Page 15 of Only for Tonight
“Of course I did, you don’t think I’m going to go to the pharmacy and pick them up. What if I see someone I know?” My phone beeps in my hand and it tells me Lizzie has my order. “It’s going to be here in fifteen minutes.”
“Ariella,” she says softly, “who are you dating?”
“No one,” I admit to her and close my eyes. “I had a thing with someone. It was a one-night thing”—I sit on my bed—“but we used protection.”
“It’s going to be okay,” she states, trying to sound supportive. “Like, do you know him?”
“Oh yeah, I know him.” I sit down on the floor with my back to my bed as I look at the status of my order. I follow her on the map as if my life depends on it, and I guess it does. “I can’t even believe this.”
“Do you have to pee?” she asks me and I look down between my legs. “If you do, you should do it in a cup.”
“In a cup?” I ask, grossed out. “I’m not using one of my cups to pee in.”
“You don’t have a cup that you can throw out?” I get up and walk to the kitchen, going through my cups, and finally find a small plastic one I got from a coffee shop and never threw away.
“I’m scared, Zoey,” I confess to her as a tear starts to fall down my cheek.
“Ariella, it’s going to be okay. It’ll all be okay,” she comforts and the sound of the doorbell ringing has me yelling out as I run toward the door and open it. The plastic bag is on the stoop and I grab it, looking right and left before running back inside.
“Okay, I’ll call you back,” I tell her and she yells.
“I don’t think so!” she shrieks. “Start peeing.” I put the phone on the counter as I pull my pants down and look at the cup between my legs. “What’s happening now?” Zoey asks me.
“I’m trying to pee but it’s like I have stage fright or something,” I say frantically, getting up and turning on the water in the sink. “That might help,” I add, sitting back down and trying to force myself to pee. “Come on, come on, come on,” I start to chant as I start to pee in the cup. I gasp. “We have pee,” I tell her and she cheers on her end. I fill the cup up halfway before putting it on the counter, trying not to get grossed out that a cup of my pee is on my counter.
Getting up and pulling up my pants, I grab the first box of pregnancy tests. “I don’t know how this works,” I admit to her, turning the box over and quickly looking at the directions. “Okay, start a timer,” I say, as I stick the tip of the test in the cup of pee, “for three minutes.”
“Okay, three minutes and counting down.” I take another box out and read the instructions to that one before I ask.
“How much time left now?”
“Two minutes forty-seven seconds,” she replies and my leg starts to move up and down with nerves as I sit on the toilet seat.
“How you doing?”
“About as good as I can be,” I answer her nervously. “Trying not to think about what happens next if it’s positive.”
“You could just be late,” she soothes softly, “you know stress fucks with your cycle, along with a thousand other things.” I don’t know who she is trying to reassure. Me or herself.
“Have you ever been ten days late?” I ask her and she snorts.
“Yeah, once, and now we have a child.”
“Oh great,” I deadpan and then I hear bells on her end. “Is that three minutes?” I ask her and I look at the test, my hand shaking as I take it out and hold it over the sink.
“What does it say?” she asks in a whisper.
My eyes are on the two pink lines. “It has two pink lines,” I answer, putting one hand to my stomach. “I guess that means I’m having a baby.”
seven
Jaxon
The whistle blows and I skate over to the corner where Coach is there waiting for us. “We’re going to work on three-on-three.” He starts to talk as he explains the drill on the board hanging off the glass. “Three defense on one side”—he looks up at me, giving me a motion with his chin—“start off on the right side of Mars,” he mentions the goalie. “You get three forwards on the other side.” He moves his marker on the board to the left side. “We’re going to drop the puck and see who gets to it first. If the D’s get to it first, the forwards have to play defense and vice versa.”
“We all know the D’s can’t really play forward,” Owen says and I smirk at him.
“Stevie’s shot is harder than yours,” my defense partner, Kirby, says of me, he uses my nickname. Stevenson is my last name, so he shortened it when we first started playing with each other. “And we all know you can’t score unless you’re right in front of the goalie”—he winks at him—“or you get a rebound.”
