Just A Small Town Girl: A New Adult Romantic Comedy

by Jessica Pine

  "No," I said. "But it sounds like a story worth saving for a rainy day."

  "Holy shit. I'm sorry. I'm such a fucking chickenshit. Did that even happen back there? Did you really talk Shakespeare with a guy who looked like those treemonsters from Lord of the fucking Rings?"

  "Ents," I said. "They're called Ents."

  "Ants?"

  "Ents."

  "Oh."

  I could hear him breathing. I thought I could even hear his heart, but it turned out to be mine. "So are you good to talk now?" I asked. "Because I guess the cat's out of the bag."

  He looked blankly at me and I realized he'd either not heard what I'd said in the bar or he'd been so nervous it had washed past him. As everything stacked up around us and I started to get a closer and closer look at what a total mess his life was, I'd been weighing up the pros and cons. On one hand it was a good thing that he was terrified of being beaten to death by Hell's Angels wielding motorcycle chains - a healthy regard for that kind of danger is just the kind of thing that usually bodes well for the survival of the next generation. On the other hand was a man who was still hollowing out random vegetables to make bongs really ready to become a father?

  "Yeah," he said. "Sure."

  Nope. It had flown past him. I could tell. He looked like he was starting to relax, which is not a normal look for a man in the middle of processing the words 'I'm pregnant'. Maybe it was better if I didn't set him straight, at least not yet. There was so much I still needed to think about.

  "What do you think Bob meant?" I said, instead. "About not knowing and it not being your business?"

  He shook his head. "No fucking idea. I'm going to kill Steve when I find him." He started the car. "You mind if we just take another look back in Tadley before I drop you home?"

  "No. Sure. Go ahead."

  I was far from tired, but I leaned my head against the cool of the window and closed my eyes. Part of me expected his brain to catch up with his nerves and for him to stop and say "Wait, did you say...?" but he didn't. And maybe it was for the best. For a while I'd felt like we fit, like we belonged. If he knew it would change everything. I'd be all alone again, just me and the coinflip of possibility, turning over and over in my mind. Maybe it was because I wanted so badly to go back to the way things were that I treated this like an opportunity, a God-given break. Maybe he wasn't meant to know and maybe this was the universe's way of telling me, just like he believed the universe was telling him to shape up and grow up.

  We were driving down a quiet suburban street when Clayton stalled the car. "What the fuck?" he said, peering out of the window. "What the actual fuck?"

  "What's wrong?"

  He pointed to a small, white clapboard duplex across the street. The lights were on in the upstairs window. "Steve's place," he said.

  "Oh. He's home."

  Clayton unfastened his seatbelt. "Damn right he's home. Time to give him a piece of my mind."

  He went stomping across the tiny lawn and rang the door bell. He stood there for a while. There appeared to be no answer, so I got out and went to join him at the door. He stepped back onto the lawn and stared up at the lit windows.

  "Is there a back door?" I said.

  We went round the back. Through the kitchen window I could see a light in the hallway. I tried the door, but it was locked.

  "What the fuck is he playing at?" said Clayton, bending to peer through the glass.

  "I don't know. Do you have a piece of wire? Or a screwdriver?"

  He straightened up and frowned. "Huh? Are you seriously suggesting we pick the lock? Because that only works in movies."

  "And antique stores," I said. "We get a lot of stuff with missing keys - desks, drawers, wardrobes."

  "Huh," he said. "Is there anything you can't do?"

  "You want a list?" Write books, make decisions, say things like 'You know back there when I more or less told you explicitly that I was pregnant?'

  He went the car and came back with a screwdriver. As I jiggled the lock he watched with such rapt attention that I wished things could be simple between us once again, but in every imagined scenario I was faced with the possibilities of guilt, blame, or staying together until we were sick of the goddamn sight of one another. Of all the men I could have hooked up with in a parking lot, why did I have to pick Mr. Potent? Besides, he was a stoner - I'm sure I read somewhere that pot smoking has a negative effect on male fertility. By rights his sperm should have been dog-paddling around in circles, bumping into each other and saying 'dude', but no - he had to have a team of Olympic swimmers butterflying around in his balls.

