What trickster gods sent him on a quest for emergency contraception when it was not yet sunset?
Theo wasn’t ashamed. Frenetic, full of adrenaline kites swooping up and down his limbs. Still hanging on to his orgasm bliss. Sure he should rein it all in and settle down to the serious business of fixing the problem. After-dark feelings, all. Yet the horizon was barely orange, the clouds as white as they were pink, as he walked into the pharmacy.
It wasn’t his usual store, and he wasted ridiculous minutes pacing the aisles near the dispensary before he figured out that the family planning—ha—section was over by cosmetics instead. The sealed plastic boxes of levonorgestrel perched on the top metal shelf, up where they normally kept overstock. Only visible because he’d done an image search before going inside, and knew what he was looking for. He retrieved one. Name brand, because it would embarrass him to show up at her door looking like he was willing to risk conception by buying generic. Another item going into his basket: unexpired condoms. And because he was looking out for Rachel, not because it put him on edge to head to the checkout with nothing but items from the personal hygiene aisle, he grabbed some pain relief, some anti-nausea pills, a couple of cool bottled drinks. His phone search told him she might throw up and get headaches and dizziness and bleeding and tender breasts. Damn.
As if he could make up for his lack of preparation by getting all she might need after the fact. Well, all except for whatever she’d need for the tender breasts. His phone had no advice about treating those.
It was dusk, and the mosquitos sprang out of the shadows as he mounted the stairs to her apartment. He texted instead of knocking, hesitant to disturb Hannah’s bedtime. She wrote back “5 ok,” which he took to mean the bugs would get their fill of him before she unlocked the door. A pound of flesh taken out in milligrams of blood.
Her steps, approaching the door he leaned against. He knew they were hers, which added a layer of pathos to everything else. It wasn’t that he heard an adult tread and deduced it was hers; he recognized the firm and fast way she walked. He’d cataloged it, unaware of the data going into his brain’s ‘Rachel’ file. It ate at him that he didn’t know if the broken condom was the straw that would collapse the bridge they’d been building towards each other.
“Come on in.”
He toed off his shoes in her entryway. “She down?”
“Yeah. It’s okay; she’s good about staying in bed. I’m going to turn this on, though.” She clicked on the news, the volume high enough to disguise that the anchors weren’t the only ones speaking.
He looked towards the sofa, then the kitchen, and back at her. She tilted her head at the breakfast bar, so he set the bags there and began unpacking.
She took over one of them, and snorted as soon as she opened it. “Really?”
Of course the tricksters fixed it so the condoms were the first thing she touched. “I didn’t mean, you know, right now. I didn’t know if the other expired or wore out from heat or what. It seemed like a good idea to have some fresh. I left mine in the car.”
“You know if you leave yours in the car they’ll have the same problem with degrading.”
“I know.”
Her look was all kinds of skeptical.
“I did lots of Googling while I was in line. I left my box in the car for now, but I’ll store it in my bedroom as soon as I get home.”
She held up the package of plain crackers. “Hungry?”
“It said you might get sick.”
She snorted. “Lovely.”
“Or headaches.” He gave her the boxes of meds. “You should take nausea meds now, then the contraception pill after your body has time to absorb it.”
“This gets better and better.”
“I can’t tell how mad you are.”
“I—” She closed her mouth and drew a long breath through her nose. “I’m not assigning blame. It’s just not how I expected to spend my evening.”
Theo glanced out the window above the sink. Finally, nightfall. “I know. It’s weird.”
She opened the crackers. “Want some?”
He shook his head, then changed his mind. “I forgot. Dinner.”
Her smile was more of a relief than he’d expected. “Don’t expect me to make you anything.”
“I won’t. I don’t.” He pointed towards her living area. “But, can we sit for a minute?”
She nodded. Nodded again. He stopped himself from gnawing his cheek as he followed her to the couch.
A breath to organize himself, then he plunged in. “I don’t want to—okay, I was about to say I don’t want to intrude, which seems weird given the situation. I’m trying to ask, can I stay with you tonight? On the sofa, or whatever you want. I got pretty anxious when I read up on the side effects and all, and I don’t think you’ll have any problems, but, in case.”
“Theo, that’s—”
“I know, you were already trying to brush off my attempts to get romantic before we went to my place. I’m not oblivious. And I’m not trying to be a creep. It’s got to be clear I want more than just a physical relationship with you. And if it’s not, I’ll be explicit—bad word choice. I’ll be plain about it.” He should stop rushing his words forward like they would dissolve if he couldn’t say them all at once. But it was impossible. “I like you, Rachel. I like you in a maybe too-intense way. I know you are trying to keep me at arm’s length. Emotionally, anyway. And maybe that’s not going to change for you, and maybe that means I have no chance for this to turn into something more.”
