MY STOMACH IS ROLLING AS I walk back from the out-of-hours clinic that’s located four roads from Booker’s flat. I rushed over straight from Andrew’s in a fit, trying to convince myself the tests could be wrong. The on call doctor tried to give me another pregnancy test, but I demanded more proof. So here I am, with blood results in hand as if Booker might ask to see them. The doctor definitely spoke English and explained the birth control I was on is a low hormone kind, resulting in a lower effectiveness than others. That would have been a great side effect to be aware of in Germany. Luckily I never shagged anyone without a condom there.
I stride into Booker’s flat and hear the shower running. I have to tell him. I can’t wait. He’ll see it on my face and dig it out of me. This secret would be so much harder to hide than the secret about being in love with him for years.
Maybe because there’s another life involved..
I push the door open and hot steam billows out of the small space. Booker is standing in front of the shower wearing nothing but a pair of jeans that are unbuttoned at the top. My favourite look on him, especially now because the steam is clinging to his abs and drizzling down the divots all the way to his trim love arrow. He was helping his brothers haul some sort of flowers up to Vi’s rooftop garden, so he’s covered in dirt, some even smudged on his cheek. I glance down at his dirty shirt on the floor and it makes me sad. Like at any moment this will all be taken away.
“Hiya, Sunshine” Booker says, snapping me out of my reverie. “I thought I heard you come in.”
I half smile and look up into his stunning eyes. “I just got back.”
His brows lift. “Where were you?”
I swallow, my mind fogged over from the sight of his abs. “Just running some errands.”
He grins at me, that perfect press of a dimple stamping into his face. ‘Want to join me?”
Beads of steam cling to my face, and I want nothing more than to get in the shower and wrap my arms around him. For a few minutes, I want to forget that everything is about to change. I want to soak in another wonderful, blissful moment with Booker before I tell him our life-altering news.
We undress and step into the shower. He instantly wraps himself around me and pulls me under the water. His large hold on me makes me feel so safe and secure. It’s warm and the damp smell of him is heavenly. I press my face to his chest, loving the feel of our naked bodies against each other as he rubs his magical hands up and down my spine.
“You okay?” he asks and I nod into his chest. “You sure?” I nod again. “Poppy, why aren’t you talking? Something’s up. You’re usually singing by now.”
Swallowing, I pull back and look up into his hazel eyes. Booker knows me better than anyone. He’s attuned to my eccentricities in both personality and now in day-to-day needs, even leaving the cap off the shower gel because he knows I have trouble opening it.
We are still Booker and Poppy, but we are so much more now. He has to see that. He has to know that he’s not just looking at me with lust anymore. His eyes are wide and full of…love. It’s love he’s looking down on me with. He’s fallen for me, making it so mind-blowingly easy for us to become one. Surely this hurdle can be overcome as well.
Still holding back, I reply with a half-truth. “I have another migraine coming on.”
His face softens. “Oh, bugger.” He leans down and kisses all the way across my forehead, moving his hands so his fingers can make small circles on my temples. “Does that feel all right?”
“Mmm, that feels so good,” I groan.
He massages for a while and drops a few more kisses before saying, “Wait until you see what I have planned for you after this. It should help you relax and take your mind off the pain.”
I quirk a sardonic brow at him. “If you say I have to give you a blow job, I’ll come up with some really creative ways to hurt your balls.”
He shakes with laughter. “I’m sure you would.” He presses his lips to my forehead again. “Come on, let me get you all bubbly and then I’ll show you what I have in store.”
After a gloriously romantic and sex-free shower with Booker, he tosses me one of his giant Bethnal Green T-shirts and tells me to crawl into his bed while he goes and gets something. When he returns shirtless and wearing only a pair of football shorts, my eyes zero in on what he has in his hands.
“Where did you find that?” I ask with a tired smile as he opens my Brothers Grimm collection of fairytales.
“In your wardrobe. I was looking for your earbuds and came across it.” He strokes the leather bound book reverently.
“That thing is a relic,” I reply as he sits down beside me, propping himself up against the large wooden headboard.
“I can read to you?” His smirk is adorable.
My eyes widen. “You always made me read to you when we were kids.”
“That’s because your voice is sexy and you did the character voices. But since you’re not feeling well, we can change it up.” He winks.
My smile is huge. “I’d love that.”
“Let me see if I can find your favourite one,” he says, thumbing through the book until he finds the story about Cinderella. The sky outside is beginning to darken, so he reaches over and flicks on his bedside lamp. When he’s ready, he opens his arms to me and says, “Lie back. Let me hold you.”
I turn and lean against him, pressing my back to his stomach so that my head rests right below his chin. He kisses my wet hair and holds the book with one hand while snaking his other under my arm so it’s resting across my belly. His hold on me is so tender yet deliciously strong in his tan, sculpted arm. With this single embrace, he has the power to make me feel completely cherished.
