“Jesus, I never thought I would hear something like that from you.” She giggles.
“Me neither,” I reply. “Seems like you bring that kind of thing out in a man, you know.”
“Dangerous skill to have,” she murmurs, squeezing me a little closer.
“Only if you abuse it.”
“Oh, and I have every intention of doing just that,” she shoots back playfully. Her eyes are shining now, a grin on her face that looks fit to split it in two. I like this side of her, unfettered fromworry, almost able to believe that I mean it when I say I want her.
“You really mean it?” she asks softly, her eyes still searching mine, as though she might find something there that will reveal the truth of the way I feel.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to convince her that she can trust me, but it seems like she doesn’t quite have it in her to believe that I mean every word coming out of my mouth right now. Maybe I only have myself to blame—after all, I’m the one who developed this reputation in the first place, the one who hooked up with half the women in this town and then plenty more on the road to boot.
“Does this answer your question?” I murmur softly.
And before she can say another word, I sink into her again, and kiss her. The blueprints fall from my hand, forgotten, as I hold her there in what will soon be her bedroom. I can feel her grinning against my lips as my hands roam her body, and for a moment, I’m cast back to the memory of that night—that night with her at the bonfire, the night where it all started.
I could never have guessed that it would lead me here. But now that I have a taste of it—I know I’ll never settle for anything less.
21
ANGELIE
Out of thecorner of my eye, I can see the pharmacy bag looming like a threat.Okay, come on, you can do this.Whatever result that test turns up, it can’t even come close to the shock of how I felt the last time I took a pregnancy test, right? I’ve already been through the worst, and I just need to get it over with and…
And find out if I am really pregnant, for the second time in my life, with the same four men in the picture as potential fathers to my new child.
Ugh.I rub my hand over my face, trying to keep myself from getting too caught up in the enormity of that eventuality.
I can already imagine the gossip that has been circling around town since the moment I stepped out of that pharmacy—how they’ll whisper behind my back, gossip about the possibilities of what might have happened to render me pregnant all over again.
Did you see that she got a pregnancy test? I know, I think she thought she got away with it, burying it under piles of stuff like that…but who do you think it is? Does it have anything to do with the firefighters, do you think…?
You can’t get away with anything in this town, try as you might, and I am no exception. I guess the best I can hope for is to keep my shit together and deflect any attempts at questions that are thrown in my direction. People can think whatever they want, and I don’t have to give them answers, or anything close to it, actually. I just need to take this test, figure out one way or another what’s going on…
And pray that I can handle whatever result I end up with at the end of the day.
It could just be the stress, I reason with myself, as I turn to grab the pharmacy bag and head to the bathroom. The quads are asleep right now, all curled up together having a nap, which gives me at least ten minutes before one of them springs to life and demands my attention for one thing or another.
The bag rustles in my hand as I reach the door, and I pause, holding my breath to see if any of the kids will notice. Maybe I’m almost hoping that they’re going to come busting out of the bedroom and get in my way, so I don’t have to go through with this. But silence settles over the house and I know I don’t have any choice.
Three weeks. That’s how late my period is, three weeks—and I usually go like clockwork, so it doesn’t exactly have me feeling confident. Especially since it’s now been almost two months since these men have returned to my life. They came, of course, with a fire that drove me out of my home, an inferno that burned down my place of work, so it’s not as though there hasn’t been ample reason for me to stress myself into missing a period or two.
And yet, something at the back of my mind will not let go of the possibility that it’s something far, far bigger than that.
I unwrap the test and do my best to ignore the way my hands are shaking. What did Dylan say about that house they’re building for me, that it’s going to have five bedrooms? Well, we might need to add one more, if it turns out I’m carrying another child…
I rush through taking the test before I can spook myself out of it, trying not to think back on the one I took in my dorm room four years ago, the shock of seeing it come up positive with those two pink lines laying out the rest of my life in an instant. Drumming my fingers on the side of the sink, I squeeze my eyes shut and try to focus on something, anything other than what’s going through my head right now. I find my mind drifting to the guys, just as it seems to do all the time these days.
All four of them. I can’t believe I’ve been with all four of them again, let alone all together like I was that first night. Even now, thinking about it brings a thrill to my body that seems to overwhelm everything else—their touch all over me, the feeling of them moving inside of me, their bodies claiming me over and over again. The taste of them, the sounds of them, the feel of them, the smell of them. It should be overwhelming, really, but instead, it always leaves me craving even more.
We’ve only hooked up a few times since that night—doesn’t feel like I have much business distracting them from the work that needs to be done at the school and in my new home, no matter how tempting it might be. And while I have come down a few times to cast my eye over the work that’s being done, I haven’t dared to broach the subject of what comes next with them.
Hell, I don’t know if I’m ready to hear the answer, whatever it might be. If they want to stay, then I guess we can figure out what our relationship looks like between us, and if they want to go…
They’ve spent so much time establishing themselves, working hard to ensure that they’ve earned their stripes as firefighters across the county. I’ve done a little digging online since life has gotten back to normal, to find that they have a few dozen heroic news stories to their name, though none of them have brought it up to me once.
I can’t imagine that they’ll be so keen to give that up, if they have a choice in the matter, and I don’t want to be the one to keep them pinned here against their will if I can help it. I don’t want to be the one they have to leave it all behind for, when I’m certain that they’re far from ready.
