We lock eyes, and before I know it, he takes my hand and leads me down the stairs.
“Kaleb,” I protest. What is he doing?
He walks me into the bathroom and opens the medicine cabinet, taking my birth control out.
Turning, he looks down into my eyes, so many emotions crossing his face. He opens his mouth, and I hold my breath, because it looks like he’s going to speak.
His breath fans across my lips, and he holds me, kissing my forehead, nose, and mouth.
And then, he holds my eyes and drops the pills into the trash.
“Kaleb, no.” I dive down and snatch them back out.
He tries to pry them from my hand, but I keep hold. I rest my forehead against his mouth, closing my eyes and almost smiling. He wants us to have a baby. He wouldn’t be mad or feel trapped at all.
He wants me.
That’s all I wanted to know.
“I don’t want to leave you ever, but…” I look up at him. “We’re too young. We’re too… Too much shit we’ve been through. We’re not ready yet.”
He slowly tugs the pill more and more, and I struggle to keep hold of them.
“I love you,” I whisper. “We have our whole lives.”
He kisses me, his mouth moving stronger and deeper as he takes hold of my face with one hand and tries to pry the pills away with another. His tongue swirls like a cyclone down to my toes, and I whimper, my muscles going weak. I lose the pills and the next second I hear them drop into the trash again.
He wraps his arms around me, and I don’t realize he’s carrying me until he lays me on our bed upstairs.
He always gets his way. Damn him.
I make a mental note to go dig the pills out again before Jake burns the trash.
Kaleb and I stare at each other as he takes a bite of chicken and feeds me the other half of the piece. I sit in his lap at the table, trying to hide my smile, but he can’t, because he’s grinning like we have a secret.
Which we do. We’re not actually trying to get pregnant, are we? I haven’t dug the pills out yet, but leaving him is the last thing I want to do. It seems nice, the idea of building a family with him. He’s almost twenty-two. He seems ready for it all.
I let out a breath, eating a forkful of scrambled egg and loading up the utensil again, feeding him some. Breakfast is a hodgepodge of leftovers because we climbed back in bed this morning, and I didn’t have time for anything else.
I guess we’re technically not making a baby yet. I just started my period, and I can’t get pregnant for the next several days, anyway. I can still go back on my pill.
“Well, that’s it,” Jake says, strolling into the kitchen and whipping off his gloves, tossing them and his keys onto the counter. “The roads are open.”
A bike speeds off outside, and I guess that’s Noah, not wasting any time to go see his friends.
I drop my eyes, though, my stomach sinking a little. I’d rather have more winter. I look at Kaleb, seeing him watch me, and right now, I’m half-tempted to drag him into the garage, pack up the snowmobiles, and run to the fishing cabin. The snow up there will last for another month. Another blissful month of quiet.
“Where’s that woman sleeping tonight?” Jake asks.
He turns to face us with his coffee in his hand.
Oh, that’s right. We can’t escape to the cabin anyway. Now that the roads are clear, Mirai can stay here at the house tonight.
“My room.” I climb off Kaleb and clear our empty plate. “Thank you for…welcoming her,” I tell Jake.
He looks down at me, his eyes hooded in aggravation. “I’d rather have a few more months of winter.”
And he leaves, disappearing into the shop.
Yeah.
I agree.
Scooping out a hefty serving of Swedish Fish, I dump them in the white paper bag and close the container.
I have Peach Rings, cinnamon bears, gourmet jellybeans, and Spencer is boxing up some chocolate-covered almond clusters for me now.
I glance out the window, seeing Kaleb across the street, loading some lumber into the truck bed. He’s going to try to his hand at carpentry by making us a headboard, and I’m going to paint it.
I wish he hadn’t insisted on coming to town with me. After what happened at the bar on my birthday, it’s only a matter of time before the police—or the Motocross guys—get a whiff of his presence in town.
Some giggles go off near me, and I look over the jar of Hot Tamales to see a couple of young women by the retro-candy collection glancing at me and whispering. They round the aisle, their eyes dropping down my clothes, and then they laugh to themselves before leaving again.