Page 1 of Doing It for Love

Chapter 1

AUGUST

Not pregnant.

Praise Jesus.

I chuck the negative test in the bathroom trash with a shimmy and a shake. Pregnant at twenty-two was not what I pictured when I did my aptitude test seven years ago. Those results said I’d be some sort of performance artist. I pictured myself famous, in all the Broadway plays, living in my penthouse suite with my best friend, Theresa, and having weekend nookies with Chase Crawford. Kids were on the bucket list under:hell yes…when I’m married.Obviously, I was a dreamer at fifteen. Now that I’m more a realist, I’ve learned to be happy with whatever life has to offer me.

But I am happy that it decided not to offer me a babyright now.

I start the water on the shower because I feel like I peed all over myself when I attempted to aim on the stick. Aunt Flo is fourteen days late, and I’ve been avoiding Landon and his semen. Not that he’s noticed.

If sex was a three-course meal, Landon and I would be the peas and carrots. We’re good together, but we’re still the vegetables. Basically we do it when there’s a commercial on, when there is no food in the fridge, or it’s someone’s birthday. It’s okay…that’s what happens when you move past the honeymoon stage.

Weusedto be strawberries and whipped cream. Luxurious dessert, grinding on each other on public dance floors, car sex, kitchen sex, against the wall sex, balcony sex—which was an epic fail, by the way—and the always disastrous shower sex. Disaster because our bathtub is made for one person only, and so lying down ended with a faucet to the butthole and standing up made for slippery recoveries. But we were strawberries and whipped cream, so we’d laugh it off, not let it break the mood, jump into bed, and keep at it.

I refuse to think we’ve become raisin bran—the sex you have only because you have needs to take care of—despite what Theresa says. She’s permanently the palate cleanser between courses in her own sex life, and she’s not budging anytime soon. But she just hasn’t found her Landon yet.

Anyway, back to Landon not noticing the lack of sex. It’s because we’re so busy all the time. He works all day at a call center then he goes and films all night. He’s a director-in-training—got an award for his last movie and a grant to make the one he’s working on now. So he comes home smelling like sweaty socks—which he loves to leave on the floor in the living room. That’s what peas and carrots do, though.

It’s funny, for so long I wanted to know the story after the happy ending. What happens to the couple once they find each other, consummate their relationship, and get past their demons? Now that I’m in that story, I get why no one talks about it. I’m in love, so it pretty much trumps all the other crap. At least, it has so far. Despite Landon’s dirty laundry—literal—and his late nights—also literal—he makes me laugh. I’ve never had so much fun with another person. Even being vegetables, sex—when we have it—isfun. Probably why I wish we had it more.

Better check the effectiveness of my birth control first, though.

A hand whips back the shower curtain, and I scream like a banshee and chuck my washcloth at the attacker.

“Sweet mother,” I say, holding my heart. “What the hell?”

Landon slowly peels the washcloth from the bill of hisThe Nightmare Before Christmashat. He’s wearing his matching graphic tee, a red stain on the upper right sleeve. Probably from the pizza he had to gobble between his job and his shoot this afternoon.

“Liz,” he says, holding the pregnancy test between two fingers. “What is this?”

“It’s a negative pee test. Don’t worry.”

“Did you think you werepregnant?” He chokes on the word.

“Yes, but I’m not.” I lean forward and kiss his shocked lips. “Sodon’t worry.”

He lets out this large breath, chucking the test back in the trash. “Fine, but you must promise on your precious iPod that you will tell me next time you think you are.”

I hold my hand to the square. “I vow to dispose of all my late-period secrets.” I drop my arm. “Now may I shower?”

“How long you going to be?”

“Normal.”

“So till the hot water is out.”

I put a finger to my nose, and he pulls his cap off. His shirt goes next.

“Joining me?” I ask, my lady nethers perking up. It’s not even my birthday. What a sexy surprise.

“Yeah, I won’t have time in the morning.”

“Oh.” Calm down, girls, it’s just one of those “saving water” things, and not because I’m naked, he’s naked, and we’re going to be wet and slippery.

His cold hand splays across my stomach when he steps in, and I refuse to let my nethers get their hopes up again.

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