The Best Laid Plans

by Lauren Gallagher

  “Okay. Let’s go back to my place. It’s closer, and I’ve got booze.”

  “Oh my God. Booze. Yes please.”

  I kissed her forehead. “I can drive, you know.”

  “I’ll be okay.” Swallowing hard, she looked around and shivered. “I don’t really want to have to come back later and get my car.”

  Yeah. I got that. I didn’t have any desire to come back here either.

  “Okay. Stay behind me, but if you need to stop or anything, flash your lights.”

  “I will.” She smiled, though it was obviously forced. “Thank you. And thank you for being there with me. It made a big difference.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Kendra

  I followed Gabe out of the parking lot, and I was grateful to have his car as something to focus on. Though I was steady enough to drive, that little bit of reassuring “follow me” helped.

  He lived closer, so we headed toward his place. That was a relief—I wasn’t quite ready to be alone.

  I didn’t feel anything yet. Just bone-deep numbness and the sense that the world had been yanked out from under me. That I’d been blindsided by a diagnosis that hadn’t even occurred to me. So what if we’d been trying for a while now and I wasn’t pregnant yet? Sometimes it took time. I hadn’t been worried. Besides, we were all enjoying the process, so why rush things?

  I hadn’t seen this coming. At all. And I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel.

  One of the other teachers had lost her fertility to cancer treatments, and she’d said she felt less like a woman. Like a defining part of herself and her identity were gone. I hadn’t been able to relate to that then, and I still didn’t now. My life wasn’t defined by my family plans. I hadn’t even been sure yet if I wanted kids of my own.

  But the choice was gone now. Decided for me by a biological fuck-up that should’ve been diagnosed years ago. I was angry with my past physicians for not checking to make sure my painful periods weren’t a sign of something more serious. I was livid over the negligence, the laziness.

  Mostly, though, I was in shock. I couldn’t grasp that I was, most likely, physically unable to have children. One of the simplest tasks of being a sexually reproducing animal, and I couldn’t do it. I could teach the facts of life to my students—several of whom would be parents before graduation—but couldn’t go through them myself. I could best athletes in several different sports, I’d graduated in the top five in high school and college, and could out-negotiate a used-car salesman, but when it came to the simplest, most basic piece of biology…I failed.

  At a red light, I drummed my nails rapidly on the wheel. I supposed I could always adopt when I finally settled down with someone. Or I could be perfectly happy without children. This wasn’t the end of my world, especially since I’d never had a burning desire to start a family.

  So why was this bothering me so much?

  The light turned green, and I continued after Gabe. When we reached their place, he parked in the driveway, and I parked on the curb. As I got out of my car, he was waiting for me beside his.

  We walked inside together. In the foyer, he put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple. “How are you holding up?”

  “Okay.” No, I’m not okay. Why am I not okay? “I guess.” I lifted my chin and met his gaze. God, he was really fighting to be strong for me, wasn’t he? Though his expression was stoic, his lips were a little tighter than usual, and he couldn’t hide the faint redness or the extra wetness in his eyes.

  Because he and Shahid had put all their chips on me.

  They’d deactivated their file at the adoption agency. They’d had hope again after being turned down time and again.

  “If this doesn’t work,” Shahid had said with a shrug, “then it wasn’t meant to be.”

  This was their Hail Mary.

  And it missed.

  Because I couldn’t have their—or anyone else’s—baby.

  “Gabe.” I put my hand to my lips, my eyes stinging. “I am so sorry.”

  “What?” He blinked. “You’re—Jesus, Kendra.” He wrapped his arms around me. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

  “But what are you guys going to do?”

  Gabe flinched subtly—I probably wouldn’t have caught it if he hadn’t been holding me so close. He stared at nothing for a long time. I started to wonder if he hadn’t heard me, and I took a breath to repeat the question, but right then, he sighed and shook his head again.

  “I have no idea.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “But don’t ever think for a second that Shahid and I aren’t grateful you were even willing to do this. You couldn’t have known…” He stroked my hair and held me tighter.

  “But what will you guys—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He tipped up my chin and met my gaze. “Shahid and I will be fine. It’s you I’m concerned about.”

  And then he kissed me.

  Softly, just his lips against mine, but it weakened my knees anyway. It had been less than an hour since the doctor had spoken those earth-stopping words, but Gabe’s kiss seemed like the first thing that had felt good in ages. I held him tighter, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and silently begging him not to let me go.

  Please don’t take this away.

  He didn’t let me go. In fact, he drew me closer, and as our bodies pressed against each other, he kept his hips back, as if he didn’t want me to feel how hard he was. He probably didn’t want me to think he was going to take advantage of me in a moment of vulnerability, but damn it, I needed him like that. I pushed him back against the couch, straddled him and ground my hips across his thick hard-on.

  “Fuck,” he whispered against my lips.

