“Since I’m your girlfriend now, I’m going to pry. Not because I’m nosy. But because, like I tell my viewers, the better I know you, the better our relationship will be.”
I laugh and roll my eyes. “Are you always going to analyze me with your advice? Because believe me, I’m going to show you how wrong a lot of your videos are.”
“Ah! They are not.”
“Eating you out in the shower?”
“Okay fine, but that’s only one.”
I lean into her ear, and say, “Yet. I’ll show you more. Be patient.“
“I am being patient, but now you have to stop ignoring the question.”
“I forgot what the question was.”
“Why no girlfriends?”
“Because. My mother had a string of boyfriends when I was growing up. Not a string, more like a revolving door. I hated it and promised Piper when she was a baby that I wouldn’t do it to her.”
Avery runs her fingers over my arm, looks me in the eyes and says, “Sorry.”
Holding her eyes captive, I say, “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“I mean, it must’ve been so hard, denying yourself for so long.”
I smirk, and say, “Trust me, I wasn’t denying myself at all.”
“Oh,” she says, leaning away, “Is that why the condoms? Because if you have something, you have to tell me. I mean it.”
Pulling her back to me, this time tight against me, I say, “I’m clean. I even have the paperwork to show it.”
“Then what’s with the condoms? Most men beg and lie not to use them. We don’t even need to use them, and you insist.”
“It’s trust.”
“What? You don’t believe me when I say I have an IUD in? Do you want me to show you the paperwork to prove it?”
“It’s not that.”
“But if I’m going to be your girlfriend, don’t you want to be bare inside me? To feel your skin against mine,” she says in her sultriest voice.
It’s almost enough to throw her down on the couch and fuck her bareback right now.
Almost.
“I do. Trust me,” I say.
Avery sits up straight, her brow creased.
“So, what’s the deal? Are you going to tell me.”
My throat tightens at the question. I should’ve known changing our relationship status would mean discussions like this. I’m not sure I like it.
Avery tucks her hair behind her ear, still looking at me for answers. Her eyes trace my face, and I figure I owe her an explanation. At least I get this out of the way. The thing I’ve never talked about in years.
I clear my voice, and say, “When I was twenty one, I met this chick in a bar. We hooked up, and it became a pretty regular thing for a few months. Brandi, her name was Brandi. She told me she was on the pill. Great news, right? All the bareback fucking I wanted. Until she told me she was pregnant.”
Avery sits up straighter, and leans her body against mine, “Piper?”
“Yeah. Turns out I wasn’t the only guy she was fucking. I knew she was seeing someone else. Which was fine, it was casual between us. God knows I had enough other women going on. But I spent the entire fucking nine months not knowing if the baby was mine or not.”
I can’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. I’ve never said them before, and now I’ve started, they keep on coming. The more I speak, I lighter I feel.
“That’s rough.”
“Over the months, she told me she was sure it was the other guy’s, and that they were in love and going to get married and raise the baby. When the baby was born, the guy demanded a paternity test. Turns out Piper was mine. Brandi stuck her in my arms and said she was marrying the other guy anyway, and that he wasn’t going to raise a kid who wasn’t his. She walked away, and that’s the last time I ever saw her.”
“That’s it? Not even any notice or time for you to prepare?”
“Prepare? I spent most of the nine months thinking it was his. At most I thought I’d have to pay child support. You stick a baby in the arms of a twenty-two-year-old guy, and suddenly I was a father? What the fuck did I know about babies? All I knew was cars and partying.”
Avery
I’m still stunned. During my restless night of being torn between wanting Knox to come ravage me in the morning and having to end our arrangement, I never believed there was a third option with Knox. I refused to even consider the idea of a real relationship. An idea I wanted so badly, but refused to consider because I never once thought it could come true.
And yet, here we are. Together on my couch, with Knox opening up to me about his life. I lean into him a little harder.