Deadshifted

“It didn’t look like it up there, to me.” I pointed in the direction of the decks above us.



“I’m sorry. I never should have done that, not without talking to you first, at least. That was a huge mistake.” He seemed earnest as he said it, but he also looked confused. “But what’s gotten into you?”



“Um. You did? A couple of weeks ago.” I tried to sound lighthearted. I hadn’t sat around and thought about how this conversation would go, but even if I had, this wouldn’t have been how I pictured it. His face was still blank. I sat down on the bed. “For someone who has at least one doctor’s worth of knowledge inside him, you are very very dense.”



He frowned, and then realization slowly dawned. “Wait. Are you trying to say you’re pregnant?”



“I don’t know. Are you trying to hear it? I missed a pill.” I made a face at him, then sighed. “And I don’t know yet. I just know my period is late.”



His frown deepened, and he raised a querulous eyebrow. “That’s not possible.”



“Wow. Thanks,” I said, as sarcastically as I could.



“No, Edie. It is literally not possible. Shapeshifter and human DNA don’t mix. Believe me. It’s one of the reasons shapeshifters can be so promiscuous. We’re never in danger of having children with humans. We also don’t get sick.”



“Well, that knowledge would have saved me a trip to the clinic for an STD check last year. Thanks for letting me know.”



He looked from my stomach to my eyes. “Do you feel pregnant?”



“I have no idea what being pregnant feels like. How would I know? All I know is that my period should have started, and it didn’t, and—”



“When were you going to tell me?” he jumped in.



I made a helpless gesture. “After I could scam a pregnancy test from somewhere. I was going to go to the medic for one tomorrow morning. I just didn’t want to worry you before I knew anything for sure.”



“But you think—”



I cut him off. “I don’t know what to think. My uterus isn’t always clockwork. And neither am I.”



“You should have said something.”



I made a face at him. Considering what he’d just done without any warning up above—“You are one to talk.”



He shook his head. “That was different.”



“Really?” I said, with even more sarcasm than usual.



He relented with a sigh. “Okay, no. Not really.” He looked again from my stomach to me. “You should have told me sooner, though. The instant—”



“There’s nothing to tell yet,” I interrupted, starting to chew on my bottom lip. “And I’m sorry, but I’ve never done this before. I don’t know the rules for this. I’m making it up as I go along.”



Was it really impossible? How would I feel about things then? I’d sort of maybe liked to think it was real. If only to get my mom off my back, which as everyone knew was a really good reason to have children.



“You’re sure it’s impossible?” I asked him, hoping-not-hoping for him to be right.



Asher’s brow furrowed in contemplation. “A year ago, yes. But … I’m not as positive as I used to be. Shapeshifters living into their mid-thirties is pretty impossible. Santa Muerte changed me. Maybe she did more than I know.”



I wrung my hands together in my lap. “Just once, I’d like to know everything for sure, you know?”



Asher snorted softly. “Me too.”



There was a long pause between us during which I wished he’d magically say the right thing, while at the same time knowing wishing that was epically unfair. “Is it okay?” I asked, my voice small.



He looked surprised. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be? Unless you don’t want it. Then—” He made a mysterious gesture in the air.



I twisted my lips to one side. “So you’re ambivalent about it, is what you’re saying?”



“I’ve had less than five minutes to think about it. It’s still a maybe. What more do you want from me?”



If he’d said that with the wrong tone, I might have lost it. I’d had a very, very long day. But he was earnestly asking what else, if anything, he could do, and I was wise enough to know he meant it.



“Let’s figure it out for sure tomorrow. And then we can celebrate, or celebrate, depending,” I said. “It would be celebrating, right? And don’t say what I want to hear because you know already. That’ll just piss me off.”



Asher looked as stunned as I’d been feeling for the past fourteen or so hours. “I never thought I would ever be a dad. I never wanted to be one. After my dad leaving us … I couldn’t ever imagine bringing a kid into the world.”



It felt like a lead fishing weight was dropping down my throat while he talked.



“But—” He took my hands in his, and calmed their wringing. “I can see doing it, with you. I’ve never thought about it before now. I just assumed we couldn’t, ever. But if I was going to have a kid, I’d want it to be with you.”



