“I work at two,” I tell him. “I’ll need to shower.”
He puts my phone back down and cuddles up with me again. “I have a shower. Seven of them, in fact. Use whichever one you want.”
I crack a smile. “So bougie.”
“You know it.”
My smile fades. “I have to talk to my mom. She’s probably not going to be very happy about this impromptu sleepover.”
“No,” he agrees. “Especially once she finds out it was with me. If she finds out.”
“I’m going to tell her. I can’t keep this from her. I feel like I’m lying to her, and I’m sick of it. Besides, I need to get on some kind of birth control. You’re terrible at using condoms.”
His arms tighten around me and he smiles. “Does that mean you expect this to happen again?”
“It does not mean that,” I state, cocking an eyebrow. “But, just in case, I like to be prepared. If I leave the birth control up to you, I’ll be graduating high school with a baby in my belly.”
“That’s true,” he says unapologetically, kissing me. “I love coming inside you.”
I sigh. “I hope you were more responsible with other girls before me.”
“Of course I was,” he says, rather dismissively for someone who seems to be so adamantly anti-condom. “Like I’d want to knock up anyone else.”
“Aw.” I look over at him. “That’s strangely romantic. I hope you still feel that way in nine months when my ankles are swollen, I’m the size of a house, and I want to kill you.”
“I will,” he assures me.
“You say that with the easy confidence of a man who doesn’t know what he’s getting into,” I tell him, smiling sweetly.
“No, I say that with the confidence of a man chasing a woman who refuses to commit to him, who is aware that a baby might change her tune.”
My jaw drops. “Hunter Maxwell, that is despicable. If you ruin my life just to make me commit to you, I won’t do it anyway just to teach you a lesson.”
He rolls his eyes. “I don’t believe you. You’re not that spiteful.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Wanna bet? You’re living with the consequences of not believing one of my warnings right now. Do you really want to double down and do it again?”
“This would be completely different. I wouldn’t be doing anything to hurt you.”
“Just trap me,” I toss back.
“Hey, you told me I needed to come up with a clever way to kidnap you.”
“This is not a clever way,” I inform him. “In fact, it’s downright unoriginal and lazy. And it wouldn’t work. I still wouldn’t be with you, then I’d just not be with you and we’d have a baby together.”
“I wonder if our baby will be as difficult as you.”
I smack him in the stomach. “Stop talking about babies. I already have to stress out about the possibility of being pregnant until I have my period again. You’re not earning any brownie points here, mister.”
Hunter watches as I climb out of bed. “I don’t want you to stress about it. You stressed about it last time and then you weren’t even pregnant. Don’t do that to yourself again. There’s no point. If you miss a period, then we can think about it, but you don’t have to before that.”
I grab my top off the ground and look back at him. “It might be that easy for you, but not for me. It wouldn’t affect you as much as it would me. You can have as little involvement as you want. It would derail my whole life.”
“Having a baby would not derail your whole life,” he says like I’m overreacting. “Your mom had you when she was our age, right?”
I collect my panties off the floor and shoot him a look of disbelief. “Yeah, and it wasn’t easy. She didn’t get to do a lot of things she wanted to do. She didn’t get to go to college or travel, she didn’t get to be young and unattached. She had to grow up and be responsible. She missed out on a whole stage of her life because she had to raise me, Hunter. It’s not all cute little booties and big baby grins. Having a baby is a huge responsibility, and one that I would likely get stuck with.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment while I collect my skirt and try to find my shoes. I’m on my knees grabbing one from under his bed when he peeks over and looks down at me. “You really think I’d just abandon you to take care of my kid on your own?”
I sigh, getting to my feet. “No, of course I don’t think that, but we’re young. We don’t know where life will take us. Especially you. I don’t have photo shoots on Italian beaches to show up for, but I do want to go to college. I’d like to travel and see some sights.”
“You’ll do all of that, baby or no baby.”
“My mom didn’t.”
“Your mom had to do it alone. You have me. And, I’m not sure if it’s slipped your mind somehow, but I have money. You’d never struggle like your mom did. If you want to go to college, great, you’ll go wherever you want to go. Want to travel? My dad has a private jet; I can take you anywhere.”
I blink at him. “Your dad has a private jet?”
He nods. “Where do you want to go to college?”
“Boston.”
“That’s not far. We could live here or get a place in the city. We’ll hire a nanny to take care of our kid while we’re in classes. If we travel, she can go with us.” His eyes widen with eagerness, like he just got a good idea. “Hey, your mom can be the nanny. She doesn’t love her job, right? I’ll pay her better and she can hang out with her grandkid all day. Let’s see if she still hates me then.”
I shake my head at him. “You’re crazy. She’d still hate you for impregnating her teenage daughter.”
Hunter reaches out and grabs me, toppling me back on the bed and pulling me on top of him.
“Hey,” I say, clutching my clothes in one hand and looking up at him with a playfully narrowed gaze.
“Tell me it’s not a good plan,” he challenges.
I sigh. “Fine. It’s better than the horror story it looked like in my head. But I still think you’re looking at it through rose-colored glasses. I know your family has money, but I doubt they want to buy us a place in Boston and pay to take care of our baby.”
Hunter shakes his head. “Don’t need them to. I’d need to borrow the jet from my dad, the rest I could do myself.” His grip on me tightens. “I don’t plan to pursue it any further, but I do have a modeling contract with my dad’s company. I have income from that. And it turns out my dad set up a pretty generous trust fund for me even though he never planned to be in my life. The first ¼ unlocked when I turned 18, another ¼ unlocks when I’m 21, and the rest of it becomes available when I turn 25. Either way, we’re all set. And that’s just what I have going on right now. I haven’t even started college yet. My dad is very pro-business, so while I was living with him, he already got me thinking about the future. We’d never struggle, Riley, not financially. I could put a dozen babies in you and we’d still be fine.”
“Whoa, buddy. I’m not having a dozen babies.”