He stopped long enough to trace back to the start of this soul-baring speech. He’d had a point, and was grateful she didn’t interrupt while he located it. “So all of that aside, is what I’m saying. I hope we can talk about it later on. But for tonight, knowing I’m not looking to push it towards anything else, can I stick around and make sure you’re okay? It would—I would really appreciate it.”
He made it hard for her to harden her heart, she’d give him that. Rachel ate a couple of crackers, downed them with a sip of sports drink. The snack, banal as it was, settled her nerves along with her stomach. “I called my friend Gillian on the way home. She’ll be here in half an hour or so.”
He straightened in a way she read as displeasure. “Oh.”
“She’ll stay tonight.”
He was nodding, though looking only at the television. Too glazed to be reading the news crawl or hearing the panel discussion.
Nothing about this situation meant she should rush to defend herself, or her friend. Still. He’d voiced all manner of feelings she didn’t want to address, and logistics talk was a good way to bury all of that under details.
“She’s bringing me some soup. She said soup was a good thing for me to have. Goes well with the crackers, huh? And she can take Hannah to daycare in the morning if I’m not feeling up to it. I was worried about that, you know? My neighbor, my friend, Mary Lynn. She lived next door. Once when I got real sick, a few times Hannah wasn’t well enough for daycare, she’s always the one I call to pitch in for a few hours. Called. Right next door, and Hannah loves her. But she moved, lives out of town now, and it’s okay.” What a pile of nerve-fueled rambling. “Gillian will come over. Her summer class doesn’t meet Thursdays. Or Tuesdays, either one. So we’re covered.”
“Do you think you won’t be? Okay in the morning, I mean? I can....”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine. But if there’s a problem, Depy won’t ask questions. She’ll pick her up after school and take the bonus night as if my being sick was the answer to her prayers. That’s what she usually does, anyway. Trust me, it doesn’t take much for her to jump in and take over.”
And now she was oversharing as if he was some kind of confidant or friend or anything but a one-night stand that went too long and was ending too late.
He took another cracker. They crunched along, and she was awkward, but then his tongue swiped at a crumb on his lips, and she was beyond awkward and actively adding more images to the sexy video reel she kept pretending wasn’t on autoplay in her mind. She mentally muted that tab, tried to close it, but it was like one of those pop-up ads that followed her around from site to site when she made the mistake of browsing without an incognito window. The Theo tapes were way hotter than that one ad for child life insurance embedded in every site she visited, but just as treacherous.
She needed him gone.
“What do I owe you? For the meds and stuff?”
Effective words. He drew himself taut, the very picture of restrained offense. “Nothing.”
“I don’t mind splitting the cost.”
Tone and sentence calculated to send him scrambling for his shoes. It only got him to shift to the edge of the sofa, on the brink of standing. Either she’d lost her touch, or he was more secure in himself than she was used to.
“I take it you want me to clear out before your friend gets here.”
Busted. Last thing she needed was more time with this man who understood her motives way too well. Second to last thing. Last thing was a new baby in her life, complicating all the progress she’d built towards independence from Sergei for Hannah and herself. And the last thing would come with a side effect of the second to last thing. All told, she was glad the clutter on her breakfast bar contained all she needed to put this behind her.
No new baby brother or sister for Hannah. No second child to snuggle up against her at story time. No reason to hang on to the bins of outgrown toys and clothes.
Theo took her silence as confirmation, at last moving to the door. “Will you text me when she gets here? And also if you have any problems? I can get back over here fast. Any hour.”
His relentless, tender care of her curdled Rachel’s stomach. Good job she’d already taken the anti-nausea pills. She couldn’t deal with the kindness and thoughtfulness and general air of focused, competent emotional intelligence. Her life plans were waiting for her.
She opted for the easiest way to stop his words getting under her skin. Bonus: kissing him meant she wouldn’t say anything she’d later regret. Nothing to reveal her vulnerabilities or her unfilled needs or her secret dreams.
Breaking away, she patted at his solid, warm chest and said, “I’ll text you.”
And remembered to shut her mouth. To hold in the lingering heat of his lips on hers. The funny taste combo of electrolytes and honey. Her words.
His pause stretched between them. Mouth—those firm, sweet lips—half-closing, stopping, sealing closed. So he was withholding his words, too.
Good.
He’d said enough. All those words about going places and relationships and if she would be okay overnight. It was enough.
“Night, Rachel.”
“Bye.”
She almost managed to close the door on him without hearing him get in the last words. “I’ll see you soon.”
Any contradiction would be a lie, so she settled for locking the deadbolt and collapsing on the sofa until Gillian arrived.