by Lili Valente
I just know that Arnold had an evil power over you, that’s all. Probably because he’s evil and stupidly good-looking and talks a good game for a person who is a complete waste of human flesh.
*
Amanda: He does talk a good game, but that game doesn’t work with me anymore. It’s over with him. Forever.
*
Diana: Good. Though that does leave me wondering…
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Amanda: My due date is in April.
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Diana. In April…
Oh wow…
So it’s Sexy Stranger’s?!!! From 80s night?!!!
*
Amanda: It is.
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Diana: Oh my God…
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Amanda: You said that already.
*
Diana: I know. Sorry. This is a lot to take in.
So what have you decided? Have you decided? Do you need help deciding? I can be there in ninety minutes if you need me. I know I’m a boring old married lady now, but I’m always here if you need me.
*
Amanda: You are not old, and you’ll never be boring, but thank you.
That means a lot to me. I’m getting kind of choked up about it, actually, but that’s not unusual these days. Pregnancy hormones are the worst.
*
Diana: I can imagine. Normal hormones are bad enough. I’m going to murder someone one of these days if they cut me off in traffic at the wrong time of the month and sharp objects are close at hand.
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Amanda: Justified. Any jury would acquit you.
*
Diana: Probably. So, are you deliberately avoiding answering my question?
If so, I don’t want to push, but if not, I’m kind of on pins and needles here…
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Amanda: Sorry. Yes, I’ve decided. I’m going through with the pregnancy, and I’m going to keep the baby. I’ve always wanted kids, and twenty-eight is a perfectly reasonable and responsible age to become a mother, so…
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Diana: It is. And you will be the best mother any baby ever had. There is no doubt in my mind. And I’ll be there to help any time you need me. Tanner and me, both. He doesn’t have younger siblings the way I do, but he’s very paternal with his pig, and I have no doubt he’ll be a brilliant co-babysitter. We’ll be your backup parental units any time you need a break.
*
Amanda: Ugh. Now I’m crying for real.
Why do you have to be such a great fucking friend?
*
Diana: Because I like to make you cry. I like to shower you with my sweet love and then watch your gratitude spill out of your pretty melted-chocolate eyeballs while I soak up your tear juice on a sponge.
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Amanda: Now I’m laughing and crying. There’s snot everywhere. It’s gross.
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Diana: You’re welcome. I love you.
*
Amanda: I love you, too.
*
Diana: That works out, then.
So…in other wonderings…
Are you going to tell Sexy Stranger? I mean, assuming you can find him again, since you didn’t take my advice and at least write down his address before you made a break for it the morning after your night of sweet lovemaking.
*
Amanda: Yeah… About that…
He’s not a stranger anymore. He’s a friend. Sort of.
And he knows about the baby, and he’s being totally, unexpectedly great about it, and I just finished moving into his pool house.
*
Diana: WHAT??!!!
*
Amanda’s phone rings
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Amanda: Don’t call me! I don’t want to talk on the phone right now!
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Diana: Pick up the phone, woman!!
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Amanda’s phone rings
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Amanda: I can keep denying these all day long.
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Diana: And I can keep calling back all day long. So pick up the phone!!
I need to know why you’ve moved in with a stranger!
What if he’s a crazy person!
What if he’s secretly planning to kill you in your sleep so he won’t have to pay child support for eighteen years? I know that these aren’t the things a trusting soul like yourself worries about, but as someone who understands that at least twenty percent of the population is composed of crazy and/or evil people, I need to make sure you aren’t putting yourself in danger.
*
Amanda: I’m not in danger. I promise. He’s a good guy.
Bossy and opinionated, but good.
*
Diana: You can’t know that for sure.
No offense, but you’ve spent all of—what—twelve hours with this guy before now? Twelve hours during which very little talking happened, and you were so tipsy you said yourself there were gaps in your memory the morning after.
*
Amanda: I know for sure because it turns out he’s a friend of a friend.
