The way it came out was like an end-all. “And?”
“And I don’t fuck without a condom.”
“Yeah, I heard you the first time, but you just went from one hundred to zero in like a nanosecond, so you’re going to have to explain this one to me.”
“What if you get pregnant?”
My head jerked back. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”
“Nah, I’m serious. If there was just a small chance you could get pregnant without ever talking about it first, that isn’t fair for either one of us. Then what? What areyougoing to do? Keep it? Abortion? Whatever I had to say wouldn’t matter becausenot my body, not my choice, right? The only choice I get to make for my kids is right now.” He tapped my ass, motioning me to get off him. “We can’t, Harlow.”
The way he said my name sobered me up like a snap of a finger. In my head, I replayed the scene that had unraveled, making him unhinged. There was more to this, and I wanted to know. And I wanted to fix it. It was within my nature. I wanted to fix everything except me.
I cupped his startled face and looked into his eyes.
“Whathappenedto you?”
It was as if the sun had risen in his face. A light bulb had flicked on. Like he couldn’t believe he’d said anything at all. “Nothing, just forget it.”
“Okay,” I said, respecting the way he’d felt about it. His beliefs were bold and strong and out in the open. One day, I thought, I wanted someone to believe in me like that.
“Okay,” I repeated, fixing my gold bikini and opening the driver’s side door, cars blowing past the street.
“Shit, Lo! What are you doing?” I heard behind me.
I turned, and Linc was trying to tuck his rock-hard erection back into his pants.
“If you want a condom, I’m getting a fucking condom.”
“No, no, no, no ...”
Cars breezed by on the road, and I walked out to the edge and waved my arms. “Does anyone have a condom?!”
“This cannot be real,” I heard him mutter behind me.
In only his hoodie and the gold bikini, I slapped at the side of the car that was slowing down. It high-tailed away from me. I groaned and cupped my mouth. “The guy just wants to have safe sex!”
The next car stopped. It was a Corvette. I tapped on the tinted glass, and the window rolled down, revealing an older man with salt and pepper hair and a disgusting grin. Cars honked behind him.
“Do you have a condom?”
The man inside laughed. “It’s five o’clock in the morning, sweetheart.”
“Then why in the hell did you stop?” I groaned.
The driver mumbled unnecessary words under his breath, shifted the clutch, and sped off.
“Harlow, get back in the car,” came from behind. I turned to see the driver’s side door swung open where I’d left it and Linc sitting in the driver’s seat. He was looking away from me and at the pink and purple bruised sky with a hand cupping his mouth.
“DOES ANYONE HAVE A CONDOM?!”
I turned my head just in time to see a car flying around the bend. My body froze. For a split second, I was transported to another time and looking into my mother’s eyes from the bottom of a pool. She was standing paralyzed on the edge. The water distorted her features, but I could never forget her eyes and the way they were empty and unblinking. As if her soul had left her at that moment.
Then two arms wrapped around me and threw me into the side of the Chevy. The truck’s siding crunched against my elbow, and I bounced forward onto the pavement.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Linc shouted, rage steaming from his pores. And he ripped his eyes away from me and threw his fist into the trunk of the palm tree.
13
