The Knocked Up Plan(50)

“Yes. Just like spin the bottle.”

We’re silent as we lie there, me collapsed on her, but I don’t want to move, and she doesn’t seem to want me to. Her other hand travels to my hair, and she runs her fingers through it. “Do you want to stay the night?”

“That’s not on the spin-the-bottle board,” I say with a husky laugh.

“I know.”

I raise my face from her shoulder and meet her eyes. I’m not a clueless guy. I’m not a twenty-something playboy who doesn’t know what emotions are when they smack him in the face. I’m thirty-two, with a degree in psychology and a career based on a fine understanding of what happens between men and women when they come together.

I am 100 percent aware of what’s happening here.

I get why my heart is expanding in my chest.

What scares me most is that even though I get it, I still say, “I do want to stay with you.”

I call my neighbor, ask her to watch my dog, and then I spoon Nicole all through the night.





Twenty-Three





Nicole

This time we don’t stop.

As we slide into the last week or so of my cycle, we don’t quit our horizontal hobby.

I tell myself it’s because we have his dates to finish, and it would be silly not to screw. We don’t go at it nightly like we did when I might have conceived, but it seems foolish to execute the hotel hijacking date I promised without making full and proper use of the bed.

Because of our dogs, we make the hotel escape during the workday when we take a long lunch. It comes complete with shower sex at a swank Gramercy Park hotel, as well as another round on the bed.

In the post-orgasm haze, he wraps an arm around me and tugs me close. “For the record, I absolutely want you to be pregnant, but this has been the most fun I’ve ever had, and I’d be lying if I said I won’t miss it once you’re knocked up.”

I smile and snuggle into the crook of his arm. A wistfulness settles over me, but it comes with sadness, too. “I know. Same here.”

“It’s sort of strange. That this is just going to end,” he says in an even tone, as if he’s making a scientific observation.

I close my eyes because the reality hurts.

Yes, we will end.

Yes, that’s always been the plan.

We were supposed to be practical. A wham, bam, thank-you, ma’am. We weren’t supposed to miss the sex, or the closeness, or the cuddling when this ends.

Our relationship has always been finite. It has a beginning, a middle, and a clear and obvious end. Like a rotation of a planet, our relationship starts in one spot and ends there, too, and no one should bat an eye or shed a tear.

Perhaps this makes me foolish, or maybe it just makes me focused on the mission, but I hadn’t thought about how I might feel when this is over.

Now, I feel more sadness than I expected, and a longing, too, even as I’m consumed with my own amped-up hope for a baby.

“But we’ll stay friends,” I say, drawing in a breath that strengthens me. “We’ll be friends and colleagues and Ping-Pong partners.”

“Yes, we absolutely will.”

I wonder if that prospect sounds odd to him, too.

But then I stop thinking when he kisses me once more, because I’ll take what I can get for the next few days.



Three in the morning.

The twenty-eighth day.

The bitch doesn’t show. But I don’t trust her. She fucked with me once before. She might do it again.

The navy-blue night has draped its blanket over the city as most of Manhattan slumbers. But all over this island, there are pockets of people awake like me. Some with lonely hearts, some with graveyard jobs, some unable to let go of the day.

I lie awake, moonlight slicing through the blinds, casting a silvery glow on my bed. Ruby sprawls next to me, her russet tail twitching, her snout fluttering. She is dreaming of bones, peanut butter, and beef jerky while my wide-awake wishes are for soft breath, angel-wisp hair, and a new life to love.

I flash back to the time Ryder and I talked about how much love one has to give. I imagine when I do finally have a baby, I won’t be wondering if I have enough love for everyone in my life. I’ll be wondering how I can store so much inside me.

I like to think our ability to love is infinite. I want to feel the limitlessness of love.

But I know better than to blindly believe this time is the charm. I need to be prepared for my monthly bill to ruin my morning with her blood-red appearance.

When I first asked Ryder for his help, I thought he’d give me a cup of batter and I’d send him on his merry way. It would be a true transaction, and then I’d turn to basters and exam tables and appointments. Any disappointments I’d process on my own with friends and family.