And the friend in question is someone whose judgment I trust.
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Diana: Oh yeah? And who is this friend?
Because I’ll be honest, some of your friends are not as street smart as I am. Nice, yes, but nice isn’t going to keep you from getting murdered in your sleep.
*
Amanda: Your husband is the friend.
And Sexy Stranger was his best man.
*
Amanda’s phone rings
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Amanda: I’m not picking up.
*
Amanda’s phone rings
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Amanda: I’m seriously not picking up. If you keep calling, I’m going to turn my phone off, and we’ll just have to talk about this later.
*
Amanda’s phone rings
*
Amanda: Alexi is helping me move into the pool house right now, Diana.
I seriously can’t talk or he will HEAR me. And I have things to discuss with you that I would rather he NOT hear, okay?
Can you please be reasonable for once in your life?!
*
Amanda’s phone rings
*
Amanda: All right. Then I’ll talk to you on Tuesday. Enjoy the rest of your honeymoon. I love you. Please don’t worry. Everything is going to be okay.
*
Amanda’s phone rings
*
*Amanda turns phone off*
Chapter 8
Amanda
*
By the time Alexi and the team of bulky, scowly, Russian-speaking movers he summoned finish moving my furniture into his garage—where he nicely offered to store it until I figure out what I want to do with my few measly possessions—and the rest of my belongings have been dispensed to various corners of the pool house, it’s nearly six o’clock, and Alexi is offering to feed me again.
But considering the last time we ate together I barely resisted the urge to jump his bones and ravish him on top of a bistro table still covered with half-eaten French toast, I plead exhaustion, tell him I want to settle into my new digs, and show him to the door.
“You’re sure? It’s no trouble.” He hesitates in the doorway, his shoulders so broad they block most of the light from the setting sun, which glows orange and lovely through the trees that shade the estate.
This place is way too sprawling, and fancy to be called a mere house or, heaven forbid, a backyard. The main home is a craftsman masterpiece of dark, polished wood decorated with tasteful red accents. It looks relatively modest from across the wide lawn, but I know for a fact it’s large enough to get lost in and has at least five bedrooms and a massive kitchen tricked out with two ovens, two dishwashers, and enough upmarket food prep equipment to outfit a five-star restaurant.
But though the avid amateur chef in me drools with excitement at the thought of getting back into that kitchen to try out the upright blender, and the wom
an in me is dying to find out if Alexi knows what to do with all those fancy kitchen tools he’s acquired, it’s important to start as you mean to continue. And I intend to lead my own life, separate from Alexi’s, aside from our mutual interest in our child’s well-being. Spending my first night here hanging out at his place, letting him cook for me, sets the wrong tone.
As does all the accidental and not-so-accidental touching we’ve been doing since he rushed in to rescue me this morning, which is why I’m careful not to get too close as I put my hand on the door, ready to close it as soon as he steps outside.
“I’m sure,” I say with a friendly, but not too friendly smile. “I’ll just make a sandwich and get back to settling in. I’m working a lot this week, so I won’t have time to unpack if I don’t do it now.”
The furrow between his brows deepens. “You’re not working too much, are you? Your doctor said it was okay for you to be on your feet, even with the dizzy spells? Because if you need to work less, I’m happy for you to stay here for free.”
“Uh-uh.” I wag a finger between us. “That’s not the bargain. I pay you rent, you take the rent, you buy things you need with the rent. That’s what we agreed on.”
“All right. But your health is more valuable to me than a few extra bucks,” he says, making my heart do that swooping, melting, fluttering thing it did this morning when he told me I was going to be beautiful, even when I’m as big as a blimp. “Please keep that in mind.”
“I will,” I promise, wishing him good night and closing the door before I do something stupid like swoon into his chivalrous arms.
Whoever said chivalry was dead has clearly never met Alexi Petrov. He’s been so incredible that I’m even more terrified to tell my mother about the pregnancy than I was before.
