by Sarah Adams
In the morning, he wasn’t there when I woke up, but there was a steaming cup of hot coffee on the coffee table and a note that said, It’s half-caff, go crazy. We had one more brief silent stare-down last night after work while we both did laundry. I carried my hamper into the laundry room, but Drew was already in there and had just thrown his clothes in. He saw me, and then he hitched his head toward the washer, telling me to put mine in with his. It was honestly the most erotic experience of my life doing laundry together. Geez, the close quarters! The mixing of colors when I know it drives him insane! That moment when he leaned behind me to shut the lid on the washer and his chest brushed against my back—COME ON!! I’m dying over here.
And did I mention Drew unpacked all my stuff again? The BFF salt and pepper shakers are back on the kitchen countertop. My fuzzy throw blankets are draped across his charcoal couch. My stuff kisses Drew’s stuff everywhere I look, and it’s his doing. This is a metaphor for something—I can feel it in my bones.
So now, it’s one week and one day until the fundraiser I have to attend with him, and I’m determined to yank the rug out from under whatever this tension is between us. I can’t let any friendly feelings toward Drew get in the way of the revenge I have planned for the night of the event.
Lucy gets in position behind me on the floor, and I lean back against her. She hovers her hands above my head, wiggling her fingers in a musical fashion. She immediately starts giggling.
“Don’t! You can’t laugh, Lucy. You’ll give us away!”
“This is why I didn’t want to do this with you. I can’t lie. I’m going to burst out laughing immediately.”
I look up at her. “Okay, I read an article about improv the other day, and it said if you feel like laughing on stage, think of a solid color and nothing else. Apparently, it helps.”
Lucy nods once. “Got it. Wait, this isn’t working. Yellow is making me want to laugh more.”
“Okay, think of red.”
A weird laugh gurgles in her throat. “So much worse! Gosh, red is a hilarious color.”
She’s right. Red is so freaking funny. Probably because we are draped in the color in the most hilarious fashion possible. We’re going to blow it. I can feel it. I’ve never been good at keeping a straight face, and everyone knows Lucy isn’t good at it either, so we’re doomed. Drew is going to walk in, and I’m going to blurt, THIS IS ALL A JOKE! HA—GOTCHA!
Except we hear the rattle of the door in the kitchen, and suddenly, I don’t feel like laughing. I want to throw up. To be honest, I’m not sure what I’m trying to accomplish with this prank. All the others were to get under his skin, to annoy him. This one feels different. It feels…no, never mind. Not letting myself go there. I’m pranking Drew so when he overreacts and loses it, I will be reminded of why I don’t like him. Yeah, that’s it. I’m doing this to put him back in the obnoxious category of my brain.
We hear the door open. Drew steps inside the kitchen and tosses his keys down. Every sound feels sharp and jarring. I know he hasn’t seen us yet because we are facing the opening that leads from the living room to the kitchen and we haven’t seen Drew’s face. Lucy nudges me in the side and begins making a loud ommmm meditating sound. Showtime.
As expected, Drew’s head pops around the corner, brows quirked up and an incredulous look on his face as he takes in Lucy and me. “What the hell did I just walk in on?” he asks, the sound of his voice nearly startling me after three days of silence. He fully steps in the room, looking much too sexy in his black scrubs and dark two-day-old stubble lining his jaw. Forget about Zac Efron—Drew is the one who looks delicious.
Miraculously, I don’t bust up laughing when I imagine what Lucy and I look like from his point of view. Her fingers are still hovering over my head looking like she’s sprinkling me with pixie dust, and she and I are both dressed in these super creepy, all red cotton gown-drape things I found on Amazon. They completely swallow us whole and make us look like we belong in an even scarier version of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Lucy continues to ommmm like we rehearsed as I deliver my line. “Not that I owe you any explanations, but Lucy got certified earlier this week to be my birth guru. We are centering ourselves in preparation for the birth.”
“Exactly,” Lucy says, using a snooty voice I’ve never heard from her before. “Now scram, Drew. I need Jessie to concentrate. According to my training, it’s important that the spiritual waves we are producing between Jessie and the baby not get interrupted by outside forces.”
