Chapter 12
RILEY
“A lright, alright, I'm coming!” I drag myself out of bed and head toward the door when the loud knocking refuses to stop. It’s barely light, I’m barely awake and I’m barely fucking dressed. I pull my robe from the bathroom door on my way past it, then shrug it on before I open the door.
“Sawyer.” I stare in shock when I see him standing on the doorstep, wearing a huge smile and holding a brown paper bag.
“Mornin’, darlin’.” He does his usual and barges straight past me to let himself inside. I rub the sleep out of my eyes and yawn as I close the door behind him.
“Do you have any idea how early it is?” My voice comes out groggy.
“It ain’t early, it’s seven-thirty and you can’t be mad ‘cause I brought breakfast.” He shakes a bag of pastries in front of my face, and I snatch it from his hand as I move toward the coffee machine. I’m not gonna even ask him why he’s here until I’ve had my caffeine fix.
“Jeeezz, you really ain’t a mornin’ person, are ya?” He laughs as he starts unpacking the contents of his bag onto my kitchen table.
“I just need a coffee,” I explain, still blurry-eyed and waiting for my head to catch up so I can find the energy to be mad at him for this intrusion.
“Which you're gonna need to switch to decaffeinated.” He pauses his search through my cupboards to point a finger at me, then continues to open doors until he finds a glass. I watch him hold it under the faucet and fill it before placing it down on the counter beside me. Then, opening one of the boxes he unpacked from the bag, he pops a pill from the packet and presents it to me in the center of his palm.
“What the fuck is that?” I stare at it and rub my eyes again.
“It’s a prenatal vitamin, all the cool kids are takin’ ‘em,” he sniggers before gesturing his eyes back down and urging me to take it.
“Sawyer, I don’t think I need prenatal vitamins just yet.” I massage my temple.
“Not true, the pharmacist says you should be taking them for at least three months before conception, maybe you should double the dose?” He picks up the box and starts reading the back of it.
“Sawyer, when did you go to the pharmacist?” I take the box from his hands to get his full attention, suddenly starting to feel a lot more awake.
“I went to the outta hours one in the city.” He shrugs as if it’s not a bother.
“You drove two hours to get me breakfast and prenatal vitamins?” I check I’m hearing him right.
“Don’t be silly, I got the pastries from Jean’s, and I didn’t just get the vitamins, I got these too.” He presents me with three rectangular boxes.
“Pregnancy tests?” I almost choke. “Sawyer, we’ve had sex twice, and I just came off my pill. We won’t need to take one of these for ages.”
“Wrong again…I like you when you're sleepy.” He ruffles up my hair like I’m a child, and I swat his hand away and snarl. “These, my fertile little feral, are ovulation tests. You pee on ‘em like a pregnancy test and it’ll tell ya if you’re, ya know…ovulating. Not that it’s gonna make much of a difference, I intend to fuck you every day, anyway, but at least with these you’ll know what days to call in sick.”
“Call in sick?” I repeat his words back at him again hoping he might realize how crazy he’s sounding “Who said about us fucking every day, and I can’t just call in sick when I’m ovulating. Sawyer…we really need to–”
“Baby, don’t get yourself all worked up, calm mind, calm body. Stress is the cock block of conception.” He hands me the glass of water and pops the pill between my lips, and I knock it back with the water before slamming the glass back down.
“Sawyer, I don’t know when you became an expert on all this, but you're taking this far too seriously.” I shake my head, wondering if I’m still asleep and all of this is just a crazy dream.
“Why would I not take this seriously? It’s important.” He’s starting to look a little hurt when he stares back at me.
“I know it’s important, but all these things are my responsibility, and we can’t just expect this to happen the first month we try. The contraceptive pill could take months to come out of my system.” I’ve done some research myself, and I know we could be in for a long wait.
“Girls miss pills and get pregnant all the time. Don’t underestimate the power of my swimmers.” Sawyer grabs hold of my waist and pulls me against him. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I hadn’t already knocked you up.” He looks down at me confidently.
“Grrrrr.” I force him away and grab my coffee mug from under the machine.
“Sit down.” I point toward the table and wait for him to take a seat. “I appreciate everything you're doing, all this is really sweet,” I explain, thinking about how grateful most women in my position would be feeling right now. “But I’m starting to think that you're forgetting what we agreed on.”
“We agreed that I would get you pregnant. Ain’t that what I’m doing here?” He looks back at me as if I’m the crazy one.
“I guess it is, but you just seem so… committed.” I try putting all this into words.
“Of course, I’m committed, and this is me showing ya that you picked the right guy for the job.” He winks, and I can’t help but snort a laugh at him.
“Riley, if we're doing this, I want us to do it right. I’ve never been trusted with something so important in my whole life,” he admits with a straight face and sincerity in his eyes. It turns my insides to Jell-O.
“So answer me this.” I shake myself back to reality and prepare to ask the question that could ruin everything. “Why are you not saving all this for someone special? Someone who you’d see it through all the way to the end with?” I won’t say it out loud, but I think Sawyer would make a good dad. I don’t want what he’s doing for me to take away his opportunity to have that.
He flicks his eyes away from mine while he thinks about how to answer me.
“Because there ain’t a woman in this world that deserves the burden of that. I told ya before, I ain’t cut out to be a father,” he reminds me, still looking at his feet as if he’s ashamed.
“And what about what happened yesterday… before we got interrupted?”
“You mean when you almost kissed me?” The smile quickly returns to his face.
“That's not how it happened.” I shake my head. “ You were gonna kiss me, and that breaks all the rules.”
“That won’t happen again unless, of course, ya ask me to.” He rubs his lips together.
“Well, that isn’t gonna happen,” I assure him, keeping my head held high and my pride firmly fixed in place.
“Okay,” He claps his hands together. “Now that we got that cleared up, shall we?” He gestures with his arm down the hall.
“Shall we what?”
“You think I just came over here to bring you breakfast? I came to give you some more of the good stuff.” He starts to unbuckle his belt, and I shake my head before taking another sip of my coffee, standing up and dragging him toward my room.