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Lyric
I’m so screwed. It’s been seven weeks since I had a period. Six weeks since I realized Price has been trying to knock me up. Five weeks and six days since I decided to let him. Now, there’s a thick envelope crammed into the mailbox at my apartment. It can only mean one thing. I pretty much only stop by my place to check the mail nowadays, so there’s no telling how many days it’s been sitting here waiting.
Not that it makes any difference. If the sore nipples and constant nausea mean what Dr. Google says they mean, grad school will be off the table for me right now. I’m ninety-eight percent positive the envelope is my acceptance into the program with Anders Karisson to study for a master’s in infrastructures and smart cities. It’s too substantial to be a simplethanks but no thanks.
Even knowing I’ll have to delay going to graduate school if I’m actually pregnant, and I’m pretty sure I am, I still feel a flush of pride. I did it! Without any help or string pulling from Price, I convinced the absolute leader in municipal green performance to include me in the upcoming semester’s program.
Part of me wants to run straight to the office to find Price and tell him, but fear creeps in and holds me back. Just thinking about his reaction has my stomach churning more than it already has been lately, and my heart’s beating heavily in my chest. I still don’t know why he’s sneaking around and messing with my birth control.
That prickly, sweaty feeling makes my armpits itchy. My temples throb, and I know it’s anxiety making me spiral. Price hasn’t ever told me he loves me. Maybe, I’m being illogical, but what if he’s playing me? What if this whole thing is about getting a woman pregnant, so he can have a baby? He’s in his thirties. Don’t men start feeling the same biological urges to procreate as women do?
Am I just a means to Price’s ends? A month ago, even after this stupid charade between us started, I would have laughed at anyone suggesting Price might be using me for a baby. But so much time has passed with no explanation. It feels more and more likely there’s not an innocent or happy reason for his silence.
It’s all so Machiavellian. The worst part is the way I’ve started to overthink and question even the small things between us. I love Price Ford. I really do. I thought I was ready to have a baby with him, too. It felt like the game would be a funny moment in the history of us. Something to laugh about one day as we tell our child how their mother and father both wanted them so much we tricked each other to make it happen.
My hand curves over my flat stomach, imagining it round with Price’s baby, and I can’t bring myself to regret any of it. Maybe, I should have called him on his subterfuge, been a bigger person and not tried to play a game of my own. Shoulda, coulda, woulda… None of it matters now.
I stopped by the drugstore on my way to my place and grabbed a test. I just need to find the courage to pee on the stick. If there’s a baby growing in me, I’ll figure out what the next steps are.
“Lyric! I just got notice from corporate that you’re moving out. You couldn’t have given me a head’s up that you’re breaking your lease when you were pissing and moaning about the broken glass out by the dumpsters last month? I had to deal with nonstop calls from the higher ups for days. Why do you even care?”
Raymond Falks is seriously the worst building manager ever. If there were awards given for doing the least while saying the most, it would probably be the first time in his life he ever got a ribbon. He spends more time hassling the single women in the building than he ever tends to maintenance issues. Still, I’m confused about what he’s whining about now.
“Um, I’m not sure what you mean. Sure, I dropped a repair request for the dangerous glass on the ground back there. It had been left there for over a week. Someone was going to get hurt. You must be thinking of someone else giving notice, though. I’ve got four months left on my lease.”
“Not as of yesterday afternoon, you don’t. According to main office, you’re out this Friday, and I’ve got to waste my weekend making sure you didn’t damage the property at all so they can re-rent it ASAP. So thanks for that.”
Ray’s a surly asshole, but he’s never wrong about anything that causes him to do extra work, so somehow, someway, my lease has been bought out. I bet I know exactly who and how. Price’s high-handed takeover of my life, without even talking to me first, has to stop. I may be fine letting him make the decisions in the bedroom, and even the day-to-day ones like what we eat, but this? This is too much.
“Take whatever you want out of my deposit, Ray. I don’t have time for you right now.”
He sputters and grumbles as I walk away, but my mind is racing in so many directions right now I can’t care.
I just need to get into my apartment, so I can pee on this stick, read the packet from the university, and decide whether I’m going to murder Price Ford for being such a tyrant.
Sure enough, the stick pops up with the word “pregnant” almost before I can get the cap on and my panties pulled up. The envelope contains exactly what I expected; an acceptance. The impact of the first reality on the second truth means I can’t make the third decision anything other than a no, I can’t kill Price.
Not just because I love him, despite his overbearing presumptuousness. This baby needs a father, and even though I’m mad at him, mad at us, there’s no one but Price I’d ever want to be my baby’s daddy.
Chapter7
Price
“You had no right.” Fury cracks in every word Lyric hurls at me as she stomps through the door of my office. I have no clue what right she’s talking about, and damn, if that doesn’t say more about the secrets that have been growing between us than I know what to do with.
Two months ago, there wasn’t a moment of my day when I had to wonder what was going on in that beautiful mind of hers. Her thoughts, her life, fuck her whole heart, were all open to me. Just as much, I was like an open book for her to read.
Sudden anger sizzles through my veins. All of this deception and lack of communication started when Lyric got it into her head to try to find a new job and not even give me the consideration of telling me. So maybe, I’m the villain in this story for doing my damnedest to knock her up and force her to stay with me, but she has some culpability here, too.
“I have all the right, Baby Girl. I don’t even have to know what you’re talking about to know that. Whatever it is, I did what’s best for you. So you can accept it and move on or be as mad as you want to be. Either way, decisions had to be made, and I made them.”
“Decisions had to be made? What possible reason could there be for terminating my lease, Price? For making me homeless? Is that your goal? Because the last time I checked, I only have one residence. Only one place where my mail is delivered. One address on my driver’s license.”
My hand goes to the tie at my neck and tugs it loose enough for me to swallow. So she knows I bought out her lease. The wash of relief that this is what has her so irritated is quickly replaced with the realization if she’s this pissed off about me taking over her apartment, she’s liable to go nuclear when she finds out I’ve hijacked her womb.
“You live with me, Lyric. I’m just making it official. It’s time. It’s a waste of resources and energy to continue pretending otherwise.” I square my shoulders and brace my feet wide. Lyric always responds best when I throw some dominance her way. She’s a brilliant, capable young woman, but she’s also a sweet little sub, who loves it when I take charge and run things.
“I guess asking me to live with you, or even inviting me, would have been a waste of your time, too.”