Green. Black. Orange. Burgundy—oh gosh, it’s not working I’m thinking of all the colors and it’s taking everything in me not to look in Drew’s horrified eyes and lose it laughing.
“I’m sorry—just one second.” He holds up his finger. “Did you say…birth guru?”
“Mmhmm.” That’s all I can manage. If I open my mouth, an eruption of laughter will spill out.
Luckily, Lucy can sense my distress and takes over in a surprisingly heroic way. “Yes, you heard correctly. Thanks to gurusofbirth.net, I am now certified to perform Jessie’s spiritual birth.”
Drew smells something fishy and crosses his arms, squinting his eyes. “What is it you’re doing there with your hands?”
“Oh, this,” Lucy says in her zen voice as she continues to sprinkle me. “This is goddess birth energy. Only the birth guru can fully harness its powers, but I am choosing to bestow it on Jessie.”
“Uh-huh. And what does it do?”
Lucy lifts her nose higher in the air. “By sprinkling it on the top of Jessie’s head, it flows through her entire being and connects with the unborn child, signaling to it that the end of gestation is near.”
Oh, she’s good. That was all completely ad-libbed. Bravo, Lucy. You missed your calling.
Drew’s lips are parted, but he’s looking like he has no idea where to begin. Finally, he takes his hand and runs it over his face. I can’t tell if he’s believing this performance or not.
“And what’s with the red getups? Why are you both wearing those?”
Feeling like I have a good handle on my amusement, I brave a response, putting on my most annoyed expression. “I knew we should have done this while you were gone! Lucy, I told you your brother would be nothing but judgmental.” I sit up, and Lucy assists me. “These are the ritual garments, Andrew. They are meant to strip away anxiety and clothe me in honesty and trust in my body. They will protect me from feeling any pain during labor.”
You know those cartoon characters that, when angry, their heads pop off and spin in a circle with smoke spewing out of their ears? Yeah, that’s not Drew. He looks more zen than Lucy and I are. In fact, his super-calm is sort of freaking me out.
“Protect you from…” He breaks off, his expression mystified. His eyes move to Lucy. “And you are now a certified…”
“Birth guru,” she finishes for him. “And, yes, I am. I was skeptical when Jessie first told me about it, but after I watched all the YouTube videos, I was sold.”
“The YouTube videos?” he echoes in an incredulous tone, clearly still trying to decide if we’re messing with him or not. But when he glances over and sees the printed out “birth guru” certificate with Lucy’s name on it, something snaps inside him. I can see it in his eyes.
“Of course you wouldn’t be supportive.” I muster up a few fake tears, trying to push him over the top, and now Drew looks floored.
“Now, now…” Lucy rubs my back. “Don’t let him ruin your mental sedation with his negativity.”
“Mental sedation?!” His voice nearly shakes the walls. “What did you give her?”
Lucy remains the ever-proper guru despite his heightened state. “The most powerful birthing prescription in the world—vibes of joyousness administered through thoughtful eye contact.” Vibes of joyousness?! Okay, that really did sound like she just pulled it out of her butt.
I’m worried Lucy might have taken it too far and Drew will finally realize we are just pranking him, but no,
he looks downright livid. We are getting closer to cartoonlike anger. The ends of his hair are about to catch on fire and turn him into the next Marvel character that fights off birth gurus all over the world. Which…was not supposed to happen. He was supposed to call our bluff after vibes of joyousness. I feel a tinge of concern.
“Jessica, may I have a word? In the kitchen.” He points behind him like I’m a naughty puppy that needs to be put in her crate until she can stop shredding all the pillows and eating crayons.
I rise from the ground with Lucy’s help and then level him with an indignant scowl. “Whatever you want to say to me, you can say in front of Luc—” Drew swiftly turns me and starts pushing me along with him into the kitchen. “Hey, watch it! Pregnant lady here. You can’t just toss me around like a rag do—”
Drew spins me to face him, and in one swift motion, lifts me up and plants me on the counter. Apparently, he can move me around like a rag doll. How did he make that look so easy and graceful? He literally just lifted two humans! Maybe he’s experiencing one of those adrenaline-induced super-strength episodes.
