“What?” I reach out and touch his forearm. “I’m not pregnant. I just had my period, silly.”
He blows out a huge breath of air. “Oh. Yeah. Oh. My. God. You about gave me a heart attack. The way you said, I have something I need to tell you.”
Part of me feels slightly offended at this. Obviously, I would freak out too if I was, but there’s a tiny part of me that wants him to say, I don’t know, something more reassuring.
“That’s probably something we should discuss since we’re having sex. Condoms aren’t infallible.”
“You mean like what we’d do if that happened? If you got pregnant?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” He runs his hand through his hair and sighs big. “Well, I don’t know what we’d do. Don’t you kind of have to be in that situation to decide?”
“What do you mean?”
“How old we are at the time. If you wanted to keep it. If you didn’t. If you wanted to have it. If you didn’t, all that. I think it’s easy to say, I’d have it, or I’d get rid of it, or I’d keep it, or I’d give it up for adoption, but then if you were actually in the situation, I would think even if you planned one thing, you might decide to do another.”
“Like, what do you mean?”
“Keatie, I don’t want a baby now. I doubt you want a baby now. But if you were pregnant, right now, I think I’d have a really hard time giving it up.”
And I’m pretty sure that with those words I just fell a little bit in love with him.
No. Think with your head, Keatyn. That is not romantic. He’s just reassuring you because he likes having sex with you.
I lean over and kiss him. “I’m sorry I freaked you out. The reason my period wasn’t normal, why it was shorter, is because I went on the pill.”
His face lights up. “Really? So we won’t have to use condoms anymore?”
“Doubling up the protection is a good thing. Plus, I mean, have you been, like, tested?”
“I’m clean, Keatie. Are you?”
“Yeah.”
He leans over, kisses me deeply, and then drives us to dinner.
We eat a whole bunch of tacos. I’m still amazed when I sit down with a group of boys just how much they can eat.
After dinner, Jordan starts telling us about how he broke up with Tasha, a girl I don’t know very well.
Dallas is like, "Dude, you only dated for a week."
"Longest week of my life."
And I’m like, "Why's that?"
"Do you know how much work girls are?"
"Uh, I guess not?"
"She wanted me to sit around all night texting her. No offense, but I just had dinner with her. We did homework together. We made out, but she didn’t want to do anything else. And I’m okay with that. But when I come back to my room and want to kill a few zombies with my boys, she gets all pissed off! Calls me and goes, Why aren't you replying to my texts?" He uses a funny bitchy girl voice when he says it. It makes us all laugh.
Ace says, “I hate high maintenance chicks.”
Bryce agrees. “They’re all high maintenance.”
Riley, who is still laughing, says, "If they would just understand it’s hard to text when you're saving the world from obliviation.”
All the guys laugh.
“Dude,” Tyrese says, “my kill ratio is better than all of yours.”
“No way,” Dallas says. “Mine is the best. You got totally owned when you played me. Now, Ace, he sucks.”
And thus ensues a verbal war of who is better at killing fake things with a fake gun.
I totally do not get the video game draw. Brooklyn used to get high with his friends after surfing, then they would chill, which meant they sat around in his game room on the floor pillows and played video games. Brooklyn has a sweet game room: low couches, beanbags, and pillows. But the big draw was four separate Xboxes, which allowed them all to get on Xbox LIVE and play each other.
Even Tommy would play with them occasionally. Tommy told me video games reach the primal depths of men. Their need to kill and provide. Since now they just make money to provide, video games give them the opportunity to release this natural desire. Of course, then all Brooklyn’s friends started talking about other ways to release their natural desires and Tommy sent me home.
I whisper to Dawes, "Am I high maintenance?"
"Naw, you're cool. I’m not really listening to them though. All I can think about is doing it without one. I never have—have you?”
I shake my head no, as Ace says to them, “Although, ya know, texting a girl is pretty much considered foreplay these days. Don't you want some!?"
Parker and Bryce both get big eyes, shake their heads, and say, “Not worth the hassle."
Riley goes, “Dallas, you've been awful quiet on this subject."
Dawson has been holding my hand under the table. He picks my hand up and puts in on his crotch to show me exactly how much he’s been thinking about it. He’s sitting here with a boner!
I laugh out loud.
Riley looks at me. “You know about this?”