I squinted at him. “You’re not just saying that because I threatened you?”



“Not in the least. I sort of figured eventually your mom would wear you down and we’d adopt or something.”



“Really?”



“Yeah. Why not? I’ve seen you. You’re good with kids. You like them. I wasn’t going to deny them to you. I just never thought they’d be from me.” He inhaled, held it, and then carefully spoke again. “What if … it’s part shapeshifter?”



I knew what he meant when he said that. What if it’d be like him, and have to grow up outside of society for his, or her, own protection, until it was old enough to deal with the strange. And if it was shapeshifter, even in part, what would happen to it when it aged? Would Asher and I get to have any grandkids? Could ligers breed? Or would it lose itself in the sea of personalities inside, like Asher had almost done?



I shook my head. All that was too far away. We didn’t need to go looking into the future for things to worry about; we had enough options in the here and now. “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. If it’s real. Tomorrow.”



“Tomorrow,” he agreed.



I crawled backward onto the bed. “What are we going to do about dinner? It’s been a long day—I don’t feel like leaving the room.”



“This, I’m prepared for.” He reached over to his bedside table and got the room service menu guide for me. “Twenty-four seven. As promised.”



I hadn’t eaten all day—what with traveling, sex, and exhaustion, everything on the menu looked good, and I said so. Asher got a clever-looking smile, and I shut him down. “Don’t you dare make some lame joke about me eating for two.”



* * *



After the arrival of two club sandwiches with a side of french fries, we arranged a picnic on our bed, and our conversation continued.



“So it didn’t work. Not at all?” I asked, shoving around ketchup with the edge of a fry.



He shook his head. A little too hard. Was I being hypervigilant, or was he overprotecting me?



I pressed on. “What were you hoping to even accomplish?”



“Other than ruining everything?” he said, brows raised, sort of teasing, sort of not.



“Yeah.”



He heaved a sigh. “I just wanted to see. Maybe if he’d become some great humanitarian in the last few years. Or if a lot of bad things had happened to him, if karma had won out.”



“And what if neither of those things had happened?”



Asher snorted. “I don’t know. It’s a big boat. I bet people fall overboard all the time.”



The fry I’d been raising to my mouth paused in midair. “Did you just hear yourself say that?”



He made a face at me. “Oh, come on, Edie, I was teasing.”



“It’s only teasing if you’ve never done anything like that before.” I carefully set the fry with its burden of ketchup back down. “If you have, then it’s kind of a threat.”



Asher groaned and swung his gaze to look up at the ceiling, pondering it for a moment before looking again back at me. “I’m not that person anymore. Honestly.”



“It isn’t that I want you to change, Asher. It’s just that—” The words hung between us as I tried to think of a phrase that would prove my point, because I really, really really, did want him to change, or at least pretend that killing people wasn’t okay, no matter how awful they might be.



“You don’t want to be in love with a murderer,” he said, cutting me off with a resigned nod. “I get that. It’s fair.”



I gave him a halfhearted grin and tried to lighten the mood. “You know I can’t take time out of my busy schedule to visit you in jail. When would I get my nails done?” I looked down at my hands—I had gone and gotten a rare manicure for this trip, scheduled it yesterday after work, when I’d be safe from my own overzealous hand sanitizing habit. The red nail polish was already chipping a little bit at the edges, where only I could see.



“When indeed,” he said drily, and poached a fry off my plate.



CHAPTER SIX



After our picnic, we crawled into bed. Asher slept soundly and I envied him. I wanted to, but couldn’t. I missed my Ambien prescription. Ironically, I could get Hector MD to write me one, but I felt stupid needing it now that I was supposedly on a day-shift schedule. I hadn’t thought about the stresses of jet lag, finding out my period was late, and discussing whether my morally ambiguous boyfriend should kill someone, even if he was a really bad someone, on my vacation trip. Oh, well, I didn’t know if Ambien was safe for indeterminately pregnant people, either.



I was too keyed up to sleep. My mind was an angry dog, chasing after endless cars.



Would Asher make a good dad? I thought he would. Then again, his own dad sucked. But what better excuse to overcompensate than to fix your own past?