by Amber Lin
God, Chloe, why? After I worked so freaking hard so you could start college, why couldn’t you be more careful?
Okay, she might be angry.
She swallowed. So maybe this weekend could be for her too. She would find the baby’s father, but she’d also find something for herself.
With a deep breath, she struggled for levity. A lopsided tilt of her lips was all she could manage. “Where do I sign?” she joked.
His grin widened, revealing an even row of white teeth. The Cheshire cat had just such a smile. “I’m so glad you asked. I have blank copies of my contract in the side table. Right next to the lube.”
Chapter Four
Chloe stared at the white oval, willing a second blue line not to appear. It did. Just like it had for the last seven strips. She’d also been disappointed by a red circle, a pink plus, and the word Not never forming in front of the word Pregnant.
She tossed the current plastic stick into the little trash can overflowing with cardboard packaging and instructions. Stupid. She was stupid for taking so many tests, as if they could all be wrong, as if the doctor’s office could have been wrong.
It was just like when her mother left behind that hastily scrawled phone number. Chloe had called the number again and again. Even when Hailey shook her head and said Mom wasn’t coming back, Chloe had waited until her sister went to sleep and then dialed the number so many times she could hear the disconnected chime in her dreams. Her sister had always been smarter.
Getting pregnant at nineteen was stupid too, but Chloe couldn’t think about that right now. She was still here, in this place of uncertainty and possibilities. The maybe I’m somehow not pregnant possibility.
But she was. She’d known it since she missed her first period while on tour with Half-Life. She’d felt something, someone inside her, even though the Internet claimed it was too soon to know. In denial, she’d packed up and boarded a Greyhound without even sending so much as a text to…well, without telling a soul.
Sitting on the toilet, she put her head in her hands.
Options. She needed to consider her options. There should be a flowchart for this situation that asked you questions and led you to the right answer.
At the very top it would ask, What would you say if a cute guy offers to teach you guitar? Yes.
If he plays you a song about love lost and then kisses you, what then?
If you’re both drunk on lust, and he just wants to see what it would be like, just wants to feel you without anything between you, would you do it?
But she couldn’t blame it on him. She’d wanted to feel him too, and it had felt insanely good, impossibly sweet, like for the first time she wasn’t having sex, she was making love. He’d pulled out, but not soon enough, obviously.
Stupid.
She sighed. The next rectangle in the flowchart would ask, Did you get pregnant? And yes, she had. She could admit that now, after using up an entire shelf at the drugstore.
Next box in the chart. Do you want an abortion? No, not when she already felt the little alien inside her. Adoption? Better, but she wasn’t sure about that either. Her mother had left them, but Chloe had been okay because she had Hailey. Hailey to make sure she did her homework and Hailey to set her curfew. Hailey to hold her when she came home crying because she was pregnant. She couldn’t be sure her child would have that. And she refused to make Hailey be a mother to another child she hadn’t given birth to. So, the only person Chloe could count on to be a mother to this child was herself.
She wanted to be a good mother to her child. Strange but true.
All she had to do, then, was figure out how to be Hailey.
Where was her sister anyway? Weren’t you just saying you’d rely on yourself, not her? Okay, but still, it was weird. The ever-responsible Hailey had disappeared without telling Chloe where she’d gone.
Chloe left the bathroom and stood in the open doorway to Hailey’s empty room as if it might hold a clue, as if a brochure to Tahiti might have been left on the nightstand. Maybe with the tagline Stressed because your baby sister got herself knocked up? Well, come on down to our resort and relax. Chloe wouldn’t even blame her.
But it was weird.
The bed was made. Of course. The nightstand was clear of everything except a book her sister had been reading, with its pages dog-eared. The closet looked undisturbed, with not enough missing to really suggest a long trip. Even those sensible green crocs were in their proper cubby. Hailey loved those crocs.
Chloe pulled her phone from her pocket and found her sister’s name. Seriously, where are you?
A few minutes later the response came. I told you, I’m fine. Don’t worry.
Well of course she was fine. This was Hailey, who always had her shit together, who always did the right thing. But it didn’t really answer the question. Where the hell was she?
A little bubble on the screen indicated she had other text messages from someone else. She didn’t want to look. She wasn’t going to look.
She looked.
Hey, I heard you left the tour
Did something happen? Are you okay?
Call me
She winced. Fuck. She could just imagine his expression too, a mixture of frustration and concern. She hadn’t even been sure he cared about her when she left. Maybe she’d just been a convenient lay.
She was used to being a convenient lay, really.
Between the guys at her high school and the random hookups at concerts, it had been a leapfrog game of sex that she’d found exciting at first. And then just tiring. Except for him. He’d been…something different. Something real, until she’d gotten scared and split.
She texted back: I’m okay. Call you soon. And then shut off her phone. Which was cowardly, but that was what he got for dealing with the irresponsible sister. Anyway, she would tell him. She’d have to.
Tonight maybe.
With a final, fruitless glance, she left her sister’s bedroom and went into her own. She was ready to fall onto the bed and possibly hide under the covers for the next nine months when something from the closet caught her eye.
