10
MCKENNA
I held the phone to my ear and listened to Brayden rattle off a series of jobs that still needed to be done for the wedding. “And could you please go with Ellis to the venue on Tuesday? The band wants to do a sound check in the hall.”
“Can’t Ellis do that alone? This is the third time in two months you’ve sent us to do some chore together.”
“I didn’t think you’d mind,” Brayden replied. “I thought you two were getting along.”
I couldn’t help but blush. At least Brayden was on the other end of the phone and couldn’t see me. “We get along. It’s just that we could accomplish twice as much if we did stuff separately.”
“Well, I need you both there this time,” he replied. “He’s a real estate tycoon. He doesn’t know the first thing about music.”
“And I do? That’s a good one. I expect Ellis could handle just about anything. The band doing a sound check isn’t exactly rocket science.”
“Please just go with him, Mckenna,” Brayden pleaded. “Both Julia and I wanted to go, but we’ve been so caught up with work we can’t make it.”
“All right.” I pulled out my calendar. “When is it?”
“Friday the thirteenth.”
I almost fell out of my chair. “Now I know you’re pulling a fast one on me.”
He laughed. “Sorry, darlin’. I didn’t even notice it until right now. It’s just a fluke.”
“I am NOT going out with Ellis Johnson on Friday the thirteenth. I don’t care what you say or what you do to me. You know what those boys do on the thirteenth.”
“Yeah Shift, like we’re all supposed to.”
“But not on one day! It’s weird.”
“He’s not such a bad guy. I don’t know why you have to be so down on him all the time.”
“I am not down on him all the time.”
“You are so. You act like doing stuff with him is the worst torture anyone could possibly devise. You act like he’s the devil incarnate.”
“I don’t think he’s the devil incarnate. You know I’ve always liked Ellis.”
“You sure don’t act like it. Is it his money? Is that why you don’t like him? Do you think he’s some kind of rich overlord?”
“Of course not. I would never hold that against him. He’s still the same guy he was when you two were growing up together.”
“What is it, then? Why do you always find a way to diss him?”
“I do not diss him. I like Ellis.”
“You just said you wouldn’t do anything with him on Friday the thirteenth. You said you didn’t care what I said or did to you. If that’s not a diss, I don’t know what is.”
“Can we stop talking about Ellis?”
“Did he say or do something to offend you at the engagement party?”
“No.”
“I saw him following you around. He said you wouldn’t even talk to him. What am I supposed to think?”
I smacked my lips. “I just asked if we could stop talking about him.”
“Then we’ll have to go back to talking about you doing this job with him. Is that what you’d rather talk about?”
I groaned. “Do I really have to do it?”
“You don’t have to,” he replied, “but I sure would appreciate it. I would be your slave for life.”
“Ooo, goody!”
“Come on, Mckenna,” he chided. “you already said you would. What could possibly go wrong?”
I harrumphed. “Really? I don’t know, he strips down and Shifts at the freaking venue? With Ellis around, anything could go wrong.”
“There you go again.”
“I do have other things to do besides running your errands, you know. You and Julia aren’t the only people with jobs.”
“Ellis has the highest stress job of any of us, and he jumped at the chance to help with the band.”
“I’ll bet he did,” I grumbled.
“Please. Pretty please with sugar on top. Do it for me because you love me so much.”
“Oh, you’re impossible. All right. I’m writing you into my schedule, so that should show you how much you mean to me.”
“Thanks. You’re the best. I gotta go now. See you on Sunday.”
I hung up, but I couldn’t stop staring at the calendar. Two whole months since I saw Ellis at that engagement party. Two whole months since we did it. Two whole months since my world turned upside down. Two whole months since I....
I froze. Then I turned back a page to last month and another page to the month before. There was the engagement party marked in a big highlighter heart on my calendar. There, in the week before, five tiny ink crosses marked the days of that month, that fateful month two months ago, when I had my last period.
Shit. I didn’t have to look a second time at the other pages in between. I already knew what they meant. I hadn’t had a period since that day—since that day I nailed Ellis in the closet at my uncle’s house.
I tossed the calendar under my desk, so I wouldn’t have to look at it anymore. It didn’t mean anything anyway. So, I was late. So, what? The stress of planning somebody else’s wedding and the tension of meeting Ellis again must have made me late. No big deal. Nothing to panic about. My bear was pacing though. I couldn’t stop her.
That last time at his place after the tasting sure was nice, though. I spent the night with him, just the way he wanted me to. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted to, too, and we had a nice long talk about things the next morning before he took me home. We agreed to keep it casual, even though we both acknowledged we couldn’t seem to keep our hands off each other. With Brayden getting married, there was no sense getting mixed up in anything serious.
What could possibly go wrong, I asked? I could get pregnant. That’s what could go wrong. We were both too hot for each other ever to think about birth control. I hadn’t seen the hottest lover of my life in seven years. We both got swept up in the heat of the moment. Who thinks about birth control at a time like that?
Not us, apparently. Apparently, birth control was the last thing on either of our minds the other times, too, because no one mentioned it. Every time Brayden or Julia couldn’t make it and asked us to work together to do some wedding-related task, it always turned into a free-for-all—an unprotected free-for-all.
Now here I was, two months later without a period. What would happen if I really got pregnant? Getting pregnant would be one thing. Getting pregnant with Ellis Johnson? That would be another thing altogether.
Heaven knew he could pay for it. He was razor sharp when it came to business. I heard him on the phone with his agent and his team a few times. Man, I wouldn’t want to cross swords with that guy over a lucrative commercial contract. Just being in the same room with him during those phone calls made my palms sweat. No wonder he got what he wanted. Anybody who was anybody caved at his feet and did exactly what he wanted, and I did the same thing.
I remembered last time Brayden asked us to meet Sam and Helena, Julia’s maid of honor, to finalize plans for the bachelor and bachelorette parties. The two parties were supposed to be separate, even though everybody was driving to Vegas together and staying at the same hotel. Of course, Brayden and Julia couldn’t know anything about it, so they delegated Ellis and me as their designated representatives.
After Sam and Helena left and Ellis escorted me to his car to take me home, he just started the motor when he got a call. I didn’t understand half of what he said, but when he hung up, he glanced over and saw me staring at him. “What?”
I shuddered. “Is it always like that?”
“Always like what?”
“Always like you cracking the whip and making them sit up and beg.”
He leaned across the seat. “I’ll crack the whip and make you sit up and beg if you don’t behave yourself.”
I felt my core get hot as the inside of my thighs got wet. Everything was a sexual invitation to him. He knew he could make me crawl at his feet with the snap of his fingers. He knew he could order me to my knees, and the harder that glint in his eye flashed, the more turned on and complacent I would be.
Thinking about sex with Ellis always made me squirm. Thinking about getting pregnant with him made my blood run cold. How was I supposed to work with him on this wedding with this hanging over my head? What if he found out?
Well, he wasn’t going to find out because there was nothing to find out. I wasn’t pregnant, and I wasn’t going to get pregnant. I was going to get my period any day now, and I would have nothing to worry about.
No cubs for me, not now anyway.