  The lock gave. "Dude," he said, impressed.

  He went into the kitchen. I followed. He called Steve's name a couple of times but there was no answer. I sneaked off up the stairs in search of the lit room I'd seen from the street, and about halfway up I heard the sound of a shower running. The bathroom door was open and light on. I could see the edge of a shower curtain; it had a pretty Greek key pattern. I remember thinking, in the light of what happened next, that it figured Steve would have a really nice shower curtain. The shower shut off and a man's voice said "Babe, can you pass me a towel?"

  Obviously there were numerous reasons why I wasn't thinking straight, so I reached for the towel rail and placed a towel in man's wet, waiting hand. Then he threw the curtain back and stood there, drying his face and poking soap out of his eyes. I admit the view was not unpleasant - long legs, strong thighs, ridiculous abs and a good sized cock. Maybe that was why I was still standing there when he lowered the towel, revealing a face that was even better than his body.

  He took one look at me and screamed.

  His pitch was impressive, particularly for a man who was clearly well past the age of puberty.

  I darted out of the bathroom, only to collide with a short, dark-haired guy who had just stepped out of the doorway opposite the bathroom. He was wearing boxer shorts and a baffled expression. At the same time Clayton came thundering up the stairs. "What happened?" he said. "Are you okay? Steve, what did you do to my girlfriend, you degenerate?"

  "I didn't do a fucking thing to your girlfriend," said the guy in the shorts.

  "Bullshit. I heard that scream."

  "Uh, actually that was me." My naked sometime Farinelli stepped forth from the bathroom, a towel wound around his fat-free waist.

  Clayton stared at him for a moment and frowned. "Trey?" he said.

  "Yes. Hi. What the fuck are you doing here?"

  About a dozen shoes dropped at once. "Oh, I see," I said. "You're..." I waved a finger between them.

  "Consenting adults," said Steve, folding his arms. "How did you get in?"

  "Lockpick," said Clayton. "She did it. She picks locks."

  "Ever the gentleman, I see."

  Clayton was unabashed. "When were you gonna tell me, dude? We've known each other since we were ten."

  Steve shook his head. "I don't know. It was a surprise to me too. It was one thing to fool around with a guy but I never expected to fall for one. It just kinda...grew."

  "You thought I'd be freaked out?" said Clayton. I thought I saw the beginnings of tears in his eyes.

  "It wasn't that. It just...grew fast, I guess. Overtook me. Of course I didn't think you'd be freaked out. God, I know you better than that."

  Trey shot me a nervous, raised eyebrow look that I understood at once. We were standing on the sidelines of something private.

  "I'm sorry," said Steve. "I should have told you."

  "You're damn fucking right you should," said Clayton. There was still hurt in his voice but he accepted Steve's shirtless hug with a warmth that made me think maybe he wouldn't be such a bad father after all.

  "You're okay?"

  "I'm great," he said, with a grin. "You can't know what it means to me to know that Trey screams like a girl."

  "Remind me to sneak up on you in the bathroom sometime," said Trey. "I nearly had a heart attack."

  Recognition finally dawned. "Oh,
it's you," I said. "I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you..."

  "...with my clothes off?"

  I could feel my face turn hot. "Yeah, I'm so sorry about that. For what it's worth, I mean - you're very...um...you know..."

  Clayton put a hand on my shoulder. "Hole. Digging. Stop."

  "Wait, you two know each other now?" said Steve, glancing between me and Trey.

  "He was in my Dad's antique store," I said. "Checking out an escritoire."

  "The roll top," said Trey.

  "But you didn't buy it."

  He shook his head. "Sorry. A little out of my price range."

  "Oh, that was just me trying a thing," I said. "Lowercase price tickets. Will you take it for five hundred?"

  "You sure?"

  "Very. I'm sick of looking at it."

  "Done. Thank you."

  They asked us to stay for coffee, which was nice of them considering I'd just broken into their house. Steve wanted me to teach him to pick locks and Clayton said I should never do anything of the sort if I valued my sanity, privacy or family silver. After only half an hour in their company I could see why Clayton had been so worried about Steve - they had history after all, ancient history. They'd traveled the universe in a spaceship made of cardboard boxes and sofa cushions and discussed the hypothetical weight, mass and trajectory of the perfect spitball. I didn't have any friends like that - not early childhood ones. When Byron got sick everyone backed away and started to get this look in their eyes - half angry, half exhausted - as if they were tired of figuring out what to say and wished you'd give them a break, stop trailing your bad luck cancer clouds all over the untroubled sunshine of their lives.

