“Are you fucking kidding me, Lake?”

She fell away from me, quiet again.  I could feel her about to go back to her room but at the last second, she changed her mind and said it all in one breath.  “I dreamt I woke up and there was this really cute baby girl at the foot of my bed and she had this perfect pink crib with little bows tied to it, and it felt so real ‘cause in the dream I knew her name was Ella and when I went to hold her, she was – ”

“Fuck.  Off.  Lake.”  It was harsh.  I knew that.  But now she was touching on a nerve and about to make it impossible for me to fall back asleep.  At this point, we’d figured out that my mother had been bugging my dad for another baby.  Through adoption, unless some miracle happened.  I’d overheard her on the phone with my aunt, saying she didn’t get enough time to be a mommy to a little girl.  She’d gotten the briefest taste of it with Lake and that only made things worse because now Lake was seventeen with a boyfriend and bound for college in less than a year.  My dad was rarely home but I knew he was irritated by her desperate pleading.  On the rare occasions that he got drunk at home, he muttered about how my mother took a teenaged girl in without giving him a choice to say no.  As much as his eyes flew to Lake the second she walked into a room – as much as he couldn’t help staring at her with the most thinly veiled lust, he resented her.  He was bitter for being put in a situation where he had to father this beautiful stranger and he was bitter at the amount of attention she sucked from my mother.  He saw Lake as the reason his wife was suddenly begging him for a child when he’d already agreed to have me eighteen years ago and then basically adopt another – wasn’t that fucking enough?

He was rarely ever home but Lake’s increasing sex appeal and my mother’s baby fever kept him more often away from the house.  There wasn’t a whole lot I could do about the situation and I knew Lake would feel insanely guilty if she ever found out, so any mention of the baby thing from her had me bottling my thoughts and stewing in silent irritation.

“I’ll leave you alone if you promise to stay home with me this weekend.  We can wake up early and make her breakfast and take her to see that fashion exhibit at The Met.  And then at night we’ll just chill and make dinner and watch like, Ghost or Dirty Dancing.”

“Do you want to chop my balls off while we’re at it.”

She pulled me onto my back and held my face, giggling into it and waking me officially up.  “We’re staying in with her this weekend,” she said an inch from my lips.  “Tell me you’ll do it, Callum.”

I tried to ignore her but then I let out a breath.  “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.”  She kissed my forehead and my anger dissipated too easily for my liking.  “Can I sleep here tonight?”

I stared blankly at the ceiling as she climbed onto me.  “Yeah.”  I slid my fingers through her hair and stroked the way I knew she liked.  To my irritation, she was out like a light in a minute.  And I stayed wide-awake because that was just how it went – Lake woke me up when she heard my mother crying, I’d say something to eventually ease her heart and then she’d conk out while I spent the rest of the night sleepless and annoyed.  I knew I was doomed to this fate every time her sharp whisper stirred me from slumber – a night of memorizing every inch of the ceiling and counting her soft breaths till I saw the sun rise.  She was damned lucky I loved feeling her asleep on my chest.

Chapter Twelve

Lake

I realized I wanted to go home before the conversation even started.  Maybe because Theo had made it weird the second we got into the café.  He held the door open for me and after I walked through, put a hand on the small of my back and flashed me a big smile.

“Let’s rewind this whole thing and start over,” he suggested with that big, gallant prince laugh he always thought sounded so charming.  “Lake.  It’s so good to see you again.  And I have to say, you look incredible.”  With that, he did his version of the Spencer family kiss on the cheek.  His parents had always been big on greeting their guests with it, so Theo and his brothers adopted that way of saying hello.  Of course, they only insisted with girls and Theo, every time, loved to press his kiss closer to the mouth than the cheek.  That hadn’t changed.  Despite the fact that we once dated, I flinched when I felt his lips on me.  He noticed, looked annoyed and muttered “sorry” as the awkward air started floating in.

He and I had been together on and off from junior to senior year.  We broke up whenever he got too pissed that I wouldn’t have sex with him and our group of friends, knowing it would be temporary, would begrudgingly split with us every time.  Everyone still spoke and got along, aside from Theo and myself, but our lunch tables would separate – Callum, Isabel and Logan always sat with me – and we’d have to carefully arrange our plans so Theo and I didn’t both show up.  I was generally the one to bow out.  Caroline always got pissed at Callum for not boycotting social outings with me, so whenever there was a party I was skipping for breakup reasons, she’d make pumpkin shakes and homemade whipped cream and we’d sit at home watching chick flicks till we fell asleep on the couch.

“I just don’t get what your hang-up is,” Theo said one day while we hung out in his bedroom.  We were on our longest streak without a breakup – a whopping four months.  “It’s gonna hurt the first time for every girl.  And then you get used to it and it’s fine.”

“That’s not the issue, Theo.”

“Then what the hell is it?”

“Don’t curse at me.”

“Then what is it? I’ve been dating you for two years, Lake.  I know there’s something.  Did, like, Ethan do some messed up shit to you or something?”

“Ew – what? No!” I wrinkled my nose.  Caroline and Ethan Pike had just separated and were talking divorce.  The kids at school were only whispering about it because their parents were.  But apparently, I was thrown into the mix of rumors despite understanding nothing of their roots.  Ethan was barely ever home and when he was, he hardly spoke to me or Callum.  “It’s not that and don’t talk about that shit with anyone.  Please.  She’s going through a really hard time right now.”

“Fine.  Just tell me what the issue with the sex is or I’m not going to be able to fix it.”

“Why do you have to fix it? I don’t want to have sex yet.  I told you.  I’m trying to hold off for as long as I can.  People do that, okay?”

“Weird people do that.  No one who looks and acts like you ever gets to eighteen without getting fucked.”

“Ugh, you’re crass.”

“Stop pretending to be all innocent.”

“I’m not innocent,” I spat.  I still remembered the things I’d seen and heard before my grandma took me away from my mom.  I was five years old then but I still knew how much worse things got when Trish didn’t have a man in her life.  The house would stink, she wouldn’t eat and I’d be hungry day and night.  I didn’t like her and I didn’t like them but at least when she had some semblance of a “special friend,” she’d go out and come back with leftovers from McDonald’s.  She’d have more patience with me when I asked her to help me turn on the shower.  The knobs had fallen off forever ago and it was broken, rusty and confusing.  The one time I tried to finagle on my own, I cut my finger open and she got pissed that I needed a tetanus shot.

Theo rolled his eyes.  “Well, if you’re not innocent, have sex with me.  Do it with me tomorrow at Logan’s house.  At his party.  We’ll find a room.”

“How romantic.”

“Who cares about romantic – we’re just getting the first time over with so you can stop being such a pain in the ass.”