“I never say never,” I replied. “I don’t want to set either of us up for unrealistic expectations. I won’t make promises or commitments I can’t keep. But what I can commit to right now is trying. Spending more time with you and seeing what happens.”
She stared off in careful consideration. “We can see what happens...I suppose. Maybe. I don’t know. This is really scary for me, Damon.”
I pressed my hand to her cheek and kissed her again, speaking gently against her lips. “It’s scary for me too. But there is one thing I’d have to ask of you…”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“You’re going to have to decline that second date with Jeff the doctor.”
Her eyes darkened. “Is that what this is all about? You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me either? I thought you said last night…”
“That’s not what it’s about. But if I am going to have you, I’m not going to share you.”
“That’s a two-way street, buddy,” she quipped with raised brows.
“You just say the word...and I’m all yours. At least long enough for us to find out what’s here between us.”
“Can I have a little time to think about this?” she asked gently.
I brushed my bottom lip against hers and slid my tongue between them, rolling it through her mouth. We sank into a long deep kiss until I finally broke away just long enough to reply, “Of course you can. But with kisses like that...even I forget what it is we’re supposed to be thinking about.”
14
Lizzy
When I finally left Damon’s arms that afternoon, something neither of us seemed to want to happen, I assumed we wouldn’t talk for a few days. That I’d have time to think about whether or not I wanted to take this risk. He made it clear that there was no guarantee or promise that I wouldn’t get hurt. Could anyone ever really promise that? People definitely tried to make that promise every day. But he wouldn’t give me that false peace of mind. If he had just lied to me, it would have been easier.
Damon’s offer was different than the fairytale happy-ever-after ending I had always longed for. He wasn’t saying he would always catch me if I fell. He wasn’t promising me forever and hadn’t said he loved me. He was saying, “we may very well fall and shatter to pieces, our hearts breaking in the process. But can we do it anyway?”
I was not a risk-taker. I rarely told people no. I usually wasn’t spontaneous or reckless. I was romantic, but in the white-picket-fence kind of way. Not in the way that let me fall freely into a fiery passionate affair that threatened to burn me to ashes. But Damon’s eyes...his voice...the feeling of him both in and out of bed. It was enough to make me want to jump. He made me understand, for the first time in my life, why a person would cheat or abandon everything beyond all reason to be with someone. If I had met someone else before Damon, I didn’t know if I could have controlled myself around him.
And it was that all-consuming feeling that kept me from taking the space to think in the coming days and weeks. I was busy with both of my jobs and Damon was busy with his. But we stole away whatever minutes we could together. Sometimes he’d be waiting for me outside the diner when I got off late, and he’d whisk me away back to his place where we’d make love all night. We’d both be exhausted when we went to work the night day on barely any sleep, but somehow the high we gave each other made up for how tired we were.
If I had the time, I’d pop into his office on his lunch breaks. More than once, he pulled the blinds and locked the door, bending me over his desk to take me right then and there. We couldn’t get enough of each other. And the more comfortable his skin became to me, the more daring I got. I wanted to try everything with him. I used to think I was too frigid and conservative, but suddenly I was willing to do anything he could think of.
“Earth to Lizzy!” Del barked, waving a hand in front of my face.
My cheek was perched on my hand, and I was thoroughly drowning in a daydream of what Damon and I had done the night before. I was also sleep-deprived and hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, so my stomach was starting to turn flips. As I snapped to, I felt an awful burn coming up my throat. It all happened so fast, I barely had enough time to grab the trash can from behind the counter.
All at once, I was buckled over and puking with Del standing there in shock. I was pretty surprised myself when I finally stood up, my stomach feeling completely calm again.
“What the hell was that?” Angel appeared behind Del with a concerned face. They were both looking at me like I had the black plague.
“I...I don’t know,” I stammered, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth.
Del slid a bottle of water across the counter, but kept her wide, worried eyes glued to me. As if at any moment I might double over and hurl again.
“Go home,” she said finally.
“I feel fine,” I insisted. “I don’t know what that was about. I guess I’m just not getting enough sleep or eating enough. I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’ve ever thrown up so randomly before.”
Angel’s face softened with a wave of realization. “Are your boobs sore?”
I didn’t hesitate to put my hands over both my breasts and squeeze. Sure enough, there was a persistent tenderness that I had started noticing days ago. But sometimes Damon did bite at them in a way that hurt so good. I had assumed it was from that.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Why? What does that mean? Do I have cancer?”
Del and Angel shot each other a look. “Have you been really tired?” Del asked.
My panic was growing, clouding my thoughts. “Well, yeah, but...you know. I haven’t been sleeping much.”
Angel looked down at me as if I was the world’s biggest idiot. “Girl. You haven’t been sleeping because you’ve been having sex around the clock. Now you’re puking in trash cans and your boobs are sore. You do the math.”
I shook my head cluelessly. Some part of my brain knew what they were telling me, but I was too shocked and afraid to let it fully sink in. I parted my lips to speak, but all that came out was a string of unrecognizable syllables.
Del rushed to pull up a chair behind me and pushed me to sit down. Another telepathic sort of look prompted Angel to grab her purse and walk out the door.
“Where is she going?” I asked, feeling my chest tighten up.
“To get a test.”
“A cancer test?” my voice cracked out like a lost child.
Del rolled her eyes and put her hands on my shoulders, trying to shake me back into reality. “If you can call getting knocked up a cancer...then, yes. It’s a kind of cancer test.”
My throat closed up and instant tears welled in my eyes. “No. No, I can’t be pregnant.”
“Condoms? Birth control?” she asked, threatening my certainty.
I started adding it all up. “I’m not used to being so busy or having so much sex. There was the occasional night or two when I stayed over at Damon’s and realized I’d left my pills at home. But I always took one as soon as I got home. I thought I read somewhere that was pretty effective. Sometimes we used condoms just to be safe, but...I mean, they broke a lot. But we always stopped and tried…”