  I thought of Courtney and made a mental note to text her.

  "So you're the girl who's been giving Clayton all the heartache," said Steve, when Clayton and Trey had gone outside to smoke.

  "It's not all my fault," I said. As soon as I said I realized I sounded defensive, precious. Maybe Princess Fuckpants wasn't so far from the mark after all.

  He shook his head. "Sorry - badly worded. I meant to say you've taken up a lot of his time and attention. That's not like him."

  "It's not?"

  "To tell you the truth," said Steve. "He was kind of a hit it and quit it guy before he met you."

  "Yes. I heard."

  "You shouldn't think too badly of him," said Steve. "There are worse things to be than a slut - violent, abusive, genocidal maniac, Young Republican..."

  I laughed and he drained his coffee cup.

  "I know," I said. "I think he's a good person. I hope he is."

  "He is. He's a good guy. Generous, kind to animals, good with kids. Doesn't have a mean bone in his body. I kind of feel bad for not telling him sooner - now he's gonna think I think he's homophobic, and that's just not in his nature."

  "So why didn't you?"

  He sighed. "Oh, I don't know. You know how it is, right? You're a small town girl. Everyone knows your business. Everyone knows your damage. Sometimes it just feels good to have something that nobody else knows about. Something that doesn't get discussed and analyzed and picked over by the world and his goddamn wife."

  I nodded, although I got no joy out of keeping my secret to myself. Still, it was better than what people would say if it got out - such a waste of an expensive education, too young, four years of college and they'd have done better teaching her to read the instructions on a condom packet.

  "It's all out now," I said.

  "Yep," he said. "But it's time. Can't go sneaking around in the shadows forever - it's the twenty first century, for God's sake. Besides, if we go picking out bathroom tiles together then people are going to figure it out."

  Trey poked his head around the door. "I heard that. So you admit that your bathroom needs retiling?"

  "Retiling, maybe. Not gutting. Not what you want to do to it."

  "Oh come on - who doesn't want a walk-in shower?"

  "Steve, can I just say," said Clayton, coming in from the porch. "How nice it is to finally find someone who's got the upper hand over you?" He glanced at the kitchen clock and looked down at me. "Eesh. We'd better get you home. If that clock's right you should have turned into a pumpkin half an hour ago."

  I pictured myself swollen to nine months size. "The coach turned into a pumpkin," I said. "Cinderella turned back into a scullery maid."

  And wouldn't that be the truth? The image of myself waddling along at forty weeks was nothing compared to the grim tales of what came next - sleepless nights for months on end, a needy infant attached permanently to your hip, dishes piled sky-high in the sink because there was no time to do them, the washing machine rolling and rumbling away like Sisyphus' boulder. And where's Daddy in all this mess? Oh, Daddy's busy hollowing out a fucking rutabaga because someone once told him they made excellent bongs.

  You're inventing reasons not to tell him now, said a little voice in the back of my head. Worryingly, it sounded a lot like Aunt Cassandra. "I'll call my Dad," I said. "Let's go to your place."

  "Are you sure?"

  I nodded. I figured it was as good a time as any to ease Dad into the idea that the seasonal guy was the father of his grandchild. On the way to Clayton's I texted Courtney. I wondered what she was doing right now. Dancing in a nightclub, measuring out cups of yoghurt for next month's 'treats', or maybe she was fast asleep with her hands and feet mummified in cold cream and muslin mittens, while she snored softly behind her black marabou-trimmed sleep mask.

  going to tell him. wish me luck. xxx

  She didn't reply, but it didn't matter, because as soon as we got through the door of Clayton's trailer my foot went through the floor.

  "Oh shit," he said. "I was going to get that fixed too. Sorry."