He plants a hand on either side of me and narrows his navy eyes. My skin erupts, and I’m sure my face is turning the same color as my guru garment. Ooo he smells incredible leaning in close to me like this. I wonder what kind of cologne he wears, and if he’d notice if it suddenly went missing. Can I trail my finger along his jaw? Would it be prickly? His eyes pinch together and his jaw ticks. Now would probably be a good time to laugh and tell him the truth, but I want to see how far I can go before he realizes it’s a prank. Also, I can’t seem to form words with him this close.
Without meaning to, my eyes drop to his lips. If he asks, I’ll say I’m just checking to make sure they’re still there. Yep! There they are! Heat ripples between us, and goose bumps blanket my skin. I can hear my inner bad girl telling me to lean forward and take those sexy lips for my own. I want to wrap my arms around his neck and hang on to him like a little monkey. He’s sturdy. He could handle me.
But the rational thinking portion of my brain reminds me that I am pregnant and vulnerable, and Drew is just the sort of man I don’t need to get mixed up with. He’s the guy you lose your heart to on the first date. He’s the one you tumble head over heels and do irrational things for, like get a tattoo on your butt cheek just because nothing else feels like an adequate symbol of your love.
I’ve known this about Drew since the day Lucy first told me about her brother and showed me his picture. It was weeks before he ever did anything stupid, but I decided then and there to hate him—because I knew if I didn’t force myself to see all of his bad qualities, I’d like him way too much. As a woman freshly hurt by yet another man, I wasn’t about to let that happen. I’ll never let myself feel reckless romance with a man again. No, somewhere later down the line, I want a reasonable man to marry, someone who makes me smile but never evokes strong feelings. I want someone to share life with, but I never want to have to worry about feeling devastated if I lose him.
And when I look back up into Drew’s dark-indigo-blue-jean eyes, I know he would be devastating.
“I cannot believe you would have my highly unqualified sister deliver your baby.” Drew’s voice is low thunder in the distance. It’s shaking me.
“Y-yes. I am having her be my birth guru. I’ve thought it through, and—”
Drew pushes off the counter and turns his back to me, raising a single arm to grip the back of his hair in frustration. He whirls around to me again, looking madder than a hornet. “You know, Jessie, this is a new low, even for you. Stooping to putting your child in danger just out of spite for me!” This is the part where I should yell HA-HA and dance around him obnoxiously, but I don’t feel like doing that, because now I’m pissed. How could he say that to me? “And thinking those damn garments are going to keep you from feeling pain! Come on. Joyful vibes? I thought you were smarter than that. You need a doctor or a midwife to assist you, not a self-made gu—”
“Okay, stop. I’ve heard enough. And you know what? I can’t believe you!”
“Me?!” he asks with raised brows. Drew stalks back to me, planting those big hands beside my hips again and leveling me with his stormy gaze. “What could you possibly be angry with me about?”
“So many things!” I say, my voice rising so high it squeaks. “But I’m mostly upset that you would ever think me capable of truly making a decision like this! You weren’t supposed to believe me! Not for a second. You were supposed to laugh and shake your head and see right away that it was a—” The power in my voice loses steam when I see Drew’s lips begin to curl in a devious smile. My anger rushes out of me and is replaced by despondency.
“A what, Jessie?” he whispers, his mouth only two inches from mine.
I take in a long breath through my nose and then, on a rush of air, admit, “A prank.”
A full smile replaces his ferocious scowl, and my stomach sinks. He did know it was a prank. This whole time he knew, and he was getting me back.
As if it’s possible, somehow, Drew leans even closer without our lips touching. “Never try to prank the master.”
My eyes shut tight for a moment before I open them again. Unfortunately, when I do, they drift down to their new favorite resting place: his mouth. His fine, smiling mouth.
“When did you realize it was a prank?”
