A Is for Abstinence (27 page)

“What if there’s traffic?” Alan demanded. “Do you want to give birth to our son on the side of the road?”

Apparently, another contraction hit because Robin grunted and hunched forward.

I couldn’t believe this was happening. There was a woman having a baby in my backseat and she expected me to drive? I pulled out my phone, thinking it would probably be better to call an ambulance, and as if she could read my thoughts, Robin glared at me in the rearview mirror. “Drive!” she shouted.

I drove.

“Take us to the hospital here,” Alan demanded again.

And then Robin turned into some scary alien monster. “I am not having this baby in a strange hospital an hour away from home with some random on-call quack!” she yelled at Alan. Her red face turned forward again and she cut through me with her glare. “You take me to Huntington Memorial in Pasadena or you are a dead man, Kyle. Do you hear me? You do not mess with a woman in labor!”

I glanced back at Alan with a sympathetic grimace. He understood the look. I was driving to Pasadena because I valued my life and wanted to keep it.

So much for a ten-hour labor
. Robin’s water broke around Monrovia, soaking my leather seats in fluids I refused to think about. I was going to need a new car, but at least we made it to the hospital without the baby being born.

Robin asked us to stay—something about not letting Val leave her alone with the idiot who did this to her—so the hospital staff found a shirt for me and I experienced the longest two hours of my life.

Alan sat at Robin’s side, holding her hand. Val sat on her other side holding her other hand, and I stood in the far back corner of the room praying I wouldn’t throw up or pass out. I had to sit down when the baby’s heartbeat dropped and they brought in this vacuum thing and literally sucked the squirt out. The nurses made me put my head between my knees and brought me orange juice.

Val took pity on me then and came to hold my hand instead of Robin’s, but the baby was already out, so Robin said it was okay.

I had just decided I’d never ever,
ever
have children, when Robin’s baby cried for the first time. I could hardly tell what the bloody, goop-covered bundle was, but then they handed it to Robin and she cradled it as if it were the sun, the moon, and the stars wrapped in a tiny blanket.

Robin burst into tears, and then Val burst into tears, and then even Alan let a drop or two run down his cheeks. He and Robin had been fighting nonstop all day. She’d called him horrible names and threatened to castrate him multiple times. She was pale, sweat soaked, and bleary-eyed, but he stood by her side, smiling down at his wife as if he’d never loved anything or anyone more. There was so much emotion in the room that I was afraid of drowning in it.

“Kyle, come see,” Robin whispered. Her eyes never left the baby in her arms.

I wasn’t sure I could stand up, but Val took my hand and pulled me over to Robin’s bedside. I was startled by what I saw. “What’s wrong with his
head
?” I gasped. “Is he okay? And why is he purple?”

Everyone in the room laughed at me. “It’s from the vacuum,” Robin explained. She grinned down at her son. “It’s normal, and it’ll fix itself soon enough, won’t it, pretty boy?”

“He’s beautiful,” Val whispered. “Congratulations, you guys.”

“Thanks.”

Val squeezed my hand as she smiled down at the kid, and I got this strange flutter in my gut.

Robin passed the baby over to her husband and he turned into a puddle of mush. He bounced that baby in his arms and cooed at him as much as Robin had. Then he randomly leaned over and smashed his mouth to hers, careful of the infant in his arms.

“I love you, honey,” he said. “You make beautiful babies.”

“I love you, too. You give me beautiful babies.”

It was as if Val and I weren’t even in the room. Robin and Alan were completely lost in each other and their new son. I’d never seen a happier couple. The love they had for each other in that moment was something I hadn’t even known existed. I’d thought I understood love, but it turned out I didn’t have a clue.

“Well, we should really get going now and let you guys enjoy this,” I said. “Congratulations.”

Robin and Alan barely glanced up at us to say their good-byes and thank us for the ride. Val promised she’d be back tomorrow to hold the baby once she was free of saltwater and sand.

We were both quiet all the way back to my car, and for a minute we just sat there in the parking lot letting everything we’d just experienced sink in.

“That was incredible, wasn’t it?” Val murmured.

I didn’t know what else to say but “Yeah. Crazy.”

Val snapped out of her daze and smiled at me. “You feeling better now?”

I still felt a little queasy, but I nodded. “You women are tough.”

“And you men are really a bunch of big softies.” She took my hand and squeezed it. “But that’s why we like you.”

Val smiled at me so brightly that her eyes shone, and for a moment I imagined what it would be like for us to be in Robin’s and Alan’s shoes. Obviously I was nowhere near ready for kids—if anything, this experience had pushed kids back a good twenty years on my agenda—but I realized that the kind of relationship Robin and Alan had was something I wanted. Not just that I wanted it, I was ready for it. I wanted what Robin and Alan had, and I wanted it with Val. I just didn’t know how to make it happen.

I finally started the car, and Val and I drove in comfortable silence, our hands still entwined, until I missed the turnoff to take her back to Cara and Shane’s place. “That was the exit,” she said.

“That was the exit for Cara and Shane’s place,” I said, “but yesterday you agreed to be mine tonight so we’re going to my place, at least for a couple hours.”

Val opened her mouth to say something but closed it again and went back to looking out the window. I wasn’t sure what that meant. I couldn’t tell if she was happy or not. I got the impression she didn’t want to go to my place, but that she didn’t feel like she could argue.

