* * *

All through dinner I kept playing her words through my head trying to figure out what it was that I was missing, but by the time we were ready to leave I still hadn’t come up with an answer.

I drove with her head on my shoulder and she was curiously quiet. A quick look showed that she was asleep. I guess she’d tired herself out being a pain in my ass.

She didn’t wake up when we reached home so I carried her in and put her to bed. She must’ve been really beat because she didn’t wake up, not even when I undressed her and pulled the covers up over her.

I stayed there with her, watching over her, imagining a time when she was no longer here. Trying to imagine what that would feel like.

She’d been here for a little over six weeks and already I couldn’t imagine her not being here. I couldn’t envision what my days would be like without her here to pester me.

The damn girl had torn the place apart looking for the keys to the ATV. Now that I suspect that she’s carrying my child the thought of her finding them scares me half to death.

My child! Funnily enough the thought doesn’t scare me as much as it once did. She’s the first woman in a very long time that I’d taken to bed without protection.

Maybe subconsciously I’d wanted this to happen, I don’t know. I can’t say that I was thinking along these lines the first time I took her to bed. But how did we get from there to here?

How did we go from her teasing to me wanting to see her face next to mine for the rest of my life? How had she achieved what so many had failed to do?

Was it because we were alone here so much; was that it? Just a matter of proximity? Somehow when I look at her face I don’t think so.

When I think that my child might indeed be growing inside her, I don’t feel panic, or stifled the way I did the one and only time someone had tried to trap me with the lie of pregnancy.

I feel hope, excited, like a new chapter of my life was beginning. I placed my hand over her flat stomach and my heart jumped in my chest.

Right now a part of me could be growing inside her. Was it a little boy or a girl like her mother? Heaven help my ass if it is.

I left my hand there while she slept, letting my mind drift to what could be, and what I needed to do to make it so.

I got so lost in my thoughts I didn’t even realize that she was awake. I felt the warmth of her hand cover mine and looked at her face to find her staring at me.

She smiled, I leaned in for a kiss and she pushed me back and bolted. I held her hair back again as she threw up her lunch.

“Enough of this shit.” I cleaned her up and put her back to bed. “Stay there, I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the damn pharmacy where else?”

“Oh good, bring me back some peach ice cream.” Little twit. I could swear I heard her laughing on my way out the door. She’s one strange female but I shouldn’t be surprised. They’re all bent in some way or the other.

It took half an hour to get there and back. She was sitting in the living room in front of the TV when I got back.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay in bed? Were you sick again after I left?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t as bad that time. Did you get my ice cream?”

“Do this first.” I dropped the pregnancy test next to her on the couch and she looked at it and looked away. “What do I need that for?”

“Sydney, don’t be a pain in my ass. Go pee on the stick and put me out of my misery.” Could she be normal for one damn second?

She looked at the box and at the ice cream in my hand. “Ice cream first.”

“No! And if you don’t get up and do what I told you to I’ll empty it down the sink.”

Out came the pout and she flounced her ass out of the chair and down the hallway. Of course she locked the door and stayed in there, way longer than was necessary, until I threatened to break it down.

She opened the door and her face was white as a sheet. “Hey, look at me.” She refused to lift her head and my eyes went to the stick on the sink.

“So it’s true. Why are you scared now? Isn’t this what you wanted?” She started to shake and I had to pick her up before she fell.

I sat on the couch with her on my lap and tried to figure out what the hell was going on inside her head now.

For days I’ve been trying to fit the pieces together and though some didn’t fit and others made no sense, I always came back to one thing.

Each time I took her, from the first to the last, she’s always begged me to cum inside her. I know now that she’s not the innocent little girl I remembered, so there’s no way she wouldn’t understand the consequences of that.

In the beginning I thought it was just some sort of sexual thing with her, but now I’m not so sure. So why, if this is what she was after, is she sitting on my lap shaking like a leaf and refusing to look in my face.