My mother is a wonderful, devoted, selfless person, but she’s lived through some dark days, days that instilled in her a determination to expect disappointment and prepare for the apocalypse. I know she’s going to urge me to lawyer up ASAP and get promises on paper before Alexi can run off and leave me to support our child alone, the way my father left her years ago. She’s going to foretell doom all around. Doom for this baby, who will never know what it’s like to live with both her parents. Doom for my relationship with Alexi, who can’t possibly be as kind and honorable as he seems. And doom for my prospects, which will be drastically reduced now that I’ve become a single mother who will have to balance the demands of my job with the demands of motherhood.
“No doom,” I mutter as I open the curtains on the far side of the combination living room/kitchen, revealing a view of the Art Deco pool with intricate yellow and blue tiles on the bottom and a carefully maintained garden surrounding the water.
I’ll have to tell my mother about the pregnancy eventually—and turn my phone back on and call Diana, who I know won’t be satisfied with waiting to chat until Tuesday—but tonight I want to enjoy the view, the peace, and the cozy luxury of my new home.
But first, to feed the little alien making me feel like I need to devour a hooved animal whole every few hours.
I do some poking around in the refrigerator, which Alexi’s housekeeper keeps stocked with a few basic items, and find bread, butter, and cheese. With my stomach already growling, I make a grilled cheese sandwich, the crusts of which I dip into some gourmet tomato soup that was also lurking in the fridge. When I run out of crust before I run out of soup, I make a second grill cheese and devour it, as well, refusing to feel shame for consuming more calories than the still tiny fetus inside of me requires for her healthy development.
I’m hungry, damn it. And a sexy-as-hell man told me I was beautiful today, and I actually feel beautiful for the first time in a long time.
Since the night I spent in his bed, now that I think about it…
“Don’t think about it,” I order myself as I wash down my grilled cheese with a glass of milk and arrange my dirty dishes in the dishwasher before heading into the bedroom to unpack my clothes.
The bed is a super-soft-looking white cloud floating in the center of the pale-yellow room, and as soon as I lay eyes on it, all I want to do is take my perpetually exhausted pregnant self to bed and sleep for a solid twelve or fourteen hours. But my work schedule truly is crazy this week, and if nothing else, I at least need to get my scrubs unpacked before I succumb to sleep.
I flip open the boxes sitting on the bench at the end of the bed and then move to the chest of drawers behind me, sliding open the wide, shallow drawer where I intend to put my lingerie.
Unfortunately, the giant, hairy spider inside the drawer has other plans.
As light spills into its lair, the monster crouches low then leaps to perch on the edge of the open drawer before I can slam it closed again.
With a squeal of terror, I back away from the bureau, fumbling in the box behind me for a weapon as the spider springs once more, soaring through the air to land on the carpet near my bare foot, where it then makes a beeline for the dark recesses under the bed.
“Like hell, spider!” My grasping fingers latch onto something solid inside the box, and I lunge for the floor, weapon brandished high.
There’s no way I’m letting that nightmare escape. It has to either die or be relocated to the outdoors before I go to sleep, or I’m going to spend the entire night lying in a puddle of my own terror-sweat, waiting for it to deliver the bite of death. I’m not scared of bugs in general, but by God, a spider isn’t a bug, it’s an eight-legged devil escaped from the depths of hell to torment humanity with its creepiness, and I will not tolerate its presence in my new home, let alone beneath my bed.
Gripping the thick, cylindrical object I’ve fetched from my box tightly, I bring it down on the carpet in front of the spider. The lightning-swift beast abruptly changes directions, hauling thorax back toward the bureau.
But it will find no safety there. My big-ass dildo and I are going to make sure of it.
