Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
ALLISON
Allison lay in the fetal position on her couch with the heating pad over her lower back.
“Uh huh…uh huh,” Allison said into the phone with her eyes squeezed shut.
She’d shut the blinds in her living room and was now rubbing the bridge of her nose to make the migraine go away as her mother droned on.
It was day two of her period, and this month, Aunt Flo was mad as hell.
An internal twinge of nerve pain shot up through her vagina and somehow behind her eyes.
How is that even possible?
“Did you hear me?” her mother continued to chatter on.
“Yeah, sorry. Just distracted.”
“You don’t sound so good,” her mom said, concerned.
“Yeah, I’m…”
“Do you need to get back to work?” Her mom often called her on her lunch break.
“No, I, um…” Allison sucked in a breath as another cramp squeezed around her organs.
Oh my god. I get it, uterus. You don’t want the lining anymore. Take it out on someone else.
“My period is on its worst day, and I’m trying really hard not to throw up or pass out,” Allison said, with a weak laugh.
For some reason, it was important that she make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal.
Maybe because I’m on my own.
“Oh, mine were so terrible. Did you know I would just have to lie down in a dark room for days at a time? I don’t know anybody who’s ever had them as bad as I did.”
Allison sighed, familiar with this story. She’d heard it once a month since she was twelve.
Her periods had always been bad, but they’d gotten worse as she’d gotten older—cramps, nausea, migraines. Keith had called her a baby, had said that if they were so bad, why didn’t half the population act like she did?
Sometimes, she could get enough over-the-counter medication in her to be half-human, but if she was stressed, they flared up.
Wells had texted her a couple of times the last few days, but she hadn’t had the energy or any idea of what to say to answer him.
No, she wasn’t pregnant.
She’d failed them.
Her lip trembled.
It was so much more than a terrible period. It was her hopes of what she wanted dashed. She wanted to figure out what to say today in the darkened room while she tried to just get through it.
A firm knock sounded on the door.
Oh, no.
She knew who that was.
Maybe he’d go away.
“Uh huh, uh huh.” She kept her responses to her mom’s monologue short.
Something about her mother’s doctor telling her she had the worst periods he’d ever seen and emergency iron supplements.
Her front door opened, and Wells poked his head through the door. “Hello? Allison, are you okay?”
He was calling her by her first name. He was serious.
“Mom—Mom—Mom, sorry to interrupt,” she said, trying three times to stop her monologue. “I’ve got to go. Somebody’s at the door.”
She hung up and looked at Wells through one open, squinted eye. He stood in her entryway, holding two overflowing white gift bags.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, shielding her eyes against the sun streaming in through the open door.
“Hey,” he said softly, walking over to her on the couch. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just, um…”
He crouched beside her. His eyes lingered on the heating pad. “This doesn’t look like morning sickness.”
She sat up but winced, and he repositioned the heating pad on her back.
“It’s not,” she said, feeling a crack of disappointment through her chest. A tear slipped out against her will.
Then another and another.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her lip wobbling on that last word.
She’d tried to keep all the feelings locked away, but they unraveled past her control. Her vision blurred with tears as she was pulled under, the tsunami wave of aching sadness crashing over her.
The couch dipped, and heavy arms wrapped around her. She let herself be tugged to lie against his chest as deep sobs wrenched out of her. It didn’t even sound like her as she just let herself finally feel all of it as he held her.
She murmured “sorry” repeatedly, burying her face in the warm flannel of his shirt.
“Hey. There’s no need to be sorry. Takes two people to make this thing successful,” he said into her hair. He slowly rocked them back and forth.
The waves of sadness mostly ebbed, and only her ragged sniffles remained. He cuddled her against him, smoothing her hair.
Oh no.
Oh no, this feels so nice.
Breathing in the warm, comfortable scent of him, she finally didn’t feel so alone in all of this.
She’d let herself look forward to her future. Like an idiot.
Baby clothes shopping. Seeing her bump. The future spooling out in front of her embroidered in beautiful golden thread. Every month, her hopes had been dashed, but she still hadn’t learned her lesson.
“I just got”—she sniffled—“excited, you know?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Me too. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Shame clouded around her, and she wiped away her tears with the arm of her sweater, picking at the blanket on her lap. “I guessed that you’d blame me. I figured I’d let you hope another day or two.”
He tilted her chin back up, his thumb swiping away a tear on her cheek. “We’re in this together, Styles. I’m here for the hard stuff too.”
Concern—or was that kindness?—filled his face. The swipe of his thumb on her cheek felt overwhelmingly comforting. She had to close her eyes to bear it.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“But you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Allison said, putting on a brave smile, gathering her strength and pulling away from him. See? Look how low-maintenance I am. “Nothing I haven’t dealt with every twenty-eight days since sixth grade.”
The demon appointed by the menstrual gods squeezed around her intestines again as she sucked in a breath. “Did you need something?”
“I brought you some things. One bag is, uh, well, you don’t need that one right now,” he said, moving it off to the side.
She squinted at him curiously. “Why don’t I need it?”
“Don’t worry about it.” He pushed the bag away with his foot, but it tumbled over.
Pregnancy tests and ginger ale cans spilled out.
His sad smile matched how she felt.
“This one’s for periods,” he said, holding the other up.
