Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87068 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Kayleigh’s breath is slow, almost even, and for a second I think she might have fallen asleep. But then she shifts, rolling onto her side, cheek pillowed against my bicep. Her lips are swollen from kissing, her eyelids heavy, lashes clumped together in little spikes from the tears she won’t admit to.
She says, “You know, Stella has been talking nonstop about restarting that old bet.”
It’s a non sequitur, but that’s Kayleigh. My brain stutters for a second, then finds the track.
“What bet?” I say.
She grins, teeth grazing her lower lip. “The virginity bet. You know, to see which of us would lose our v-card first. It was Andie. That girl won by a mile when she hooked up with Stella’s dad. But Stella’s cooked up a new scheme. She wants to bet on something way more fucked up. There’s a new twist.”
I snort, “Please don’t tell me Stella’s about to lose her v-card to someone’s entire hockey line.”
Kayleigh giggles. “Not quite, but close. She wanted to do double anal, but I convinced her that’s a bridge too far for college girls.”
A bark of laughter gets out of me before I can stop it. “Double anal? Are you shitting me?”
Kayleigh rolls her eyes.
“Sadly, no. This is Stella we’re talking about.”
I shake my head.
“So what’s the new bet? Dildo in one hole, man in the other?”
Kayleigh’s eyes light up. “Close, but not quite. She wants the real thing. Double penetration, both guys at once, MFM only.”
A surge of heat moves through me, and I don’t like the taste. I can’t picture Kayleigh in that scenario, but the fact that she’s talking about it, even in a joke, makes something in me coil tight.
“Not happening,” I say, voice flat. “You’re not in this bet, Kayleigh.”
She pretends to pout, but the laugh is real. “Please. I’m the most boring of the four of us now. I’m a literal stay at home kept woman. I’m not even in the running.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Damn right.”
She flicks my chest, gentle. “You’re so possessive.”
I put my hand in her hair, tugging her face up to mine. “You like it.”
She does, and she shows it with her tongue in my mouth.
When she pulls back, her face is serious.
“I’m really not in the running,” she says, voice quiet now. “Because of another reason too.”
I start to make a joke, but her hand flattens against my chest, right over my heart. She’s trembling a little, or maybe it’s just the wind.
“I’m out because I’m pregnant,” she says.
The words are a cannon blast in the silence. Every muscle in my body goes rigid. My mind reels, careening through the last few months, every time I came in her, the utter lack of condoms after the first two days.
“You’re… what?” I say. My voice sounds distant, like someone else is speaking.
Kayleigh swallows, her lips trembling. “It’s only been a week since I found out. I wanted to tell you but I didn’t want it to be…” She glances at the grave. “I didn’t want to ruin today. But I also didn’t want to wait anymore.”
My vision is a tunnel. I can feel her heartbeat under my palm, the stutter and skip of it, and somewhere in my chest something cracks open, raw and new.
She keeps going, rushing to fill the space. “Victoria knows. And Henry, too. They’re both really excited, actually. Your dad hugged me. My mom cried, but the good kind of tears, not the drama queen kind.”
I am staring at the sky, counting the seconds between my own heartbeats.
I sit up. Kayleigh follows, sitting cross-legged, her hair wild, her dress twisted, grass stains on her knees. She looks at me with an anxiety I haven’t seen before, not even when we first fucked on that tiny twin bed.
I reach for her, cup her face in my hands, run my thumbs across her cheeks.
“Are you sure?” I say, and it’s a plea, not a challenge.
She nods, slow.
I breathe out, a shuddering exhale that empties me to the bones. There is a panic in me, an old fear that I’m not built for this, but underneath it is something else—a deep, yawning want. A hunger. I have never, in my life, needed anything so much as this woman and the future she’s carrying.
I pull her into my lap, wrap my arms around her and hold tight, so tight I hear her ribs creak.
“You’re going to be a dad, Trevor Cahill,” she whispers, voice muffled in my shirt.
I kiss the top of her head, then her temple, then her lips. There’s a salt taste to her mouth, and I wonder if it’s tears or sweat or both. I want to devour her, to swallow her whole, to keep her and our kid safe from every evil I ever conjured.
We sit like that, tangled up, until the world is full night.