Okay,I told myself.Get it together.
I had wanted this. I had negotiated this. I had sat on a tailgate in a parking lot in June and saidI want you to knock me upto a man I'd known for three hours and meant every word of it, and I did not get to be surprised now that it was actually happening.
I was a little surprised.
I was also—and this was the part I was having trouble filing—not scared. Not exactly. What I was, if I was being honest, wasanticipatoryin a way that had nothing to do with the baby andeverything to do with the man who had stood in this bedroom an hour ago with his hand on the doorframe and his voice gone hoarse.
It had beenthree and a half years.
Three and a half years of nothing, of eighty-hour weeks and spreadsheets and putting everything into a plan, and my body had apparently been keeping a running tally of that deprivation and was now presenting the bill all at once. I’d barely even touched myself for the past three years, and now it was like my body was waking up and she washungry.
I showered. Twice, technically, because I got out the first time and stood in the bathroom mirror and thought about Gage Holt's hands and got back in.
I changed my outfit four times.
I settled on a sundress—yellow, soft, the kind of thing you wear when you want to look like you didn't try. I tried on the backup option twice more before putting the yellow dress back on and staying in it through sheer force of will. Was I even supposed to be wearing anything? Should I just…lounge around in a robe and wait?
Would it be romantic? Would the sex be good?
Or would it be functional and rough and…
I texted Daniela:
Millie
tonight's the night
She responded in approximately four seconds
Daniela
MILLIE
how are you feeling
are you excited????!?!??
you have to give me all the details after
I put my phone face down on the kitchen counter.
Outside, through the window, the Hill Country was doing its evening thing—the light going gold off the limestone, the cedar going dark, the goats settling. Dolly had reclaimed the porch swing at some point during my spiral, and she sat there now, swaying gently.
I turned around and looked at the bed.
It looked…way too cozy for the absolutely filthy things I was imagining happening in it. This whole place felt pastoral and cute and not…dirty. But wasn’t it dirty to move into a housejust so a man could fuck you?So a stranger could get you pregnant?
What was I even doing here?
I was still standing in the kitchen looking at the bed through the open bedroom door when the knock came.
My heart did something dramatic.
I crossed the cottage in five steps, which was all the steps it took, smoothed my dress, took one breath, and opened the door.
Gage Holt was standing on my porch in a clean shirt and jeans with a paper bag in one hand labeledThe Creekside Diner (est. 1953). His dark eyes found mine immediately and I understood in that moment with complete clarity that I was in some amount of trouble that had nothing to do with the contract.
"Hey," he said.