He unloaded it on her coffee table. “You’ve got a chocolate milkshake, chocolate cake, steak—grilled it myself.
A heating pad—never can have too many of those.
And, uh.” He pulled out a large, fluffy, sherpa-style blanket with flowers on one side, edged with a doily-like lace.
“I saw this grandma blanket and thought you’d love it,” he said quietly, smirking as he handed it to her.
“Oh no, I do love it,” she said with a self-aware wince. She held it up to her face, rubbing it against her cheeks and squeezing it.
He chuckled.
“How’s Smokey?” he said, peering around the corner.
“Mad at me,” Allison said, sighing. How did my life get this complicated? “I couldn’t handle cleaning out her litter box this morning because of the nausea.”
“Ah. Where is it?”
“Why?”
He spun around with a shake of his head as he walked to the kitchen. “So I can clean it. Duh,” he said, as if she was not fully coherent.
She waved him away. “I’ll get it later.”
“Okay, fine. Don’t tell me,” he said, opening up random cabinets in her kitchen. “Not in here, not in here,” he muttered to himself.
“Why would a litter box be in a kitchen?” she said, sipping the chocolate milkshake.
Crap. This does taste really good. What a cliché.
“Aha,” he cried victoriously, opening up the laundry room door.
“I can get it,” she called, louder.
“Oh, can you? Can you do it right now?” he said, deadpan, from around the corner.
Allison growled. “I’m too busy eating chocolate cake,” she said, breaking off a piece with her fingers and dropping it in the milkshake. She hadn’t eaten all day, and this was helping the nausea fade away.
He walked through the kitchen and washed his hands. “Want me to heat up the steak for you?”
“No, I’m all set right now. Thank you,” she said. “This was…nice.”
“You almost said that without grimacing.” He settled on the sofa beside her.
“Here, turn around,” he said, motioning for her to turn her back to him.
She stared at him suspiciously before slowly turning around.
Unexpectedly, he massaged the knots on her lower back. She moaned low and shamelessly, like a cow in labor.
He chuckled. “So I should keep going?”
“I will literally kill you if you don’t.” His knuckles kneaded into her lower back, and she moaned again, sounding like a braying dinosaur in a Michael Bay movie.
“I think you have demons trapped in here,” he said with a chuckle, kneading into her hips.
“So many demons,” she said, clutching her new soft blanket and shoving her face against it, brushing back and forth.
She suspiciously took stock of the gifts, his actions. “You’re good at this. What girlfriend trained you?”
He snorted. “Doesn’t take a genius to search ‘period care package.’ I had a few girlfriends in law school, but none of them believed the whole no-marriage thing. Thought they could—”
“Fucking hell,” she yelled as he hit a knot she hadn’t even known was there. Pleasure unwound through her hips and stomach.
He looked smug with satisfaction.
She rolled her lips together, trying to play it cool. “Continue.”
“…Thought they could convince me they were different. It was just easier to stop letting it get to that point.”
The pain was easing, and the horror movie sound effects stopped spewing from her mouth, until finally, he tapped her hip and sat back.
“Thank you,” she said, chewing the inside of her cheek. He’d done so much for her, but what had she given him?
Literally nothing.
She clutched at the blanket, not willing to look at him as she said the next part. “I get it if you don’t want to keep going.”
He knocked his knee into hers. “Styles, you signed a contract that we’d try for twelve months. You want out?”
“No,” she said quickly. “But I know it’s hard to get your hopes up if you’re new at this.”
He nodded, biting his lip in thought. “I know this is a crazy idea—you and me—and this would be a good moment if we were going to stop.”
Her breath caught.
This was it.
She had failed, and he wanted to go with somebody younger—maybe a surrogate, maybe try with several eggs and do IVF. Not put it up to chance every thirty days with her geriatric uterus.
“But I don’t want to stop,” he said, his gaze connecting with hers. “This is one little setback, and it’s hard. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.” He fiddled with the tassel on the blanket that was around her shoulders.
Her heart felt so fragile in that moment.
Would he make fun of her? Remind her of things she was bad at?
“But I’m also looking forward to trying again,” he said finally, meeting her eyes.
She’d planned to be so mad at him, to pin this all on him. She had proof from her doctor that, in theory, there was nothing wrong with her. Even though she was thirty-seven, she still had plenty of chances to get pregnant.
And here he was being nice, the bastard.
Maybe even a little swoony, she thought, stroking the soft blanket he’d brought.
“I don’t want to stop either,” she admitted, grabbing the milkshake to distract herself.
“I see you haven’t experimented with any of my gifts,” he said, lifting his chin at the mountain of boxes stacked in front of her mantel.
“It would be a part-time job just opening them,” she said, feeling a little better now that she got to tease him back. “Also, I’ve been busy crawling out of bed while my insides have declared war on the rest of my insides.”
He stood. “Feel free to bring your favorite next time,” he said, fiddling with his keys.
Next time.
Allison’s cheeks heated.
“And next time, will you answer my texts? I was worried sick,” he chastised her.
He was worried about me?
No. She caught herself. He was worried about the baby.
She silently saluted him as she sipped the milkshake, and he turned to leave without another word.
The taste of chocolate on her tongue, the clean litter box, her unknotted lower back, the blanket on her lap—all this evidence was adding up to one thing she really didn’t want to admit.
Wells was nice.