Months ago, I jokingly asked Diana to buy me a dildo because I needed a battery-operated boyfriend post-breakup but was too embarrassed to buy one for myself. And of course, Dee thought it was hilarious to have the most enormous, hideously veiny rubber penis and balls I’ve ever seen delivered to my new apartment, indicating in her order that the messenger should tote it over in the box, with the picture of the giant cock clearly visible on the front. Because that’s the kind of thing my often-strapped-for-cash best friend is willing to drop eighty bucks on. Giant dildos and the priceless joy of embarrassing me in front of the old woman who lives across the hall and the blushing delivery boy who was beet red and sweating profusely by the time he reached my door.
As soon as I tipped the poor man, I tossed the one-eyed monstrosity in my lingerie drawer to hide its shame beneath my panties, tore the box into pieces I wasn’t too mortified to recycle, and called Diana to congratulate her on her prank victory. Because really, I should have known better than to ask her for a sex toy. It’s not like I couldn’t have predicted how a person I’ve known since childhood would respond to a request like that.
By the time I got off the phone two hours later, after hearing all of Diana’s news and promising we’d talk more often instead of texting most of the time—lies—I’d forgotten about the dildo.
But the dildo didn’t forget about me. It stayed right there in my lingerie drawer, peeking its creepy veined head out to stare at me whenever I let my supply of clean laundry get too low. I kept meaning to throw it away, but I never mustered the gumption to grab it by the balls and tote it to the garbage can.
Now, as I chase this mutant arachnid across the carpet, getting closer to squashing it with every whomp of my giant dong, I’m so glad I didn’t toss the stupid thing. This dildo is sparing me the trauma of being forced to smush a monster spider with my bare foot. I’m so grateful that I silently promise I’ll keep Mr. Veiny in my panty drawer forever as long as he slays my enemy before bedtime.
With a battle cry worthy of an Amazon warrior princess, I bring the schlong d
own on the spider’s chubby body, but the devil spawn refuses to die. Instead, it manages to crawl up on top of the fake penis to perch menacingly on the cock’s bulging head, staring straight into my soul with a gajillion creepy eyes.
My battle cry transforms to an ear-splitting scream as I hurl the dildo across the room, where it smacks into the wall inches from the door Alexi has just barged through with his fists raised, clearly ready to defend me for a second time today. He looks as strong and capable as ever, and I’ve never been more grateful to see another human wearing creepy-crawly-crushing shoes in my life.
“Spider!” I jab a finger at the floor, where the eight-legged abomination is once again scuttling toward the bureau in search of sanctuary. “Smush it! Smush it quick!”
Showcasing his athlete’s reflexes, bravery, and complete absence of arachnophobia, Alexi reaches down, snatching the spider up in one big hand.
“Oh my God, don’t touch it!” I screech, fingers clawing at my neck in panic as he crosses to the open window, knocks out the screen with his free fist, and drops the spider out into the autumn evening with the other.
As the intruder falls to the ground, I spring to my feet, rushing to Alexi’s side, ready to provide medical attention. “Let me see! Where did it bite you?”
“It didn’t bite me. I’m fine,” he says in such a calm voice I’m pretty sure he’s already going into shock.
I take his hand gently in mine, turning it over to search his wide palm for puncture wounds. “It’s okay,” I soothe in my calmest nurse-in-control-of-the-situation voice. “Spider bites are only fatal in cases where you can’t get medical attention, and we’re going to get you to the ER so fast you won’t have time to fish your insurance card out of your wallet. Everything is going to be fine. Just let me get my keys.”
A rumbling sound emanates from his chest, and I look up to see the crazy bastard grinning. “Are you laughing?”
“Of course not,” he says, rumbling again.
“This isn’t funny,” I say, eyes widening. “The poison could be working its way through your bloodstream as we speak.”
His head falls back, granting me a glimpse of his shiny white molars as his rumble becomes a full-blown LOL moment.
I have no choice but to whip out the big guns. “You could be dying, Alexi. Spider bites can be fatal. I don’t want to scare you, but—”