His smooth voice fills the room with one of my favourite passages from the book. I let myself disappear in the story for a while, enjoying the respite from my mind over the last couple of days. This is why I ignored the oddness of my period. I wasn’t ready to break this beautiful bubble that we’re in right now. I didn’t want to let the real world taint us. Everything is going so perfectly. The news will shake all that we’ve accomplished in a short amount of time.
After he turns the page, he readjusts his hold on me and begins playing with the hem of my shirt. The bottom has ridden up past my black knickers and hips. His fingers brush my lower belly with his small movements, like the universe is telling me there’s more in the room than the two of us.
Suddenly, his hand flattens against my belly and the sensation feels so good, so wonderfully intimate, I can’t help but wonder what if. What if I was happy about all of this? What if he was happy? What if we do this together? Be parents. Be a family. Be in love.
Booker and I have known each other our entire lives. Now we’re sleeping together and becoming closer than ever before. The only thing missing is titles. The feelings are all there. I love him, he loves me. We haven’t uttered the words, but I know we both feel the same.
For a moment, I allow myself to daydream about what the baby will be like. A boy or a girl? Will it be kind-hearted and protective like Booker? Or creative and flamboyant like me? Will our baby have Booker’s passion? God, I’d love that. Booker is my favourite person, probably ever, and picturing any part of him on something we made together brings me complete joy.
Tears prick the backs of my eyes, and my voice surprises me when I croak, “I love you, Booker.”
He tenses beneath me. His hand stills on my belly. I clam up, too, because I didn’t mean to say those words out loud. I was so lost in the fantasy of being a happy family that they simply tumbled out.
“What did you just say?” he asks, his voice sounding completely different than it did when he was reading.
I swallow hard knowing that I can’t turn back now. There’s so much more coming, so I need to own this. “I said I love you.” I turn to look at him, and my heart sinks at the horror in his eyes. “Why are you looking at me like I just slapped you?” I ask, my voice laughing at the end because surely this is some sort of joke.
“Because that is a lot to throw at me out of the blue.” He jams his hand through his hair, pausing to grip the back of his neck.
“It’s hardly out of the blue,” I say with another awkward laugh, pushing my hair out of my eyes.
“We’ve been together for two weeks,” he barks, pulling back from me and perching himself on the side of the bed so he’s facing away from me.
I touch his back and he flinches like my hands are ice cold. My voice is hesitant as I say, “We’ve known each other our entire lives.”
He looks over his shoulder at me. “And have you ever heard me say that to anyone who isn’t family? Ever?” His voice is gruff.
“Wait a minute, what are you saying?” I’m completely baffled by what he’s implying. My mind begins churning over the last two weeks together…Hell, the last two months together. Surely my instincts aren’t that off the mark. “Are you saying you don’t love me?”
“Love is a word I devote to family, Poppy.” His words hit me like a blow to the chest. He turns and looks at me like his reply should explain everything.
It explains nothing.
“And I’m not considered family?” I bite back. “I thought I was in your net. I thought things between us have grown even deeper than ever before. This hasn’t been casual for me, Booker.”
“I never said it’s casual.” He stands up from the bed, his back muscles flexing as he rests his hands on his hips.
“So, what is this between us?” I ask, my mind reeling with what else this could be if it’s more than friends but not love. “Is this just sex because I’m your flatmate and convenient?”
“No!” he snaps.
My chest heaves with a hysteric bubble of laughter as I prop myself on my knees and fist my hands in my lap, doing everything I can to contain the rage billowing up inside of me. “Then how can you look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t love me? We’re best fucking friends!”
“Because I still don’t know if I can trust you, Poppy!” he roars, turning and dropping his hands on the bed so he’s eye level with me. His face is mean and accusatory, staring at me like I’ve betrayed him all over again. “You buggered off to Germany without even thinking about me, like I was an inconvenient afterthought that showed up on your doorstep. You weren’t even going to say goodbye!”
“Because I was heartbroken!” I scream back, scurrying away from his penetrative eyes and sliding off the bed so we’re standing on opposite sides. I suck in big gulps of air as six years of pent-up history and hurt boil out of me like a hot tea kettle. How dare he look at me like I was the only one to do the hurting. How dare he act like I’m the one who can’t be trusted. How dare he! “I was crushed because you took Sidney bloody Carmichael to the woods. Our woods! Our special place. The place where we grew up together. The place where…The place where…” I pause, nerves choking my voice box. “Sod it, the place where I fell in love with you! You sure as hell had no problem telling her you loved her right before you fucked her. Is she related to you, Booker? Is that why it’s okay to love her but not me?”
“What the bloody hell are you talking about?” His voice booms in a manic outburst.
“I saw you guys that night after A-Levels before Giles Windsor’s party. She said she loved you and you said it back.” I feel like a child, but I can’t help it. Speaking about it out loud makes it feel as real and as horrid as the day I witnessed it.
“That’s not possible.” He’s shaking his head adamantly.
“It looked really bloody possible from where I was standing.” My lips curl in disgust at the memory. “Those woods, Booker. That place. It’s ours. Not hers. Why did you take her there of all the places?”