  “That sounds like a good idea.” I wasn’t in the mood for anything, but right then, it was either drag him down and fuck him, or crumble to the floor and cry. And I wasn’t ready to fall apart yet.

  “We don’t have to—”

  “Please,” I whispered. “I need—”

  He kissed me again.

  Clothes came off like they were held on by spider webs. The room was silent except for the whisper of skin on skin, and the sofa creaking softly beneath our combined weight as we lay down together.

  We buried our faces in each other’s necks, and didn’t make a sound as he thrust inside me. My eyes stung. My chest hurt. But God, he felt good. And all that mattered right now was something that didn’t hurt, and being wrapped up in his arms like this didn’t hurt, so I surrendered completely to it. I shut out anything that wasn’t the softness of his skin, the warmth of his breath, the delicious sensations of him fucking me.

  Some evil voice in my head tried to tell me this was pointless, that there was no reason to have sex, to make him come, because getting pregnant was off the table.

  But I didn’t care about getting pregnant right then. I cared about being this close to Gabe. Feeling him against me, on top of me, in my arms, inside me—being held and touched and pretending the doctor’s news had just been a bad dream. I loved sex that was so rough it was painful, but this time, I needed this because it was the only thing that didn’t hurt.

  “Oh God,” he groaned, and thrust all the way inside me. I hooked my leg around his, rocked my hips and did everything I could to keep his orgasm going and going and going until he finally collapsed on top of me.

  Holding him tight, I stroked his hair as we both caught our breath. I didn’t come, and I didn’t care.

  This felt good. I felt good.

  Nothing else mattered.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Shahid

  When I got home that evening, Kendra had parked outside. No surprise there—I’d long ago gotten used to the sight of her car on the curb, and in recent months,
it made me grin to myself. There was no telling how the evenings would play out these days.

  I went inside, and as I unpacked my lunch dishes, soft footsteps came in behind me. I turned around to see Gabe in a pair of black running pants and nothing else.

  Instantly, my heart clenched. He looked dazed, and not in the “I just had some amazing sex” kind of way.

  I left my lunch bag and came around the island. “What’s wrong?” Then I remembered the car outside. “Where’s Kendra?”

  He swallowed. “She’s asleep. Upstairs.”

  I studied him. “Is everything okay?”

  Gabe took one of those deep breaths that meant he was about to break some difficult news. I rested a hand on the island, heart thumping.

  He kept his gaze down. “I… The specifics are kind of a blur.” He met my eyes. “But her doctor thinks her odds of getting pregnant and carrying to term are not good.”

  My throat tightened.

  Gabe’s shoulders dropped, and his voice wavered a little. “From the sound of it, the odds are slim to none. Even with medical intervention.”

  And just like that, my heart went from pounding in my chest to dropping straight to my feet. I wrapped my arms around Gabe.

  For a long time, we stood there in silence, and he held on to me while I let the reality sink in. So that was it. Our last chance had failed. It may have been Allah’s will, and I’d accept it and make peace with it, but it still hurt.

  I kissed the top of Gabe’s head. “Is Kendra okay?”

  “She’s…stoic, for lack of a better word.”

  “So, anyone’s guess?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “What about you?”

  He drew back a little but didn’t look me in the eye. “I’ll be…”

  “Gabe.” I tipped his chin up. “Are you okay?”

  The extra shine in his eyes answered me well enough, so I pulled him to me again and stroked his hair.

  “I’ll be all right,” he said after a while. “I’m worried about Kendra, though.”

  “Me too. Maybe I should go up and see how she’s doing.”

  He nodded. “I think I’m going to have a drink.”

  I pressed my lips together but didn’t comment. Gabe wasn’t a heavy drinker, so this shouldn’t have bothered me. In fact, I was half tempted to join him.

  But as I let him go and he searched the fridge for a beer, annoyance threatened to make my blood boil. As if that beer was on par with a postcoital cigarette. Which didn’t make any sense but irritated me anyway.

  Don’t lash out. This isn’t what’s upsetting you.

  I inhaled deeply through my nose, willing myself to calm down. “I’m going to go check on her.”

  “Okay.”

  The crack-hiss of the beer bottle raised my hackles, so I hurried out of the kitchen and up the stairs before we started fighting for no reason over something that didn’t even make sense. We were both rattled. It was easy to find any reason imaginable to start a fight just so we had an outlet for all this frustration.

  Not tonight. We weren’t going there tonight.

  Outside our bedroom, I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts. Kendra didn’t need me gnashing my teeth over this situation. She was probably upset enough as it was.

  When I’d calmed myself down a little, I stepped into the room.

  The covers were draped over her, but her bare shoulder was visible. A twinge of something I couldn’t quite identify hit me.

  You really did it, Gabe? She can’t get pregnant, but you two still slept together?

  I pushed that thought away as I sat on the edge of the bed. “Hey.”

  “Shahid?” she murmured, and turned over. “Hey. What time is it?”

