Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
I kneel down beside her and put one hand on her back, holding her now mostly dry hair out of her face with the other. She seems like she’s nearing the end of whatever this is, because she’s starting to do that shallow, exhausted, panting thing like you do after you’ve just run a sprint. Or finished fucking. Or puked your guts out. Regardless, it seems like she’s maybe—
Nope.
She pukes again, although this one is more of a dry heave. Like her body has expelled whatever was wanting to come out, but hasn’t realized it yet.
Then, finally, after another couple of gagging grunts, she spits the remaining saliva out into the bowl, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and the sleeve of the—probably trillion-dollar—robe, and sits back against the bathroom wall. Spent.
“Jesus Christ, are you all right?” I repeat. It’s kind of rhetorical, as she’s clearly not.
She breathes heavily for a second as I stand and turn on the sink. I step out into the… drawing room? I guess. Whatever it is, there are a couple of crystal chalice things that have a faint green hue to them, so I grab one of those motherfuckers, step back into the bathroom, fill it with water and hand it to her. She sips. Carefully. For a moment it looks like she might throw up again, but then her breathing slows and everything seems to settle.
Sitting back down on the floor, I realize it’s heated, because I don’t get a jolt when my naked ass, balls, and tip of my cock hit the surface. I have no idea who arranged for us to be all alone on this thing, but if their intention is ultimately to kill us, they’re doing it in the nicest way possible.
Christine finishes the water, sets the goblet down, and lets her head fall back against the wall.
“Are you”—I pause, making sure to punctuate the point—“okay?” She closes her eyes. Nods. “What the fuck was that?” I ask her. “What happened? Do you think you’re… What happened?”
I don’t want to speculate or put words in her mouth, but I’m worried that getting tossed around in the van may have shaken something loose or given her a concussion or something. Maybe the effects are only just catching up to her now. Bodies hold onto and release trauma in weird ways. I tend to release mine with bullets and my fists, but we’re all different.
She takes another calming, steadying breath, and says, “I didn’t want to say anything before.”
And now I am worried. Because this isn’t a worry about the distant future. This worry is about the very, very near future. The thing that’s about to come out of Christine’s mouth, the fact that ‘I didn’t want to say anything before’ means she’s known about something she’s been withholding. There’s something she’s not been saying because she didn’t want to for some reason. And the cold chill that runs through me totally offsets the warmth of the floor and the train and what I usually feel when I’m with Christine.
But I don’t say any of that. Instead I just take a breath and say, “Okay.”
The ‘okay’ is an invitation for her to keep talking. But she doesn’t accept. So, I do a bit more clarifying. “What didn’t you want to say?” I ask with as soothing a tone as I can possibly muster.
“I just wanted to be sure that… I suppose, technically, I’m still not sure, but when taking all the evidence into account, I…”
“Christine,” I say with what I hope is encouragement and not impatience. “What. The fuck. Is going on?”
“Just… with everything that’s been… I didn’t want to—”
“Christine! What the fuck?” Pretty sure I blew up the appearance of patience just there, but oh, well.
She pushes a strand of hair from in front of her eye and leans her head off the wall, supporting it once again on her own, and looks at me. I can feel my heart pounding, preparing myself for whatever terrible thing she’s about to say.
She has some kind of disease.
She remembered all the things she had forgotten and she has awful news.
She gets motion sickness on trains.
Whatever.
But then she tells me the one thing I hadn’t prepared for and didn’t expect. Which, of course, is how shit always happens, isn’t it?
“I think I’m pregnant,” she says.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I watch Danny’s face go from trying to hide his obvious concern, to a brow-furrowed kind of confusion, to realization, to relief, to maybe disbelief, and finally just a blank stare in about less than a second. It’s impressive.
“Say that again?” he says.
“You heard me.”
He nods his head a little, shakes it a little, nods again. “Okay…” he starts. “Um… are you sure?”
“No,” I say. “Like I said, I think I probably am, but I haven’t taken a test yet.”