“From the word guru.” Why is he still whispering like that? I need him to talk at a normal volume so my skin will stop prickling like this. So my heart will stop racing. So my mind will stop pretending this is the beginning of something. “I only said all that to get you to admit it. I would never believe you’d let my sister deliver your child after watching a few YouTube videos.”
My hands are pressing into the counter beside my thighs, and Drew’s thumb lightly brushes against my pinky. Intentionally? Yes. Look, he just did it again! My womanly organs all cheer like their home team just scored the winning goal.
I swallow. “Oh, okay.” I sound drunk. Wonderful.
And then Lucy’s voice cuts through the moment from the living room, and Drew dashes away from me like we’re doing something wrong before Lucy rounds the corner. Interesting.
“Hey, umm, guys? Can I leave yet? Is the prank over? Oh shoot! Was I not supposed to say prank? I don’t think I was.”
Drew and I both chuckle, and he leans back against the sink, folding his arms. “It’s alright, Luce. The joke’s over now.”
“Oh good!” She looks relieved, but then her eyes zero in on his shirt. “But wait…you don’t look—”
“YOU DID GREAT, LUCY!” I say, a touch too loudly. I get ready to jump off the counter, but Drew catches me before I make the leap, grabbing my hips to help me down easily. I feel his hands like I’m not wearing anything at all. His touch feels dangerous, and I want to shake him off like a wet dog. I brush by him without making eye contact and put my hand around Lucy’s shoulders, guiding her toward the front door. “Really. You did amazing. Thanks for your help.” I’m trying to send her telepathic vibes not to mention the prank anymore.
Mercifully, she understands and leaves with only a quiet smirk and a last glance at Drew. Once she’s gone, Drew and I stand in the living room. He has a gloaty smile on his face just like I imagined he would.
“Yes, fine, you’re the supreme pranker. I bow to you, great sir.”
“Thank you. That’s all I want to hear…every day from now on please.”
I narrow my eyes. “Fat chance.”
Drew’s gaze is glittering. He’s so proud of himself. “I’m going to go change out of these scrubs, and then I’ll make us some dinner. I think it’s the least I can do for thwarting your plans so epically.”
He’s backing toward his bedroom, which is situated just off the living room. I need to hold his attention for approximately ten steps. “Wow, how noble of you. And just what sort of dinner do you make for losers?”
“Comfort food. Maybe chicken soup?” One more step. “I’ll even t
hrow in some crackers and a warm blanket to drape over your lap, because I’m nice like that.”
Drew barely gets his last word out before pushing open his cracked bedroom door, causing a bucket of water to rain down on his beautiful head. His whole body goes instantly rigid, shoulders bunched, wet eyelashes blinking like windshield wipers, mouth open. I am doubled over laughing, completely unrepentant.
“You!” Snort. “Fell.” Another laughing snort. “Right into.” I have to wipe my laughing tear away. “My trap!”
Drew still hasn’t moved. He’s soaked to the bone, and his scrubs cling to his muscled body in a way that almost makes it feel like the joke is on me. His head begins to shake side to side in slow deliberate motions. “This was the real prank, wasn’t it?”
I’m still laughing so hard I can’t speak, so I settle for a nod.
“The guru bit was just a decoy?”
I nod again. Drew is clever and observant, so I knew he’d spot the bucket-of-water-above-the-cracked-door trick a mile away if he wasn’t distracted. I needed to get him high enough on his own success to dull the rest of his senses, disarm him before the main event. I’m brilliant, and I tell him so in his own words.
Pointing a theatrical finger in his direction, I declare, as if I’m in a Machiavellian play, “Never try to prank the master!”
And then, to my complete dismay, Drew smiles a megawatt smile that blinds me for the rest of eternity. His teeth sparkle and his eyes crinkle in the corners with pure and unadulterated happiness. His soaked shoulders shake and water drips from locks of his wavy hair down his square jaw, and I want to weep at how handsome he is. Drew is looking at me, and he looks completely happy. He does not overreact; he does not say mean things—he laughs. Unfortunately, he does not get put back in the obnoxious category.