“I don’t know!” he exclaims, shoving a hand through his hair as he racks his brain for some recollection of the evening that I can recall in perfect clarity. “I didn’t think. She wouldn’t shut up about wanting to see the woods, and I was fucking eighteen years old and wanted to get laid, Poppy. My brothers were probably home and I thought it would be some place private.”
“A private place for you to tell Sidney Carmichael that you loved her,” I state, voicing the real issue at hand.
“No!” he roars. “I never told her I loved her. I’ve never said that to anyone, Poppy. No one. Only my family.”
I shake my head in disbelief. My voice silent as I think back to that night and what I think I saw. Maybe I didn’t stick around long enough to hear the words, but he crushed everything I held most precious about our history. Our childhood. Our youth. My voice is softer as I reply, “It was still our spot, Booker. Did growing up there with me feel so utterly inconsequential that you didn’t think twice before taking her out there to shag?”
“Jesus, fuck.” He pins me with a serious glower. “I’m sorry, all right? I did a lot of stupid things when I was younger. And I had no idea you were in love with me!” he bites. The words look like they are difficult for him to say, even as a repeat.
“It shouldn’t have mattered,” I reply firmly. “That fallen tree was mine. I was there long before you ever were. And you took her there and broke my heart and ruined that fucking place for me forever.”
He laughs, his eyes wide as he shakes his head back and forth, clearly at a loss. “So, you’ve kept this secret all this time? All these years? Is that why you left for Germany?”
“Yes,” I swallow, not caring anymore how pathetic it makes me look.
“Because you developed feelings for me?” His jaw is tense with his denial.
“Because I loved you!” I scream, wanting to own up to all of it and not let him off easy. “Don’t cheapen what I felt, Booker. I just unloaded a six-year burden and it feels bloody good to be shot of it, especially when I know it means nothing to you.”
“It doesn’t mean nothing. I just…I can’t reciprocate it.” He scrubs his hands over his face as he adds, “I’ve seen the havoc love can wreak and I don’t want that, Poppy. The pleasure of love lasts a moment, but the pain of losing it lasts a lifetime.”
“Then what are you doing with me?” I cry, my voice rising with thick emotion bubbling up inside of me.
“I don’t know,” he stammers. “I’m just trying I guess. I thought you were okay with that!”
“It’s not enough,” I croak.
“Why? Why the pressure so fast? Why do I have to feel a certain way right this second?” His voice is nearly begging.
“Because I’m fucking pregnant, Booker,” I nearly sob.
He inhales sharply. “What?”
“I’m pregnant,” I repeat, all emotion evaporating from my body.
“No,” he whispers, his eyes searching all over the room for an escape.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes!” I cry. “But don’t worry. I won’t expect anything from you.”
“What does that mean?” he snaps.
I exhale heavily, the knowing words tumbling out of me with ease. “It means I’ll do this on my own because I refuse to trap you in something you don’t want, and I refuse to trap myself in another loveless life with you.”
“You said we would never stop being friends.” His eyes are wide and angry. “You said in time we’d be Booker and Poppy again, no matter what.”
“I lied.” I say simply with a shrug. “I lied because I’ve been in love with you most of my bloody life and I thought this was my dream coming true.” I sniff back a sob that wants to escape, refusing to give myself over to it in front of him. “Now I see it’s my worst nightmare. I’ve been teased with what we could have, and it’s all for nothing because you can’t love me. I wish I’d never had a taste of this at all.”
When I move to leave, he slams his hand on the doorframe to stop me. The wood cracks from the force. “It’s been two bloody weeks, Poppy. I need more…time. This is all happening so fast!” He grabs the top of his head, hysteria taking over.
The old me wants to comfort him and let him use me in whatever way he’s emotionally capable of. But the new me knows I’m stronger than that. And I deserve better. They are simply words, but they are probably the most important words a person can ever hear.
“You’ve had a lifetime to fall in love with me. If it was going to happen, it would have by now.” With those final words, my heart begins to break, splitting down the middle like a crack in pavement. Hardening with the exposure to the elements around me. “I have to go.”
“You said you wouldn’t leave!” he shouts, wrapping me up in a strong hold and binding my arms down.
His exquisite firmness sends treacherous shivers up my spine. Familiar shivers that know his touch and trust it so much that I want him even in this state. I look up at him for a moment, fire burning the backs of my eyes as I take in his face. It’s likely the last time I’ll ever be this close to him. His rapid heartbeat in his chest. His heavy breaths. His lust-filled eyes even in the throes of a fight. I’ll never have any of this with him again.
I’m in love with my best friend…
…and this is where we end.
“I’m leaving, Booker, and you’re going to let me because you know better than anyone how awful it feels to be second choice.”
My words penetrate his frenzy and his arms drop, releasing me as he steps away from the doorway. I immediately dash into my room to throw on some pants and then storm down the hallway to leave. Without a look back, I walk out of his room, out of his flat, out of his building, and out of my best friend’s life…again.