“Remy, you have to make sure you clean these glasses all the fucking way,” Quintin spewed at me, tilting one my direction. I blinked at him, feeling like a deer in the headlights. There, at the edge, was a classic red lipstick stain, probably from the fifty-something woman who’d spent all late afternoon cackling her way from one conversation to the next.

I gripped the glass and pulled it from Quintin’s grip.

“Are you going to stop treating me like a second-class citizen soon?” I asked my brother, giving him a heavy sigh. “Because it’s getting old.”

Quintin hadn’t been able to look me in the eye since he’d learned of the baby contract. I’d been walking through my bar shifts with him in a cloud of shame, my eyes to the floor. Asking customers what they wanted became soft grunts. But when Quintin wasn’t watching, I placed my hand on my lower stomach, my eyes closed and hope growing wild, like a crashing wave against my heart. “Please,” I ached. “Please. Become someone. Become mine.”

“You should have thought of that before,” Quintin began.

But I snapped my free finger near his face, feeling a sudden rush of confidence. “Quintin. When was the last time I ever listened to your advice, huh?”

Quintin bucked back, surprised. He shifted his weight, crossing his burly arms across his chest. He waited, suddenly aware of the changing power dynamics.

“Well, I didn’t want to say anything about that asshole, Tyler,” he began.

“All right. Sure. I shouldn’t have fucked Tyler,” I spewed, my voice growing louder. “And maybe I never should have moved to Los Angeles in the first place. But dammit, Quintin. This baby with Wes? Maybe it’s something I want. Maybe I’m finally doing something for me, after stretching myself thin for the stupid acting industry, and for people like Tyler, who say they love me and really don’t.”

“So you’re saying you think Wesley actually loves you?” Quintin scoffed, sliding the metaphorical knife, so stiff, so sharp, through my heart.

I tried to hold my face firm, to not let the hurt show. My eyes searched his. “I told you. It’s a contract. He isn’t contractually obligated to do anything but pay me the cash, if I do get pregnant at all. And after that, Q, I can make my film. I’ll actually feel like, like I have a purpose. I’ll actually be someone I’m not embarrassed of. Someone my baby could be proud of.”

It was clear the words were impacting Quintin. But he wasn’t willing to give in, not yet. He bolted toward the door and drew his smokes from his pocket. Poised at the door, popping a stick in his lips, he muttered, “Listen, can you close up tonight?”

Surprised at the quick shift in conversation, I gave him a subtle smile. He was allowing me to win this round, at least. “Sure thing,” I said. “Any time.”

Quintin marched down our stretch of road, back toward his grimy apartment. I swiped a towel over the countertop, watching as much of the night crew filtered out into the humid night. The lipstick-wearing woman near the window eyed me with dilated pupils, coughing into her hand. “I don’t suppose what your brother said was true? You’re pregnant?” she said. Her voice seemed to be made of the stuff at the bottom of an ashtray.

“I’m not sure yet,” I said. Even as I spoke, I felt my skin glow, a smile stretch out. Even for this woman, this nobody, I felt aching with desire to tell her this news. “I’m still waiting to find out.”

---

“You’ve got it, baby girl,” the woman grunted, tapping the side of her nose with a gnarly finger. “I can see it on you. Your skin. It’s like a fruit in the sun.”

I floated after that, lost in a kind of daydream. For perhaps the billionth time that week, I drew my phone to my chest, searching for the right words to say to Wesley. “Where are you?” I’d typed out so many times. “I think I miss you.” “You didn’t go back to Vegas, did you? I’ll meet you. We can marry, like all those other suckers. Maybe there’s something to the spontaneity. Maybe that’s where true love lies.”

But I held back, certain that when Wesley wanted to contact me, he would. Otherwise, he waited for my body to pace its way toward pregnancy. Or, I’d get my period, and we’d start all over again.

Just the thought of trying again put my heart into a pitter-patter. Of having to tell him, “Dammit, Wesley. You have to kiss me again. You have to fall asleep beside me again, your strong arms wrapped around me, our hearts beating as one.”

I turned my back to the road, sweeping glasses through the sink. I hadn’t had a lick of booze in a week nor a drip of coffee. Sam had noticed my tea drinking, waggling her eyebrows. “Don’t suppose you’re pregnant and not telling me?” she’d said, laughing.

“As if I have anyone to sleep with,” I’d lied. God, it was unlike me to lie to her, my best friend. My heart ached with it, seeing the humor, the goodwill in her eyes. She was eternally on my team. And I was flitting on the outskirts, daydreaming about my long-lost love.

The bell on the door jangled seconds later. I called into the growing darkness of the bar, my voice strained. “We’re actually closing in a few minutes!”

---

But whoever had entered didn’t move. I felt their eyes on me, just behind the bar. A wave of fear grew up in my stomach, and I whirled around, pressing my ass against the sink. Ever since sleeping with Wesley, unprotected, I’d felt this strange urgency to protect my body. On some level, my body was an extension of this other human. Of a world that Wesley and I had created together. Potentially.

