The Next Move (21 page)

Thirty

         
"It could just be from stress." Kat ran a shaking hand through her hair, avoiding Chris’ eyes. "It happens sometimes, if I’m stressed, and with work, with Dylan’s death, with all of that."

         
"
Kat
."

His gentle voice shook her into the present and she wondered how many times he’d said it. When she finally met his eyes, he said, "It could very well be any of those things, but it might not be." He nodded to the pregnancy test in her hand.

         
"Look, before I do this…" She looked at the blank test; as much as the very sight of it put her on edge, it was easier than facing Chris.

         
He touched her arm. "What?"

         
With a great deal of effort, she looked up. "What do we do if it’s positive?"

         
Sucking in a breath through his nose, it was his turn to avoid eye contact. "I, I don’t know. What do—"

         
"I can’t get…" She stopped herself, gritting her teeth as tears threatened.

         
He squeezed her arm gently. "Then it’s out of the question. If you can’t, or won’t, then…" Shaking his head, he made a dismissive gesture with his free hand. "You won’t."

         
She searched his eyes for confirmation and he gave her a reassuring smile. Her voice unsteady, she said, "So what
do
we do?"

         
"We don’t have to figure it all out overnight, Kat." His hand gently ran up and down her arm. "It took an impulsive moment to put us in this situation, but we have time to figure things out." He nodded towards the test in her hand. "And that all assumes that it’s even positive."

         
"Then I guess we should find out, shouldn’t we?"

~ * ~

         
He watched the door close behind her, then sat on the bed. He rested his elbows on his knees and, with an exhausted sigh, let his forehead fall into his hands.

         
This wasn’t the first time he’d been through this nerve-wracking moment of truth. He and a girlfriend had had such a scare a few years back, and he’d spent a few hellish minutes outside her bathroom door waiting for a white plastic stick from the drugstore to decide his—their—fate. It was that same cornered, vulnerable feeling as being tied up and blindfolded, minus the escape route of a safe word.

         
She wasn’t pregnant, but their relationship didn’t last much longer after that. He simply couldn’t shake that fear of being trapped with her. It wasn’t that he was a man to run away from responsibility, quite the contrary, but he couldn’t stomach the idea of being tied to
her
.

         
Strangely enough, the nerves that coiled in his stomach now were not that scared, one twitch away from fight-or-flight feeling he’d had before. Nervous, terrified, uncomfortable…but not trapped.

         
If Kat was pregnant, then he was, by all rights, trapped with her. But in his mind, to his great surprise, all he could think was that this would effectively clip the wings of a bird that had no desire to fly away in the first place.

         
It was that feeling, that unflinching acceptance of possibly being bound to her, that terrified him.

~ * ~

         
As she washed her hands, Kat tried not to look at the test on the counter beside the sink. She needed to know, she had to know, but she didn’t want to know.

         
Staring at her own reflection, she took a deep breath and prayed for the millionth time that Chris wouldn’t resent her. She didn’t want him to feel tied to her. She wanted their friendship and relationship—whatever it was or became—to be consensual. If they moved onto something beyond this modified friendship, it had to be because he wanted her as much as she did, not because of obligation.

We’ve made our bed, and we’ll lie in it if we must, but

I want him to lie with me of his own free will
.

         
On her way out of the bathroom, she kept a deathgrip on the test, terrified to look. At him. At the test. At anything.

         
His voice broke the silence. "Positive or negative?"

         
"I don’t know. I haven’t looked."

         
"How long does it take?"

         
"A few seconds. I just can’t look."

         
The mattress creaked when he got up. She closed her eyes as he came towards her, his presence knocking the breath out of her just like it had that first night in her kitchen.

         
He gently wrapped his fingers around her wrist and whispered. "Then let me look."

         
She kept her eyes closed as he lifted her hand. Turning her hand over, he gently uncurled her fingers from around the test. When he sucked in a breath, her eyes flew open and she looked, not at the test, but at him. His eyebrows were knitted together, his lips tight but neutral. She realized then that the breath he drew was one of neither panic nor relief, but apprehension.

         
Almost imperceptibly, his shoulders dropped in the same moment that his Adam’s apple bobbed with a hard swallow. Panic surged through her as the twin creases between his eyebrows deepened.
Is that an 'oh shit' or a 'thank God'
?

         
He closed his hand around hers and looked up. The corner of his mouth twitched,
upward, thank God, upward
, and she released a breath before he even said it. "It’s negative."

         
Pulling her into his arms, he kissed her forehead. She put her arms around him and they just held each other in silence for a moment.

Now what
? The question echoed through her mind with the same edgy uncertainty she’d expected had the test been positive. As relieved as she was that it was negative, there were still questions left unanswered.
Where do we go from here? What do we do now
?

