He smiles lazily at me as if this is just another day. Not Judgement Day. “Want to get some bagels?”
I shake my head. “I forgot I had a paper due. I need to go turn it in.”
He sits up. “Summer classes suck, huh? I’ll go with you.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s okay. I really need to take care of it. Can I meet up with you later?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Um. Sure. But do you even have to ask that question? Don’t we meet up every day?”
I force a laugh. “Yeah. Of course. I just don’t like to take anything for granted.”
That’s the truest thing I’ve said to him in the last twenty-four hours.
I lean in to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Bye. I need to run. You can hang, or let yourself out. Or whatever.”
He loops his arms around my neck, holding me close, and I resist the desire to squirm away. “Is your headache better?”
“Getting there,” I say, as I slip out of his embrace, and furrow my brow, affecting my best I-still-have-a-headache look.
I dart into the bathroom, close the door and grab the plastic bag with the test in it. I hid it under the sink last night; I wasn’t about to leave the evidence in the wastebasket. I jam it to the bottom of my purse.
Then I’m gone. Out the door, down the stairs, around the block, heart pumping wildly, feet pounding the concrete, the high summer heat relentless in its assault. Beads of sweat drip down my back.
Two more blocks. One more block.
I toss the plastic bag into a trashcan on the corner, and it nearly slips onto the sidewalk from my sweaty palms.
I wipe my hands on my skirt and grab the door of the drugstore. I yank it open, glancing once behind me. I don’t see anyone I know.
I find the aisle with the pregnancy tests, snag two, and rush to the counter. I tap my foot as I wait for the woman in front of me to buy gum. Spearmint or cinnamon? She lifts each pack, considers them. My heart jerks with sick envy. Spearmint, I want to shout. See? It’s easy to make that decision. But she picks cinnamon, unwrapping it and popping in a piece as the clerk hands over her change.
When it’s my turn, I plunk the boxes on the counter and scan the perimeter, hoping Trey doesn’t have a sudden need to buy gum or anything else. The woman at the register looks exceedingly bored as she rings me up, and I want to reach across, shake her shoulder and say, “Don’t you know my life is about to change? And I just want spearmint, okay?”
Instead, she dumps the tests into a plastic bag without a word and thrusts it at me.
“Thanks,” I mumble, then swivel around and march to the restroom at the back of the store. I lock the door and press my hand against it, trying to steady myself as a wave of fear tackles me. I breathe out hard through my nostrils, offering a plea to anyone who’s listening to tell the universe to stop mocking me.
But ten minutes, two more tests, and a fresh wave of morning nausea later I have my answer – and it’s neither spearmint nor cinnamon.
Chapter Two
Trey
Paper?
She has a paper due?
She’s taking a writing class, and I’m pretty sure the assignments are of the creative story variety, not “papers.” Strange answer, but as I brush my teeth, I realize something seemed off about Harley all morning. I stop brushing, rewind the last twelve hours—her headache, her rush to leave, and most of all, her not wanting to have sex. Come to think of it, she’s seemed out of sorts ever since we were watching that movie last night, after we ate the birthday cake.
I tense for a moment, shoulders tightening, as a one-syllable name flashes through my head like a blaring neon sign.
Cam.
Is she talking to him again? Is that why she’s being so weird? Is she toying with going back? She better not be. Because that’s a line she can’t cross.
I grip the sink with my free hand, take a deep breath, and try to settle my jump-to-conclusions nature. I listen for the sound of my shrink’s voice in my head, telling me to slow down.
I won’t assume the reason she’s weird is that she’s talking to him again. Maybe it’s because this is the first time she’s ever celebrated a birthday without her mom being a part of it. Even though the woman is a witch, I bet Harley misses her. And I suspect she doesn’t want to admit that, either, tough girl that she is. I finish brushing my teeth, ready to pat myself on the back. My shrink would be proud that I didn’t act on my fears. I spit out the toothpaste, and leave my toothbrush in the cup holder, next to Harley’s.
Seeing my green toothbrush next to her red one, carbon copies of the ones at my apartment, reminds me of how ridiculous having two places is. The back and forth is pointless, since she’s at my apartment or I’m at hers every night. That’s what I should have done for her birthday. Asked her to move in with me.
I file away Harley’s skittishness for the rest of the day, instead plotting the best way to ask her to live with me as I work the afternoon shift at No Regrets, inking a trio of frat brothers by imprinting Greek letters onto their biceps. It’s usually the kind of tat you see three dudes decide to get on a dare when they’re wasted, but they’re stone-cold sober, so I guess this is what they want.
“Dude, this is awesome,” one of the guys says and high-fives me.
“Looks good, man. See you later.”
Then I head to my parents for the weekly dinner visit. School starts in less than a month, and I have one semester left before I earn my degree. Translation: only one more semester of these visits, and then the parental handcuffs come off.
The maroon uniformed doorman nods at me. “Good evening, sir.”
“Hey there,” I say. It’s strange, so strange that he has to act all deferential to everyone who comes and goes through the lobby of this Upper East Side building. I want to say Dude, I’m just like you. But once I’m inside the building, I lose all thoughts of the doorman because I see a pair of legs I’d recognize anywhere. Even from the back—maybe especially from behind, because that was her favorite position. Me, nestled up against her as she bent over the white marble bathroom counter of a $5 million apartment, all long, lean, shapely legs, her underwear at her ankles because she couldn’t wait to be fucked. Her long brown hair flows down her sexy back and she’s wearing workout shorts, sneakers and a tank top. I rub my eyes as the elevator doors close, sealing her inside. I don’t even see her face, but I know those legs belong to Sloan McKay in 15D.
She moved out three years ago, only a few weeks into our affair. The only woman I wasn’t the first to leave. My heart pounds furiously at seeing her and I want to slap it, tell it to have zero reaction, because my heart belongs to Harley and it’s fucking embarrassing that anyone else would cause this sort of uncontrollable chaos in my chest.
I duck into the nook with the mailboxes, close my eyes briefly, and slump against the wall, reminding myself that even if I run into an ex, it’s nothing I can’t handle. I’m about to have another meal with my parents, and that’s nearly as pleasurable as having my teeth pulled, so seeing Sloan is nothing.
Sloan, and her long legs.
Sloan, who used to show me the paintings she was working on for the gallery show she hoped to land someday, who liked to talk about art and passion, who always told me I made her feel things no one else did.
Sloan, who dropped hints she was thinking of leaving her husband before she just took off one day from the building. I hadn’t seen her since.
But Sloan isn’t Harley. Sloan isn’t the one I’m in love with. She’s not the girl I’m asking to move in with me.
I turn around, and head upstairs to my parents’ floor.