He jolted from his thoughts when his cell phone rang. He looked down. He didn’t recognize the number.
“Yeah?”
“Chad?”
Catie’s voice. Damn, had her mother told her to call him? “Hi there, sugar. I was just thinking about you.”
“Oh.” Then, “You were?”
Something was off in her voice. She sounded sad, remorseful. “Did your ma tell you I called?”
“Uh, no, she didn’t. I’m not home. I’m in my car.”
“Yeah, she said you were running errands. You close by?”
“Not too far,” she said. “I…uh…need to talk to you.”
“I want to talk to you, too, sugar. You want to come over?”
“We need to talk in private, Chad.”
“Nothing more private than my bedroom, baby.”
Silence. What was wrong? He wanted her to come over so he could take her in his arms and promise her everything would be okay. That he’d make it okay for her.
Who was this stranger?
“I… I can’t come over for that, Chad.”
“Okay.”
Don’t push. You want to take her on a real date, remember? The sex’ll come later.
“Let’s meet somewhere private.”
“Just come over here, Catie. I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself. I’ll have Brenda whip us up some sandwiches for lunch, okay? You hungry?”
“No. Not particularly.”
“What’s wrong, sugar?”
“Nothing I can talk about now. I’ll tell you when I get there, okay?”
“Okay, baby.” He smiled into the phone. “I’ll be waiting.”
* * *
Positive.
The dang thing was positive.
Catie drove onto the McCray property and edged her way to Chad’s ranch house. How could she tell him? He had taken precautions. Maybe she should have gone on birth control pills a while back as an extra back-up. But she hadn’t been sexually active, so what would have been the point? Or she should have carried some spermicidal suppositories in her purse. Even if she had, would she have bothered with them when Chad put on a condom?
She shook her head. No more second guessing. What was done was done, and she and Chad had to figure out what to do about it together.
She hadn’t trapped him. The condom breaking had been an unfortunate accident. Nothing more. He would understand that.
Should she have told him about the condom? She hadn’t wanted to worry him unnecessarily over an eleven percent possibility.