Page 21 of My Dad's Best Friend

I try to be logical, but I can’t help but smile at the thought. If it had been anyone else, or someone closer to my age, I might be worried, but with Conner, I’m not. If he wants it, he’s a man who will look after me and the baby, or the baby at least, the way he’s looked after me every moment we haven’t been tangled with each other.

If he wants it.

But what if he doesn’t?

I roll onto my stomach to get the sun on my back, trying to push the thought from my mind. That’s a bridge to cross when we get to it. I don’t even know if I’m pregnant or not. Maybe Conner isn’t fertile, and I’ve got nothing to worry about. I trust him enough that he would let me know if he wasn’t clean. With how caring he is towards me, and how much he works to make sure I know that I mean something to him, though he doesn’t tell me it other than to remind me that I belong to him, I can’t see him withholding something as important as a possible STD from me.

All I know is that I trust him, and I’m happy. I didn’t know I could be this happy with someone, but I am. The time we spend apart from each other is spent hungering for him, wanting to be filled with him in some way, whether it’s with his body or with his words, or simply his presence.

I look at my watch. Conner said he would likely not be back until later in the afternoon, promising to pick up groceries so we can have a barbecue this evening. I can’t get rid of the niggling feeling that maybe I should check. What if I am pregnant? Is this something I want to be gnawing at my thoughts when I could be enjoying the time I have with Conner in this house, on our own?

Who knows how things might change once Mom and Dad get back. I’ve been so afraid of the answer that I haven’t asked. I’ve just been trying to focus on the present moment instead of worry about what’s to come. Future me can deal with that.

Except now I can’t stop thinking about how my present situation might affect the future. I need to know what my body’s doing, if there’s something I need to be worried about.

I push myself off the lounge chair and go inside to get dressed, find my car keys, and head to the store to find myself a pregnancy test.

“What’s wrong?” Conner asks, turning away from the chick on the grill.

I’m sit in a chair, facing the sun, a wide-brim hat on and sunglasses to hide behind. In one hand I swirl my lemonade, enjoying the light clink of the ice cubes in the glass.

“Nothing,” I say, perhaps my first lie to Conner since our relationship began.

“You’re pretty quiet,” he says. He turns back to the grill and turns the rest of the drumsticks before hooking the tongs on the side of the barbecue and kneeling in front of me.

I shrug. I don’t know how to tell him what’s on my mind, the thing that I’ve been chewing on all day.

He pushes my chin up to look at him with the crook of his finger and pulls off my hat so he can get closer to me.

“Tell me,” he says, his voice a rumbling hum in his chest. Even in my worried state, it’s enough to send tendrils of excitement through me. My knees involuntarily spread a little wider for him at the sound of his voice.

“What’s going to happen?” I ask, finally voicing the question I’ve been trying to avoid for the last two weeks. “I mean, once my parents come home, once you don’t have to stay here anymore, will this be done? Will I just be that girl you were screwing around with?”

“Where’s this coming from?” he asks, using the space between my legs to come closer.

The heat of his body reaches my want for him, despite the little patch of fabric between my legs. I purposely found the tiniest pair of shorts I could just for him, hoping that tempting him with my outfit might draw me out of this funk I’ve been in all day.

His closeness is tantalizing, and despite my body’s aroused response to his proximity, I’m still too much in my head.

“I was just thinking,” I say. “I mean, it’s probably something we should talk about, isn’t it?”

“Do you think I’m going to stop wanting you once they’re back? That you’ll no longer be mine?”

I don’t answer. I don’t know the permanence of his ownership. We’ve never laid down any rules around it. I don’t know the parameters that we’re working within. I know what being his gives him the right to, which is every damn part of me, whenever he damn wants, and goddamn to I love it. But beyond that?

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