Gently freeing herself from his arms, she met his eyes.
Chris, are you still here
?

She cleared her throat. "So what now?"

He cocked his head. "What do you mean?"

"Do we…" She paused, unsure how to even put it into words. She swallowed hard and plunged forward. "Does this change anything?"

"I think," he said, looking away and pursing his lips, his brow furrowing just as it had when he’d looked at the test. He met her eyes again. "I don’t think either of us will forget a condom again." The corner of his mouth tried to pull up, and he was obviously struggling to keep his expression neutral, but his eyes begged for permission to laugh.

She smiled, and when he laughed, she did too. After a moment, her smile fell. "So do you…" She swallowed. "You don’t want to stop what we’re doing?"

"I don’t," he said. "But if you’re not comfortable with it…"

"No, no, I am." She dropped her gaze.

He ran his fingers through her hair. "Kat, we fucked up that day. Once. One time." He kissed her lightly. "It happened in the heat of the moment, and I know that neither of us will let it happen again. So yeah, I’m fine with not changing a thing."

She thought about it for a moment, then grinned. "So I don’t have to twist your arm to sleep with me again?"

Pursing his lips, he shrugged. "Well, you could if you
wanted
to."

"Don’t tempt me."

"I thought that was my sworn duty as your booty call."

She laughed. "That’s true. It is."

He chuckled, then his expression turned serious. "You’re sure you’re okay with this? With everything?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Good." He hugged her, and an overwhelming but puzzling sense of relief swept over her.

This is just supposed to be a casual thing
. She held him tighter, blinking back tears.
Why am I so afraid of losing it
?

Thirty One

         
Kat watched Chris in silence as he pulled his knee onto the cushion, twisting his hips so he was facing her but making no move to come closer. He rested his arm along the back of the couch, but drew his elbow back a little, as if trying to keep some distance from her. Eyes down, he stared at the vacant cushion between them.

         
"What’s wrong?" she asked.

         
At that, his eyes flicked up. He pursed his lips. "I guess I was just thinking."

         
She mirrored his position on the couch, letting her knee encroach on the cushion that served as a barrier between them. He didn’t draw back, but didn’t come closer. She took a breath. "Thinking about what?"

         
He swallowed hard and looked her in the eye, almost looked
through
her as if he could read something she tried to hide. "This arrangement we have, this friends with benefits thing…"

         
Her heart pounded and her eyebrows lifted. "Yes?"
Please don’t call it off. Please don’t call it off
.

         
He spoke as if the words threatened to choke him. "What happens if one of us starts having feelings for the other?"

         
Oh God, he knows. He knows. Oh fuck
. She cleared her throat. "Well, I…" She couldn’t find the words.

~ * ~

         
Shit, she knows. I shouldn’t have said anything. She probably sees right through me
. He shifted uncomfortably. "I mean, hypothetically. If it happened.
 
Down the line."

         
Her shoulders dropped a little and she let out a breath. A
relieved
breath. He didn’t know if that hurt or if he, too, was relieved.

She chewed her lip for a moment, looking at the cushion between them. "Hypothetically? I guess, I mean," she paused. "We’d deal with it when—if it happened, but we agreed to keep this as friends with benefits so we wouldn’t fuck up our friendship."

"Right, I know."

~ * ~

 
"I suppose if one of us developed feelings for the other…" She chanced a look at him, searching his eyes. "We’d have to call this arrangement off."

         
He nodded, watching his fingers drum the back of the couch. "You’re probably right."

"I can’t imagine sleeping together if our feelings were so different."
But what if we felt the same way
?

         
"Exactly."

"We’d be asking to get hurt."
Do you know how much this is killing me
?

         
He looked at her for a moment, his eyes seeming to probe her for information, looking for everything she was afraid he’d see. His voice low, he said, "So as long as we’re on the same page, then we’re okay."

Are we on the same page, Chris
?

~ * ~

         
Her apprehension put him on edge. Did she suspect that he had feelings? Could she hear the words that were always a breath away from coming out at an inopportune moment?
Shit, I never should have gone there. Just couldn’t let it rest, could I
?

         
She dropped her gaze and he swore her cheeks colored a little.

         
His heart jumped into his throat. She couldn’t possibly feel the same, could she? Every fiber of his being screamed at him to ask, to just put it out there on the table, but he bit his tongue. There was too much at stake. She’d even said that if one of them had feelings and the other didn’t, they’d have to call this off. Go back to being friends.

         
Go back to being friends until we get tired of the charade and one of us stops calling
.

         
He took a breath. "What are you thinking about?"

         
Her eyes met his again, her expression completely unreadable. Part of him was afraid he could see right through him. Part of him wished she could.

         
I can’t say it, Kat
.

         
She shifted her weight, her eyes never leaving his.

         
Can you see what I feel for you
?