Sage
Somehow I didn’t expect to spend my first Valentine’s Day in a sort-of relationship with my head over a toilet.
Bad shellfish was the first thing I told myself.
I hadn’t eaten any, but I had prepared it at work yesterday. Close enough, right?
My next guess was the flu. I was around people day in and day out. Easy enough to catch something. Many things.
Pretty sure I couldn’t catch a baby though.
It was just crappy timing. I mean, logically, who got knocked up the first time they had sex? The odds were probably infinitesimal.
You’ve definitely been increasing your odds by fucking like horny rabbits since though.
Didn’t matter. Babies took time to cook. It had only been a few weeks since the initial boot-knocking in Vegas. What kind of child would make his or her presence known this early?
Oliver Hamilton’s, that who. Pain in the ass that he is.
Hot pain in the ass.
I hadn’t even been at the best time in my cycle for such things. Not the worst either, since I’d just finished my period before vacation.
I was probably worrying for nothing. But hey, I had plenty of time to fret with my head over the bowl. It wasn’t as if I felt up to debating my wardrobe for the night as I had been before my breakfast decided to back up on me.
Normally, I would ask Ally such questions. I wished I could. She was at the end of her pregnancy and distracted, but obviously, that wasn’t why I hadn’t been able to do a full bestie share. I felt so guilty. Part of me wanted nothing more than to giggle over far more details than were necessary—hello, we were with brothers, twins no less, so it was almost an imperative we discuss some of the dirty nitty-gritty—but the rest of me thought it was asking for trouble.
It had already been a few weeks since Vegas. Oliver rarely lasted this long with anyone, unless he only saw them bi-monthly. Not the case with me. We were seeing each other constantly. Every time we met, it was all hungry hands and greedy mouths and rude comments mixed in with sweetness and filthy lovemaking.
I would’ve never said he was the sort of man I wanted. Not in a million years. He cleaned up well, and he had manners galore and very nicely shed them once the bedroom door was closed—and how. But he wielded snark as easily as compliments, and my father wasn’t like that. Seth wasn’t like that with Ally, though of course they had their share of banter. But I’d always expected a relationship to look a certain way, and this was not it.
God, it was so much better than even my wildest imaginings. Who could blame me for being scared to do anything to change it? Right now, things were perfect. Oliver hadn’t yet exhibited itchy feet, and if he did, no one would know we’d ended except me.
That meant no sad looks from my bestie. No worried comments from my parents. No concern from the townspeople who couldn’t help being busybodies.
No sharing excitement with said bestie or mom or townspeople. No laughing over the latest male idiocy or enjoying that feeling of being part of a secret club.
The “I finally have someone” club.
The “oh yes, I do have a date for that party” club.
The “yay, I don’t have to buy my own roses on Valentine’s Day” club.
Although I would probably have to just the same, because…Oliver. But still.
Why should we mess around with a winning formula? Even the secrecy made things hotter.
It also made them more inconvenient.
And upsetting when we had to lie to those who mattered most.
And awkward, since it was getting harder to come up with excuses why we couldn’t do things with Seth and Ally when we were basically using all our non-work hours to fuck and sleep.
More on the fucking, less on the sleeping.
I’d had to hide my swear gallon under an old sweater in the closet. The way Oliver wielded that word in my ear while he was inside me had led to me using it fairly often myself.
The slippery slope I was on had turned into an ice-covered Magic Mountain.