  “Almost seven.”

  “Wow.” She held the covers against her chest as she sat up. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”

  How long have you two been here?

  She ran her hand through her slightly disheveled hair. “I assume Gabe told you?”

  I nodded. Her eyes started to well up, so I wrapped my arms around her, and she rested her head on my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I know, but you guys…” She sighed heavily.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.” She looked up at me. “Do you?”

  “It can wait. It still needs to sink in a bit, I guess.”

  She winced. “I am so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, Kendra.” I pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “And if there’s anything we can do for you, say the word.”

  “Nothing really anyone can do.” She sank against me. “I guess I should have had everything checked out before I made the offer to you guys. So I didn’t get anybody’s hopes up.”

  I held her tighter. “Don’t blame yourself for any of this.”

  She said nothing and just leaned. Arms around her, I stroked her hair and quietly let everything sink in.

  My mind should have been reeling from the fact that what was quite possibly our last chance at parenthood had been yanked out from under us. And I was. But the loudest thought in my heads pertained to the exhausted, naked woman in my arms. In my bed.

  This wasn’t something we’d discussed in the beginning. I supposed none of us had considered this possibility, never mind what it would mean for our arrangement. Was I wrong to be upset? Were they wrong to have slept together? What was I supposed to feel right now?

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to banish those thoughts. Clearly this was just my brain trying to redirect me away from what should’ve really been upsetting me—that we were, once again, back to square one.

  Kendra sniffed.

  I smoothed her hair. “You okay?”

  “I will be.” As she drew back, she smiled despite the tears in her eyes. “I don’t know how I get through anything without you guys.”

  Jealousy twisted in my chest, followed immediately by guilt. Could I really blame her for needing comfort today?

  Maybe when that comfort was being in bed with my husband, yes.

  Except they’d been sleeping together with my blessing all this time.

  When there was a possibility of conception.

  Which there wasn’t now.

  “Shahid?” Her brow furrowed. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I brushed a strand of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. “Just trying to get my head around everything, I guess.”

  Like whether or not I have any right to be angry.

  Part of me wanted to ask her what the doctor had said, but I bit that question back. There’d be time to sort out medical details later. Tonight was for regrouping and figuring out what to do next.

  So…what did we do next?

  * * * * *

  We invited Kendra to stay for a late dinner, but she bowed out.

  “I don’t really feel like eating, to be honest,” she said. “And I’ve got papers. Stuff to grade.”

  Gabe and I exchanged glances but didn’t try to stop her. When Kendra wanted to be by herself, that was that. She needed her space, and we weren’t going to get in her way.

  After she’d left, the whole house felt like it had been jarred off its foundation. As if all the pictures on the walls were crooked, the stairs were uneven, and the hallways veered off in weird directions as the floors pitched and rolled. It all looked the same, of course, but everything was wrong.

  As Gabe went through the mail—probably needing something to do, since I was the one who usually went through it—I leaned against the kitchen counter. “So, I, um, have a question about something.”

  He pushed the mail aside and turned around. “Sure.”

  “When I got home tonight, Ken
dra was in our bed. It doesn’t really take a rocket scientist to figure out what the two of you were doing.”

  He nodded slowly, eyebrows up as if to say go on.

  I shifted my weight and started to fold my arms, but then lowered them, resting one hand on the counter as if that could possibly make me look anywhere in the ballpark of relaxed. “So, she finds out she can’t get pregnant, and the first thing you two do…”

  Gabe straightened. “Oh. Uh.” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t even think about it, to be honest.”

  I tried not to fidget, but it was a struggle.

  Gabe sighed. “Look, we were both upset, and talking was only making it worse.”

  “Yeah, but…” But that wasn’t the deal. This wasn’t supposed to be… You weren’t supposed to… “Gabe, don’t you think that’s crossing a line? I mean, after her appointment, the first thing the two of you did was come back home and sleep together?”

  “She was upset. We were—”

  “And I’m supposed to be okay with you sleeping with someone else for comfort?”

  Gabe blinked. He put up his hands. “Look, you know damn well I’d never cheat on you, Shahid. But we’ve been having sex enough that it was…that when she was upset and needed someone, it seemed like the right thing in the moment.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Even when the whole point of either of us sleeping with her was for her to get pregnant, which is now—”

  “Look, she’s really upset about what her doctor said. So was I! And I mean, what was I supposed to do? Tell her I could comfort her, but oh by the way, I’m not touching you because of the very thing you’re upset—”

  “How can either of you not understand why sex isn’t the most appropriate thing right now?” I threw up my hands. “Gabe, listen to yourself. You and she aren’t lovers. The sex was there only so we could have a baby. I thought that was clear.”

  He held my gaze, and slowly, his eyebrows rose. Flinching, he broke eye contact and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re right.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry, Shahid. I promise, I didn’t do it to hurt you. I—”