Page 22 of The Love Duet
I chuckled to myself when I thought of Pepper’s future husband.She was so used to signing that I could see the poor man getting cussed out in two languages, not knowing what hit him.I could also see him taking up ASL just to keep up with her.Pepper was going to be some lucky guy’s dream and nightmare all in one.
“I can’t believe it,” she kept repeating.“I mean, I knew it would happen soon, but...wow.”
“Yeah, wow,” I signed, though she wasn’t looking at me.
She was laying across my bed, staring moony-eyed at the ceiling.“I bet it was so perfect for you.Royce adores you, so there’s no way that he wouldn’t have made it perfect for you.”
“It really was perfect,” I said, using my voice.“It was just like I had always hoped.I knew that it was going to be uncomfortable at first, but...once we got all that out of the way, it really was incredible.”
She looked over at me.“Was it like all those romance novels?”
“Depends on the romance novel,” I joked, grinning.“Some of those romance novels are a little dark, even if the main character is a virgin.”
Pepper grinned.“Those are my favorite stories,” she admitted shamelessly.
I laughed.“Well, I can assure you that Royce had been more tender than brutal.”He’d been perfect, really.“However, as this thing between us moves on, I wouldn’t mind a little brutality.”
Pepper laughed as she jumped from the bed into a sitting position.“Oh, God, I can’t wait until I finally find a guy willing to do me the disservice of dirtying me up.”She waggled her brows, and the girl was such a character.“I want that up-against-the-wall sex.”
While Royce and I hadn’t limited our weekend to just one bought of sex, Royce had been very aware that my body had been adjusting to something big and major, so we had limited our sexual explorations to the bed.Royce had spent a lot of time tending to my sore body, and it’d been sweet.He hadn’t popped my cherry, and then gone all caveman on me.He had treated me like I could still change my mind at any moment, and that was probably the most special thing about it all.Royce hadn’t assumed that I’d been automatically open for business after that first time.
He had still respected me afterwards.
“Well, we didn’t have any wall-sex, but I’m not opposed to it,” I told her.“At some point, I want to experience it all.”
“I’m so happy for you, Roxie,” she said, grinning again.“I think you’ve really hit the jackpot, and it feels wonderful to know that you have someone else looking out for you.”
“He wants to go to Grandstone with me,” I told her.“He said he doesn’t care about football as much as he cares about me.”
Pepper’s eyes widened, then she placed the back of her hand on her forehead, falling back down on the bed.“Swoon,” she signed once her back hit the mattress.“Absolutely swoon.”
“We haven’t decided anything, but...God, I just can’t believe that he’s real,” I sighed.“He’s just so damn perfect.He really, really loves me, and...I’m so addicted to the feeling.”
Turning over, then propping her hand under her head, she said, “Celebrate it, Roxie.I know that it can feel scary, but...I don’t know.Instead of worrying that Royce is too good to be true, flaunt that boy all over the place.Show the world what you have and how blessed you are to have him.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
The girl jumped up, then sat on the bed with her legs crossed, all ears.“Sure.”
“We didn’t use protection.”
Pepper pushed her blonde hair from her face, her pretty blue eyes threatening to pop right out of her head.“What?”
“There’d been no plans to have sex,” I explained.“It really had been a case of one thing leading to another, and when he told me that he didn’t have any condoms because he hadn’t planned the weekend with sex in mind, I hadn’t cared.I had just finished my period the week before, so I knew that it would probably be okay, so...”
“Oh, my God,” she mouthed, her hands signing along in her shock.“What if you get pregnant, Roxie?What...oh, my God...”
“I’d never trap him,” I told her.“If I get pregnant, I’ll deal with it.”
Pepper’s nose scrunched up.“If you get pregnant, that boy is going to drag you to the courthouse and get it done before we even graduate high school,” she signed.
“Well, hopefully, we don’t have to find out,” I signed back, returning to physical communication.“Still, I did make an appointment with my doctor as soon as we got back.I also talked to Mom, and she hadn’t judged.She helped me make the appointment, and she’s going to go with me, so that I can make an informed decision on the best birth control for me.I’m excited but nervous.”
With wide eyes again, Pepper signed, “Holy shit, do you think your dad knows?”
I grimaced, not liking the idea of my father knowing such a thing.“I think he suspected it beforehand, even though Royce hadn’t planned it.Granted, it’s not anything that I’m going to ask him, but I have no doubt that Mom has probably already told him.They don’t keep important secrets from each other.”
“Well, it helps that they like Royce,” she signed.“I think that helps a lot.”
