But it’s a lie. A lie. A huge motherfucking lie.
“Please!” I scream at him, stepping back and digging my fingernails into the fabric of my too-short skirt. “Get out and leave me alone, Catcher. Go find some desperate groupie at the clubhouse to have babies with.”
He taps the test against his palm for a moment, and then slips it into the pocket of his leather vest before turning and leaving my bedroom. He closes the door so softly behind him that I can barely hear the shushing sound of it falling into place.
For a while, I just stand there in the bathroom by myself. Eventually, I get it together enough to take the second and third tests that I bought. All with the same result. My relief is immense, even as I struggle with a deluge of other emotions.
I end up sitting on the edge of my bed, my elbows on my knees, my hands steepled and pressed to my lips. The pregnancy thing is dealt with. Awesome. What about an STD check? Should I get one? Do I need one?
The door opens again, and I look up, expecting Beast or Sin.
Instead, it’s …
“Crown,” I say, my skin tightening with goose bumps. He smiles at me, but the expression is tinged with something else. Something inexplicable. I hate that I can smell him, sense him, feel his presence in a way that’s metaphysical. “What do you want?”
Of them all, he’s the worst, I think. Because when he heard Cat’s bike, he treated me like a dirty secret, banished me to my bedroom. Made me cry. Only he doesn’t know that. None of them do. I’d rather tear my own fingernails off than tell them.
“Your father wants to see you,” Crown says, his voice soft, but also tinged with a hint of warning.
Fantastic.
His moss green eyes take me in before drifting over to my nightstand and … fuck. I’d forgotten I’d brought the other pregnancy tests in here. Blood drains from my face, and I feel suddenly faint. Somehow, having Crown see those is worse than having Beast in here. Worse than Sin chasing me up the stairs with stupid questions.
“Gidge,” he starts in that way of his, the one that always precedes a lecture.
“They’re negative, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I blurt, standing up and snatching the tests in my hands. I throw them into the very same trash can where both Grainger and Sin chucked their used condoms that night, and then I go to slip past Crown.
He doesn’t let me, keeping his arm in place like a blockade.
Our eyes meet, but we’re standing too close together to have any reasonable sort of discussion. Guess that doesn’t matter since at least one of us is completely unreasonable.
“Leave me alone, Crown.” I’m proud of myself for keeping my tone even, almost bored. More lies. I could climb a mountain of them and place a flag at the very top. “If I were pregnant, it wouldn’t be your problem.”
“That’s where you’re wrong about that,” he tells me with a low, patronizing sort of laugh. Harsh, biting, frustrated, that’s what he is. “It would be the entire club’s problem. You’re Cat’s daughter, Gidget.”
“So you keep reminding me,” I grind out, but still, he doesn’t let me go. Crown keeps his arm in place, keeps standing so close to me that his breath ruffles my hair and the heat of his body stings my skin.
“Grow up and maybe I won’t have to?” Crown finally lets me go, dropping his arm and then turning to follow me. I ignore him. Rightfully, I should kill him. That disdainful tone, the way he lifts his chin in that imperious way of his. I’d hate him more than anyone if, at the bottom of the stairs, my worst nightmare wasn’t waiting.
A nightmare that I allowed to be my first, to occupy a space in my mind for the rest of eternity. Now, whenever the topic of first times and virginity is brought up—which at my school is basically nonstop—I have to think about Cade Grainger. More often than not, I think about the way he snarled at Sin, as if I were his, and he were mine.
“If you touch her, I will end you.”
Why did he say that? Why did he care? Was it some brief, male moment of possession?
“Up there enjoying the vice president?” he growls at me as I come down the stairs. Cade moves as if he might touch me, but I launch a verbal attack at him before he lays those poisonous fingers on my arm. If his skin makes contact with mine, I’m afraid I’ll combust. I’m afraid he’ll see me combust. That won’t be good for either of us.
“Actually, I was taking a pregnancy test to see if I might be having Beast’s baby.” I dart past him before he can react, finding my way out back to where Cat’s waiting, sitting on a lounge chair with my mother on his lap. She’s stroking his face like he means something to her while I cross my arms over my chest and wait. “What?”
