“No. Meebs. Baby, did he…” he trails off shaking his head no, as I nod mine yes. He moves at speed toward me, pulling my body to his. Wrapping me in his protective arms.
“Fuck, baby. Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I try to speak, to explain, but I can’t talk around the ball of emotion that’s well and truly lodged in my throat. Ella Henderson is singing about a ghost and I listen to the soothing tone of her voice to calm me down.
Eventually, I manage to form words. “I love you. I love… I’m so sorry, Con. I wish it was yours. I’ll love the baby regardless, but I wish it was yours.”
He kisses my head, my hair, my face and nose. He kisses away my tears.
“He will be mine, Meebs, he’ll be mine and yours. The genes don’t matter. He’ll still be ours. Anyway, you don’t know that he’s not yet.”
I look up at him, confused. “How can he… it, be yours?”
He shrugs and smiles. Through all this shit, he finds me a smile.
“Well, think about it. You’ve been trying all this time with Marcus and nothing. A coupla months with me and bang, you’re pregnant.”
“But we’ve been careful.”
“No we haven’t, not every time.”
He leads me inside by the hand and pulls me into him as we lay down on the bed.
“That first week, remember? Once on the kitchen worktop and twice in the pool. That’s three times, Meebs. That makes the odds more likely to be in my favour.”
We’re both very quiet as we consider this. I listen to the strong, steady rhythm of his heartbeat and that combined with the way Conner strokes his fingers up and down my spine, soon sends me drifting off to sleep, with just one thought running on a loop through my head… I’m pregnant and I don’t know who the father is.
When I wake later, I’m lying in the middle of the bed with the duvet folded over me. I’m alone, but I can hear Conner’s voice from somewhere. After listening for a few seconds, I realise he’s out on the balcony.
“So, who would you recommend?”
“Well, could you find out?”
“Could you do that for me? Get me a name and a number and I’ll get it sorted so that we can be seen Monday.”
He laughs. “Too fucking right Jen, sometimes it is good to be me.”
He’s talking to Jenna, but I’m not sure what about.
“Love you too, Jen, thanks for this and don’t forget, for now, it’s just between us.”
He walks back into the bedroom, just as I’m pushing myself up to a sitting position in the bed. I feel like shit. My face feels dry and it stings from the salty tears that I’ve cried. My eyes feel puffy and I don’t even know what my hair is doing.
Conner, on the other hand, wow. He’s showered, his hair’s still damp and pushed back from his face, which is tanned from all the sun we’ve been getting the last couple of weeks. Those bluey-green eyes look amazing against his darker skin and I love the way they’re all over me right now. He gives me a smile, a different smile. It’s a combination of the boy I used to love smile, his sexy, I’m Conner fucking Reed smile and something else.
“Let’s get married,” he suggests as he walks toward the bed. My belly does a few back flips, followed by a forward roll.
“I’m still married to Marcus.”
“Fuck yeah, how could I forget about the orange?” he crawls across the bed as he speaks, pulls the duvet back and settles on his knees between my legs.
“What orange?”
“Marcus, that orange.”
“Why’s he an orange?”
“He’s a Jaffa.”
“What are you talking about, Con?” He sighs and rolls his eyes like a thirteen-year-old girl.
“Jaffa, they grow seedless oranges. Marcus is seedless, so I call him the orange.”
“That’s wicked and you don’t know that for sure.”
He looks up at me through raised eyebrows and shrugs. “It is what it is babe? I know what I know and when it’s right it’s right.”
He winks.
I melt.
He picks up my right leg and starts kissing up the inside of it. When he gets to the top and lifts the T-shirt of his I’m wearing, his eyes look up to meet mine and I could dissolve into a puddle of lust from what they’re expressing to me.
He wants this.
He wants us.
We’re gonna be okay.
“You’ve got no knickers on,” he says quietly.
“No, I don’t got no knickers on.”
“Fuck Meebs, take off that T-shirt.”
I do as he says, keeping my eyes on his. As soon as I’m naked, he grabs my hips and pulls me further down the bed.
“Touch yourself,” he orders. I bite down on my bottom lip and slide one finger between my legs. He watches intently, his lips slightly parted.
I watch in turn as he pulls down his boxer trunks, freeing his cock and his balls. He strokes himself, up and down, up and down at a slow, measured pace. The tip instantly begins to glisten.
I know it’s wrong to think of Marcus at that moment, but I can’t help it. His family are Jewish and as with tradition, he’s cut, his cock always looked ugly to me, like it was angry, but Con’s is the opposite. Long, hard, sleek and smooth. Like a sports car.