Page 20 of Unbreakable
My eyes met Dylan’s where he sat across from me on the lip of the bathtub in his apartment.
He nodded. “It did not.”
Pull and pray had become more of a motto than an in-a-pinch solution for me and Dylan. It felt too good for us to be raw together, and afforded us some spontaneity. I told him I didn’t want to do birth control because it messed up my weight, which then could mess up my chances at auditions.
But you know what messes with your weight even more? Being pregnant. Growing a baby inside your body.
We’d both agreed we were cool with the risk, but I don’t think either of us thought it would actually happen.
It happened. The two lines on the test in my hands were clear as day.
“I’ve got that audition Tuesday,” I mumbled.
Dylan chewed his lip. “Whatever you want to do, Jeannie. I’m with you no matter what.”
I shook my head. “We’ve been together, what, five minutes?”
“Four months, actually,” he mumbled.
A beat of silence passed between us. It was a bombshell—one we knew was a possibility, but we were playing like it wasn’t.
We did it everywhere. In the bathroom at my job. In his car after games. On every surface in his apartment. Over the phone when he was on the road, us talking dirty and him telling me what he wanted to do to me.
So, yeah. It wasn’t all that surprising that my period went AWOL.
“Jeanine, I’ll marry you.”
“What?!”
He took my hand, his eyes completely earnest. “I love you, Jeannie.”
We’d said it a couple of months in. We were lying in bed grinning at each other like fools, lacing and unlacing our fingers. Hormones were flowing and Dylan had the sweetest smile. Then he just said it. I’d had it said to me before, but then I was horrified, panicked even because that guy wasn’t the right one.
This time, I felt it too, and it felt like my heart would splatter like a blueberry in a muffin. So I said it back.
But loving someone and loving someone enough to marry them are two separate metrics. And while I could see a long future with Dylan, I didn’t want to jump into anything too fast.
“I know it’s crazy, J, but I do want to spend my life with you.”
My head got light. “You don’t need to do this, Dylan.”
“Jeanine,” he shook my hand and made me look at him. “These last four months have been my happiest. I want whatever you want.”
“They’re your happiest because we fuck like bunnies.”
“And I fuck you so much because I love you and can’t get enough of you.”
It was a valid point. Sometimes sex is just sex, and sometimes it’s something more. With Dylan, it was usuallymore, and that’s what made it so great. He’d been fucking me like he loved me since the first night I came home with him.
“But marriage, Dylan? It’s not the 1800s. You don’t have to marry me so we can have a baby. I don’t want anI’m the man doing the right thingwedding. When I get married, I want it to be for love.”
“Jeannie, I do love you. I want to marry you anyway.”
“But this soon?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s sooner than I was planning to ask, sure. A baby speeds things up.”
I just shook my head, trying to quiet its spinning. “I don’t even know . . .”
