Page 67 of The Red Zone
“Yeah, we’re being safe.”
I was on birth control, but I wasn’t known to be the most responsible with taking it. More often than not, I’d skip a day here and there then take two the next day to make up for it. The last two years my sexual encounters had been few and far between, so it didn’t occur to me that I needed to be more diligent about taking birth control now that I was having sex with someone regularly.
Wait… fuck.
When was the last time I’d taken my birth control?
A silent panic ensued in my brain, but I tried my best to conceal it. It had been two weeks since we hadn’t used a condom after the fashion show, but my period just started yesterday morning. And we’d used condoms every time since that night. So, we were safe for now, right?
“Why haven’t you answered any of Richard’s calls, by the way?” Scarlett quirked a brow, temporarily pulling me from my downward spiral.
If I would’ve continued trying to connect the dots about when I’d last taken my birth control, there was no doubt in my mind that I would’ve jumped straight off this couch and stormed out of their house toward the pool house with a ball of nerves in my stomach.
“How’d you know about that?” I pulled back with a puzzled expression.
“He called me to ask why you weren’t answering his calls… or his emails… or his texts.”
Fucking Richard.
I knew sharing the same accountant with my sister would come back to bite me one day. Wasn’t there such a thing as accountant-client privilege or did that cease to exist without my knowledge?
“What are you going to do with all your free time now? You used to work such long hours, it must be weird not having anything to do anymore.”
Well, these days, spending time with October has taken up a lot of my time. Every night, I slept over at his house, and every morning we hung out together until he left for practice.
I sighed. “I was thinking about going back to college maybe… finishing the last few credits for my degree. Hopefully while I’m there it’ll give me some ideas for what I want to do in the future. Or maybe Lea could help me get a job with the Matrix to help with their social media marketing or something.”
She sucked in a breath and a satisfied grin lifted her cheeks, making her eyes squint together. “I like that idea… the team's socials are really awful. They could use a rebrand.”
“Right?”
“Now, are you finally going to tell me that I was right about you and October?”
“Your ego needs stroking just as badly as his.” I rolled my eyes playfully. “But fine… you were right. Hate fucks have proven to be very beneficial.”
“It’s more than just a hate fuck, though, isn’t it? You like him, don’t you?”
More than I wanted to admit out loud.
I couldn’t sleep without him. Every breakfast and morning tea, I wanted him to be the person sitting at the table next to me. I wasn’t even shy about it anymore. I’d wake up extra early just to eat with him before he ran off to practice, only to crawl right back into bed, snuggling against his pillows the second he left.
Hell, I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d slept in my own bed, let alone gone up to my closet to change into something that wasn’t one of his oversized t-shirts and a pair of his boxers.
Even more than that, I can’t remember the last time I felt an ounce of anger towards him. We still squabbled back and forth with each other, but it was all playful and in good fun—resulting in steaming hot sex, more often than not.
“You like him?” she asked with a hint of hopefulness in her tone.
I gave her a small nod.
“Does that mean you can finally tell me what he did that made you hate him so much?”
With a sigh, I told her the same story that I’d told him. Only this time there weren't tears in my eyes or the pangs of resentment in my heart. The story was what it was, and we both knew it wasn’t true, which was all that mattered.
Her face softened as I finished and she broke her hands out of the blanket mound and squeezed around my neck so hard I almost saw stars.
October was right—ugh, even now, the words still pained me to admit out loud. Sometimes a little reminder that it’s okay to let people in was all that was needed to make you realize that you weren’t alone with your feelings. That you didn’t have to go through big, monumental life changes—both the good and the shitty—without the most important people in your life by your side.
Scarlett and I stayed on the couch, cuddled up watching movies for a few hours while we let her whirlwind of emotions from the morning settle down. The entire time, a war raged inside my mind as I contemplated what I should say to October.
