Page 26 of Nine Month Contract
A knock interrupts my obsessive thoughts, and I realize it’s her.
Time to make a baby.
I open the door and stupidly grunt out, “I went to the Mercantile and picked up pizza.”
She holds up two brown bags in her hand. “I picked up booze.”
She kicks off her beat-up cowboy boots and marches past me, dropping her purse on my small farm table like she’s been in my place a million times…which she hasn’t. I watch her curiously as she props her hands on her hips and assesses the space for a second before making her way toward the kitchen, giving no outward reaction to the home I built with my bare hands.
Not that I need her approval on this house, but I guess I just…I don’t know what I want. A baby. That’s what I want. That should be all that I want from this woman.
She sets the brown bags on my butcher-block island and pulls out two bottles of white wine. Without pause, she twists the cap off one and takes a swig straight from the bottle.
My brows lift.It’s going to be that kind of night.
“These were two for seven bucks at the gas station, and it tastes like it.” She coughs and winces at the taste.
“Do you want something else?” I offer, making a move to my refrigerator. “I only have beer.”
“No,” she mutters and takes another quick sip. “I’m not a very big drinker, but I’m nervous as shit, and lots of people get pregnant drunk, so…science. How are you doing?”
Her candid response is more comforting than she realizes. I haven’t known Trista for long, but I like that she calls a spade a spade. I move to stand next to her at the island, noticing how much smaller she is out of her boots.
I point at the second bottle. “Is that other one for me?”
She silently slides it over, and I twist the cap off and join her in the wine-bottle-chugging experience. I shudder at the horrible tastebecause I’m not a wine drinker…but I will be tonight. I want her to feel supported through this, and if that means choking down a disgusting bottle of cheap wine, I’ll do it.
“Pizza?” I point at the box on the other side of her.
She nods and helps herself, mindlessly chomping down on a bite.
“I checked on Millie and Reginald before I came in here, and they both looked very content in their pens,” she says around a mouthful. “That was really sweet of you to buy those troughs for Reggie. Sorry if I was a bitch about the pen thing.” She takes another swig.
“You weren’t a bitch.” I take another swig, eyeing her baggy T-shirt that’s covered in Millie hoof prints and a substance I can only assume is from the pig.
It’s odd to have Trista in my house. All of our meetings thus far have been pretty professional. And this whole concept of me hiring a surrogate felt like something that was never actually going to happen. It feels more real now that we’re here, face-to-face, without a lawyer talking for us. More personal. Like we’re letting our guards down.
Probably because you’re about to put your cum inside her, my inner voice adds with a dirty sneer. I take a big drink.
I reach across her for a slice of pizza, murmuring around a mouthful of pepperoni, “I, um…didn’t get one of those insemination kits you mentioned. Did you?”
“I meant to get one from my vet friend, Avery, but I forgot.” She reaches into her brown bag to pull out a white drugstore bag. Inside it is a box that contains a bottle of liquid children’s Tylenol and a plastic-wrapped syringe. “If it’s good enough for the lesbians…”
My brows lift. “What do I…dispense into?”Swig.
“Fuck,” she murmurs around a mouthful.Swig, swig, swig.
An idea comes to mind, so I reach down and touch her hip to move her back a little bit to access the drawer in front of her.
“Are those disposable salad dressing cups?” she asks, her brows pinched together in genuine curiosity.
“Yeah, I use them for ranch in my lunches.”Chug, chug, chug. “Could they work?”
She shrugs, finally lowering the bottle. “Will they be big enough?”
I swallow nervously. “I guess I don’t know.” I move to take another drink and then realize my bottle is empty.Shit.
I walk over to the fridge and grab two bottles of beer. I don’t know if I envisioned doing this drunk, but the more I drink, the less awkward this feels, so I’m good with this if she is. At least for this first time.