That horrible weight returned to my stomach and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I almost turned around and took her home, but I decided we needed to confront this even if it meant losing her. I couldn’t live in this relationship halfway anymore.

We were both quiet the rest of the way home and Val was very tense as she followed me inside. I hated how nervous I felt. She was my girlfriend. We’d been together for over six weeks. I should be able to bring her home to my house without feeling like I’d kidnapped her.

“So.” I cleared my throat, hoping to get rid of the lump in it. “Are you hungry? We could order in.”

“Actually, if it’s okay with you, I think I’d like to wash the ocean off of me first.”

Mental images swarmed my head in a dangerous way. Fantasies that should definitely
not
become reality. “Um…” I had to clear my throat again. Stupid thing was so dry my voice didn’t want to work. “I think I can help with that.”

I dragged her across the house to the pool in my backyard. I lived up on the bluff, so I didn’t really have much of a backyard beyond my patio and the pool. I had one of those infinity pools, so it looked like you could swim right over the edge into the ocean. The view was amazing.

The sun was starting to dip low in the sky, which made the sight all the more spectacular. In ten minutes it would hit the horizon and paint a vivid portrait of oranges and purples across the sky. There’s nothing like a Southern California sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

“What are we doing?” Val asked after taking in the view for a moment.

I took off my shirt—a standard green hospital scrub top that the staff had scrounged up for me—and dipped my foot into the water. “We’re washing the beach off of us. You’re not scared of all water, are you?”

“No, just the ocean and lakes and stuff I can’t see through, but—”

“Don’t worry, the water’s heated. It’s a lot warmer than what we swam in earlier.”

Val continued to eye the pool dubiously, so I slipped into the water. I dunked myself and scrubbed my hair really good before resurfacing. “Come swim with me, Val. Just long enough to watch the sun set, and then you can go take a shower.”

Val sighed, but she cracked a small smile. “You just want to see me in my bikini.”

I grinned, grateful for the break in tension. “The thought had crossed my mind.”

I waited, determined to win the staring match we were suddenly lost in. Luckily, she cracked first and pulled her ocean-crusty sundress over her head.

My mouth went dry again. Ms. College Athlete was everything I knew she’d be. Beautiful, fair skin that looked soft and hard all at the same time. She was toned without looking overly so, and her figure was nothing to scoff at. I knew she was self-conscious about her chest, but she filled out that top just fine. And she had this smallish dark pink birthmark high up on her left hipbone just above her bikini. My entire body ached at the thought of kissing that birthmark.

Val caught me wetting my lips and blushed a rosy pink. It only made me want her more. “You’re beautiful, Val,” I rasped. “So beautiful.”

When she slipped into the water, I think it was to hide herself from my hungry gaze. I ducked myself beneath the surface again, trying to clear my head. I had to keep my control, hopeless and impossible a task as that seemed.

When I came back up, Val was within arm’s reach. I wanted to pull her to me, but I resisted. She was still on edge. I held out my hand, hoping she’d come to me on her own and was surprised when she did.

“Come look at this.”

I took her hand and waded over to the vanishing edge of the pool. I felt her reluctance and pulled her a little closer to me. “You’re perfectly safe. You can’t really go over the edge.”

“I know, but it just looks so dangerous.”

“The only dangerous thing in this pool is that swimsuit you’re wearing.”

The comment earned me an exasperated sigh and a smile.

We reached the edge of the pool and I pointed out the ledge beneath the water that worked as a bench for us to sit on. Val looked relieved to feel the solid concrete beneath her. From the edge of the pool, we could see the edge of the bluff just six short feet away, where the ground really did drop out of sight, and an endless ocean beyond that.

“It’s breathtaking,” Val whispered.

She moved closer to me, nestling herself against me with a silent command for me to wrap my arms around her. I pulled her back to my chest, letting her sit on the ledge between my legs. She leaned back and her entire body relaxed against me. After a moment she sighed in utter content. “Thank you, Kyle. I needed this after today.”

I chuckled. “Me too. I told you my mom’s a bit much.”

I heard the smile in Val’s reply. “She meant well.”

“Only because she likes you. She can be ruthless when she disapproves of people.”

“Well, we’ll just consider ourselves lucky that I made the approved list.”

“It is nice,” I admitted. “I think you’re the first girl I’ve introduced her to that actually made the cut. Now you can’t ever dump me. You’re the only redeeming quality I have in her eyes.”

“Oh, that’s not true. She loves you. She bragged about you all day.”

“She bragged about me being able to snag a woman like you. So, really, she was still just bragging about you.”

“Well.” Val chuckled. “I suppose that really is one of your best qualities. But you do have others. Plenty of them. And some of them are even redeeming.”

I laughed. “Like?”

She gazed out at the horizon as she thought. “Like your passion, and creativity,” she said. “What you do with your music, the songs you create, and the way you express yourself is one of my favorite things about you. I don’t have an ounce of creativity in me, and I’m terrible at telling people how I feel. I wish all the time I could use words the way you do.”

I was shocked by the compliment; it warmed me from the inside out. I never thought she paid attention, much less appreciated me in that way. I felt like my insides were trying to burst out of my chest, so I squeezed her tight as if she would keep me together. Holding her soothed the throbbing in my heart some, but I wasn’t able to resist kissing her any longer, so I brought my mouth to her shoulder.