“Fuck. Fucking hell. That was-. Intense. My body. Fuck. Did you?”
Tilly’s breathing is raspy and barely strong enough to form a cohesive sentence. It’s a long time before either of us move, and when I do eventually, it’s with a blind hope that my body has somehow deceived me when I know already and so clearly, it hasn’t.
“Fuck, Landon, did you?”
We lie alongside each other in the coolness of the afternoon air, our fingers interlocked, the goose pimples on our arms evidence that the temperature may finally be changing.
“I couldn’t not. We shouldn’t have. Fuck. How much time?”
My words are a string of thoughts sent directly to my mouth, spoken in haste without consideration.
I’m immediately worried by what this means for us, and why she’s waiting so long to get mad at me, which is why I’m surprised to hear Tilly laughing when she turns to me.
“That was really stupid.”
From the smile across her face it would be impossible to tell she thought it.
“Sorry. I couldn’t hold back.”
“I knew you couldn’t resist me.”
“This is serious, Tilly. We’ve got to get that sorted. We should have-.”
“I’ll get it sorted, don’t worry.”
She folds herself into me and rests her head on my chest, hugging against my warmth.
“You’re not mad?”
“That was the best sex I’ve ever had. I knew it would be if you came inside me.”
“We should have waited.”
“You could have done.”
“That was impossible, Tilly. The last time I barely managed it.”
“So you do like me then?”
“I never said I didn’t.”
“Anyway, I wanted to make sure. If you go tomorrow and decide you don’t want to see me-.”
I have a bad fleeting feeling that this is some kind of threat, but I’m sure Tilly’s not stupid enough to get herself pregnant as some kind of guarantee I’ll keep myself in her life.
“You could be that one.”
“I told you, Landon, I’m not sure I like you enough to want you to be the daddy of my babies.”
“That’s just because you don’t know me well enough yet.”
“Well if you keep hanging around like this, what choice have I got?”
“You k
now the good thing about me coming inside you?”
“You mean, apart from the fact that you now have to do everything I say?”
Tilly’s smile is enough to convince me she’s just bullshitting.
“We might as well make the most of it.”
“Come inside me twice in one day? That might raise the chances of conception.”
“Not if you’re going to take the morning after pill.”
“At this rate I might have to.”
“Tilly.”
“I didn’t think star footballers got nervous.”
“I’m just imagining the headlines at the end of next season.”
“Super Bowl MVP gets step-sister pregnant?”
“Something like that.”
I sit up now and pull her towards me so she can sit in between my legs and lean against my chest.
“It’d sell more papers.”
“Our parents would freak.”
“You’d make a good dad.”
“I thought I was lacking specific qualities.”
“You can do a lot in nine months.”
I kiss her neck, work my lips out across her shoulders.
“You can do a lot in three days it seems.”
“Some people even manage to fall in love with people they’re not supposed to.”
“So I hear.”
I could stay like this for the rest of the day, Tilly wrapped inside my arms. We’d fuck from time to time, eat, look up at the sky and talk about our future together. We fit together, it’s so fucking evident it makes me want to scream it to anyone who will listen.
“I won’t, Landon, don’t worry. I’m not a psycho like that.”
“I know.”