Unlike Hailey’s tidy closet, Chloe’s was overflowing with clothes and bling. Satiny halter tops and a tiara. Heavy metal T-shirts and Mardi Gras beads. She kept most of her clothes for clubbing near the back. She just bunched them into a ball and threw them into a Rainbow Brite bucket. Except now they were all rolled into little symmetrical piles, and there was only one person who could fold fishnet stockings that neatly.
What the hell had Hailey been doing in her closet? They’d agreed never to cross each other’s thresholds, as if they were state lines and violation an act of war. Sure Chloe still secretly borrowed clothes occasionally, like that cardigan when she’d been Sandra Dee for Halloween. But Hailey never even wore clothes like Chloe’s, especially not the party stuff. It didn’t make sense.
She picked through all her clothes and found her platform boots missing. Her stilettos too. God, Hailey would break an ankle in those. Chloe almost had several times. Her slinky black dress was gone. A few tops. Possibly a pair of acid-washed jeans.
She sat amid the textile wreckage and shook her head. The world was turning upside down. Here she was at home alone on a Friday night. Hailey was out someplace mysterious, past curfew. Well, one thing was for sure, wherever her sister was, she was looking damn hot.
And Chloe knew where she needed to go.
*
Hailey sat at the gleaming dining room table, alone in the expansive room. She bit her lip and stared at her sister’s smiling pic on the phone screen. She had avoided calling Chloe on the way here, knowing it would change her mind. But the text messages and voice mails had already started coming. If Hailey didn’t answer for the whole weekend—the full three days of the contract—Chloe would genuinely worry.
With a sigh, Hailey pressed the CALL button.
Her sister sounded cautious. “Did you get lost picking up a movie?”
“No, I…
I forgot about movie night.” She grimaced. As explanations went, that one was weak.
There was a weighted silence. “You mean the movie night we’ve had every Friday for three years. That movie night?”
“Except for when you were gone on tour,” Hailey retorted, but it was a cheap shot. Her sister was pregnant, for God’s sake. Hailey should be there, making sure she was comfortable, making sure she ate enough.
And she would…right after this.
This was for the best. This was necessary. She had to believe that, because the alternative felt too much like history repeating itself. Absent parents and struggling to get by. No, Hailey wouldn’t let that happen.
She’d just have to say it quickly, like tearing off a Band-Aid. “I’m in Chicago. At the hotel where the band is staying.”
“What?”
“I know you said to drop it, that the father wasn’t interested and you’re fine with that, but I’m not fine with that. It’s not right for the baby to grow up without a father.”
“You realize this is the twenty-first century, right? There are women who have babies alone on purpose.”
“Well, you aren’t one of them. And those women probably have careers and…you know, money. They aren’t nineteen years old and dropping out of college, with no plan for their life.”
A huff of breath. “No, tell me how you really feel. I can take it.”
Her stomach twisted with guilt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” That sounded lame, so she added, “You know I love you.”
God, how could that sound lamer?
“I love you too,” Chloe said with that pouting voice, which helped strengthen Hailey’s resolve. Chloe was practically a baby. And now she was having a baby. Someone had to do something, and this desperate race over Illinois’s plains was the only plan she’d come up with at five p.m. today.
“Look, just tell me who the father is, and I’ll talk some sense into him.”
“I can’t believe you’re even in Chicago. Who are you, and what you have done with my sister?”
“Even if he doesn’t want to be involved with the child—after I’ve talked to him—he has a financial obligation. We should talk to a lawyer.”
“That’s definitely not happening.”
“Chloe, this isn’t money for you or me. This is money for the child.”
“Can you please stop saying the child the same way you’d say the plague or Voldemort. He can hear you, you know.”
“No, he can’t—” Hailey let out an exasperated sound because Chloe was just messing with her. That was Chloe, always casual, always chill. But this whole situation? Not casual. And Hailey was feeling a long way from chill.
“Tell me his name,” Hailey said sternly. It was her mom voice, as Chloe called it. Usually right before she said the words…
“You can’t make me.”
“I’m going to find him anyway. You’re just making this harder.”
“No, I’m making it impossible. As it should be. You’re never going to find him.”
It felt like a challenge. Was it supposed to feel like a challenge? Did Chloe secretly want her to find the father and convince him to help? Regardless, it was happening. Starting with this contract, which would give her the access she needed. Not to mention a place to stay in the swanky hotel that was probably booked solid.
“I’m going to find out who the father is,” she said softly. Fiercely. “And he’s going to help.”
That definitely came out like a challenge. Hailey didn’t want this to be a sibling-rivalry thing, but maybe it was too late for that. No matter how many times she’d said do your homework or please don’t graffiti our living room wall, she was still a sister. Not a parent.
Chloe sighed. “Oh, Sis. I love that you want to help me. I just hate the way you’re doing it.”
Hailey swallowed hard as she stared down at the printed sheets of paper in front of her. This was her own personal gauntlet, walking on the fire of her secret desires. She’d have to give Lock whatever he wanted—and get what she wanted in return. She hated it too. But she also kind of loved it.
