babies.”
“You’re joking.”
Reluctantly, I join their laughter. “Nope.”
“I remember Cohen,” Abby nods, eyes narrowed like she’s solving some big mystery. “Very cute. Why’s he not your type? I mean—” She makes an exaggerated gesture to my stomach. “—he clearly was, at some point.”
“That’s just it, though. I was wasted, it was one night. I’d never date a guy like him otherwise.”
“Guys like him?”
“Yeah, you know...moochers. Always dreaming and all talk, but no action. Big plans, you know? They’ve always got something ‘in the works,’ but it never goes anywhere. Always bumming rides, pissing money away on useless stuff—”