“Wes,” I whispered, gazing across the bar. “What are you doing here?”

Wesley gave me a half-somber smile, splaying his hands atop the bar. Although his smile was cocky and his body a force of muscle and thick black chest hair, I felt a darkness behind his eyes. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost.

“Can’t I come by and see how you’re doing?” he asked.

He sounded so much like he was trying to brew cockiness, arrogance in his words. But he lacked the strength for it, somehow. I held back from spreading my own hands across his. My tongue darted across my lips, suddenly hungry for his.

“I don’t know yet, if that’s why you’re here,” I whispered, hating how fearful I sounded. So guarded. So ready for him to bolt for the door. I drew my chin higher, forcing myself to meet his gaze.

“It’s not,” he said.

“Oh? Then why?” I said. I sauntered toward the beer tap and poured him a frothy pint, setting it hard on the counter. I watched his strong hand wrap around it, forming thick stripes through the chill of the glass.

Wesley swallowed sharply, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Again, a darkness fell over his eyes. He sipped the brew slowly and drew the back of his palm across his lips when he finally set the glass down. When he did speak, his voice was lower than I expected. Full of foreboding.

“I just saw my father. At Hank’s grave,” he sighed. He fell upon the nearest stool, staring into the beer.

In response, my heart lurched. Unable to resist this strange, maternal urge, I swept to the other side of the bar, drawing my hand across his shoulders. I felt at the tense muscles of his shoulders and massaged them, watching as the slow, even motions caused his eyes to close. His masculine features had always contrasted with these long, black eyelashes that swept down onto his cheeks. I longed to reach forward, to kiss his cheekbones. To make my way to his lips. To soothe the pain away.

“Oh, Wes,” I sighed, knowing no other way to speak. “Running into him like that. Especially when you’ve hardly seen him in a year.

“He demanded to know why I couldn’t love,” Wes stammered. His eyes popped open and he stared at me, almost aghast. “He demanded the very thing of me that I’ve been wondering of myself, for years.”

Between us, a kind of truth hummed. I drew back, speculating. This baby. This world we were trying to build. Was it truly about the money, as he said? Or was it about belonging? About finding love in such desolation?

I couldn’t be sure. And I didn’t have enough time to think. Suddenly, his lips were upon mine, hot and steamy, his tongue breaking his lips apart with a hungry thrust. I fell back against the bar, wondering at the salty tears he flicked away from his cheeks. As the minutes ticked past, his anger, his sadness, gave way to pure sensuality. I felt his chest rough against mine. His fingers burst open my shirt, hungry against my skin.

---

“You’re glowing, Remy,” he whispered, echoing what the woman at the bar had said. “You need to have this baby. It’s like you were fucking made for me.”

With a slow, even motion, he stripped my clothes to the ground. I felt the release behind my back as he unhooked my bra, still holding my eyes with his. His lips gleamed, and his breath came in heavy gasps. I felt strangely safe, despite his hunger. Stretching back, I drew my legs around his waist, ripping his shirt from his muscled shoulders. My own fingers found the lines, the rivets in his chest, drawing little circles around his nipples. I realized, as we began to dive into one another, that I’d been fearful all week that this wouldn’t happen again. That he wouldn’t let it.

My sweeping fingers found his belt buckle and dropped his jeans to the ground, bringing his throbbing cock between my legs. With it, my nostrils filled with the scent of his cum. I moaned slowly, guiding the tip of him between my wet pussy lips. As he entered me, his eyes held mine. But the chaos, the feeling of his cock pummeling deep within—drawing across my G-spot and making my nipples hard—cast my head back. Revealing the tender, white skin of my neck made his lips find solace against my skin. He hungrily kissed me in these soft places, his eyelashes drawing soft lines near my ears.

We made love in the darkness of the bar, my ass pressed against the counter. Just outside the window, the Mission District barreled on till midnight and beyond—its people shuffling, drunken, blind to the magic that Wes and I created within. Our skin burned with sweat. His cock filled me, veiny and rock-hard and thick, straining against me. When we finally did come, he stared deep into my eyes, his cock throbbing wildly within me—letting go, falling into me. If we hadn’t already made a baby, I felt sure that this was it. It felt too meaningful to have no repercussions.

In the silence that followed, Wesley lifted me into him and swept his hand through my hair. Our hearts continued to beat wildly—two adults, filled with teenage love and lust. Slowly, we returned ourselves to normal time, drawing our clothes back over our bodies with sheepish movements. I hoped, I prayed, that he wouldn’t leave me. My fingers twitched, wanting to reach out to him, to hold him close.

But I knew I had to be stronger than that. Wesley would come and go as he pleased. And I had to respect that.

“Want to get some sleep?” he asked me, his eyes full. “Just for tonight.”

I nodded, lacing my fingers through his. With soft steps, I guided him down the block and into my apartment, slipping beneath the sheets and burrowing my cheek against his chest. Just one night, I echoed over and over again in my mind. I could appreciate it for all it was. For one night.