“I’ll be home in a couple of days,” Hailey said. “In the meantime, make sure you eat enough. And go to sleep early.”
Chloe snorted. “In your dreams.”
Somewhat reassured, Hailey ended the call. At least that much was the same between them. Because so much else had changed. On a typical Friday night Hailey would be throwing popcorn at Chloe while her sister chatted through the movie. She’d read two chapters of her library book and go to sleep by eleven. Whereas today…what was she doing? It was hard to tell, even with the words spelled out in black-and-white. The gleaming sheets of paper with crisp ink might as well have been a crumbling stone wall painted with hieroglyphs. Strings of symbols her mind couldn’t comprehend.
Confidentiality Agreement, it said in bold letters at the top. And right here, she had to come to terms with the fact that he’d been serious about the contract. A real piece of paper, signed by both parties and filed…where? The Department of Rock-Star Relations? The Ministry of the Rich and Famous?
But farther down the words grew stranger. Her brain turned to mush, unable to process the bluntness of bodily available and kink allowances. She had, in the heat of the moment, agreed to do anything with him. Anything for him. But both her arousal and impulsiveness had deserted her now. She shuddered under the draft of air-conditioning above the desk.
Most of the contract was in legalese, things about nondisclosure and proprietary obligations.
She was supposed to read and sign this thing. A simple exchange, that’s all it was.
She’d get to stay here and find Hailey’s lover—and more importantly, convince him not to be a deadbeat father. And in return, she’d share Lock’s bed. Something she wanted to do anyway.
At least she had wanted to. Now she was wondering whether she had what it took. Like maybe she should stretch and do push-ups before putting on her pjs. And oh God, her pjs! The threadbare old camisole and shorts she’d packed would look ridiculous in this place.
Taking a fortifying breath, she read the rest of the contract. No monies will be exchanged. So she wasn’t going to get paid for having sex with him—should she be grateful she wasn’t sacrificing her morals?
Or offended she didn’t warrant a tip?
She might be going mad. This was all some weird, gritty Alice in Wonderland. She’d fallen down the hole, into a land where grinning cats led her up elevators and mad hatters invited her to share a Coke. Off with her head, the Queen of Hearts would say, and God. God. She was so screwed.
“You haven’t signed it yet,” he said from behind her, his breath caressing the back of her neck, sending shivers down her spine. “Having second thoughts?”
Oh, second and third and forty-seventh thoughts. “No, I just…I always read contracts before I sign them.”
“Of course you do. I bet you balance your checkbook every Sunday too.”
Hah, she did not. Unless he counted the spreadsheet she updated with the downloadable statements from her bank. Which he probably would. But there was nothing wrong with that. Money management was an important life skill.
She hated money management. She hated the downloadable statements and the spreadsheets. She did them so that Chloe could go to college—except her sister had never cared that much about her classes. She did the spreadsheets so that she wouldn’t end up like her mother, accepting a “date” to make rent. And most of all, she did them because she didn’t know how to stop. She’d never learned how to stop being responsible and boring. She’d never learned how to live.
With shaky hands, she picked up the pen and signed her name at the bottom.
“Don’t look so terrified,” he said, scrawling his name beside hers. “This is going to be fun.”
Exactly what she was afraid of. She had lived her life buttoned-up and tucked away. She never saw anything to long for or experienced anything to regret. It was a kind o
f stasis that had helped her focus on raising her sister and keeping their tiny family unit going.
Finding out about her sister’s pregnancy had torn Hailey right out of her neat little box. She’d been so focused on raising Chloe that she had barely realized she was a woman now. So when was Hailey going to stop playing surrogate? Soon there would be another child to help raise, another kid who wasn’t exactly hers but was still her responsibility. When was Hailey going to start living?
And once she started, once she knew how sweet it could be, how would she stop?
Chapter Five
Tim reached for the light pull dangling from the storage-closet ceiling, but before he could tug it, someone stepped into the darkness behind him.
Not someone. Chloe.
The door clicked shut. The strong scent of tempera paint and oak tag mingled with her vanilla perfume. His fingers curled around the frayed ribbon. He should pull it—let there be light—but he couldn’t. She’d be able to see him, see how much he wanted what he could not have. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“I need to talk to you.” Her fingertips landed softly on his shoulder, and he held his breath. One second. Two. A few moments more and the heat of her touch might leave scorch marks on the white cotton of his button-down. He’d stopped wearing T-shirts to church functions weeks ago. Even with his beard and his height, he had blended too well with the kids in the youth group.
“Let me find the board games, and then we can talk in the activity room.” He pawed at the shelves, searching for the familiar box by touch, desperate for her to leave him in peace.
“Nobody gives a shit about Yahtzee, Pastor Tim.” The light clicked on, and he fumbled. A box of Popsicle sticks clattered to the floor.
“Don’t call me that. I’m not a pastor.” He wasn’t. Youth ministry leader, sure. Pastor, no. She did that on purpose, to rile him. She’d done it for years, but it had only started to bother him this past year. She’d graduated from high school and taken over the junior youth group for the summer. They were sort of coworkers now, and what had once been a sweet schoolgirl crush had taken on a dangerous edge.