  I was full of hormones and when he pulled me up with his strong, sinewy carpenter's arms all kinds of different parts of my brain lit up like a Christmas tree. He looked sweetly bewildered when I flattened him against the back of the door, barely giving him time to kick the carpet back over the hole in the floor. "So...we're cool, right?" he said, already breathless.

  "Fucking frosty," I said, dragging him towards the bedroom. I couldn't remember ever wanting a man inside of me like I wanted him in that instant. I stumbled backwards down the narrow hallway, so lost in the taste of his mouth that it was only when I felt the low bed against the backs of my calves that I realized we'd reached the bedroom. I fell back onto the bed and arched my back, fumbling with the clasp of my jeans. Nobody had told me about this part of pregnancy hormones; I felt irresistible. Nothing existed except for the aching, clutching sweetness between my thighs. Nothing mattered except having him inside of me.

  I flailed my jeans loose from my legs. I could feel the air cool the moisture that was already flowing between them and I knew without touching that I'd be wet - deliciously wet. Clayton whipped his own jeans down to his knees, his cock standing out so hard and proud that I let out a stupid, needy little cry. "Please," I said, as he surged over me, his hands sliding up my top, squeezing my breasts. "Please. In me. Please."

  It was lucky in that moment that we were both dumb enough to forget the lessons we'd learned; I think if he'd stopped to go find a condom I would have exploded. Maybe he just wanted to feel me without it one time before he acted like a sensible adult, but when he slid inside he made this sound, peace and pleasure and bliss all in one sigh. I was speechless with lust, my hands gripping his ass tight. Already I could feel the muscles inside me stirring, rippling in those deep seismic shivers that presage climax.

  "You're so wet," he whispered, with a kind of wonder that made me feel like a goddess.

  I rocked my hips against him. It was like the first time all over again, when I'd been so far out of my mind with wanting him that I talked like a porn star. "Fuck me," I begged. "Please. I need to come."

  He didn't hold back. I turned my head and I could see us in the wardrobe mirror; is there any sight so arousing as a man's hips between a woman's legs? He was so good, so gen
erous, despite the fact that he was holding back so hard that he almost bit a hole in his lower lip. "Let me see you," he panted. "Look at me. Let me see you."

  We were going at it good and hard. He slowed for a moment to pull his t-shirt over his head and for some reason that both set me off and made me crazier. When he came back to me, naked, his beautiful bare hips grinding into me, I lost it. There - right there. That perfect spot inside. I was jerking, rippling, tender and aching all at once, and somewhere in the middle of it he reared over me, threw back his head and surrendered.

  Like it mattered now. I couldn't get any more pregnant than I already was.

  "Oops," he said, in a soft, half-asleep voice. I wrapped my legs around him and held him tight inside me, but I felt the resistance of his body, like he’d remembered he was supposed to pull out. It took him a moment to speak again, as if his mouth was dry. "Are you crazy?" he said.

  I tried to hold on to the last shudders, but the moment had passed as fast as it came. "Probably," I said.

  He rolled onto his back. "Jesus. We are dumb."

  Pillow talk was clearly not his strong point. I got up to go to the closet sized bathroom. He didn't move. He just lay there naked and wilted, his jeans still bunched around his ankles. I closed the door behind me. I'm pregnant. I'm pregnant. It's not hard. Just say it.

  But it was hard. It was impossible. When I opened the door his jeans, shoes and socks were in a pile at the foot of the bed, as if he'd somehow disintegrated out of his clothes. He lay curled on his side in the bed, the covers pulled up to his chin. When I got in beside him the noises he made were already slow and crackly with sleep. His arm wrapped round my waist and pulled me in close, a thing I'd always liked, but now that I was back in the real world my spine seemed too stiff and it wouldn't let my butt arch out to fill the warm angle made by his thighs and belly.

  I cleared my throat. "I'm pregnant," I said.

  He didn't say anything. His breath was slow and soft next to my ear.

  "Clayton, did you hear me?" I said.

  "Mmm? What?"

  It was late. I was tired. "Nothing."

  The next morning I knew I was doomed as soon as I saw Cassandra lurking in Rita's doorway. When she spotted Clayton's car and me in it, her head tilted up like a retriever's. I was barely halfway out of the passenger door when I heard her heels in the alleyway.