Read Enjoy Your Stay for Free Online Page B

another.
    After we’re sated, Jack sets me on my feet and begins soaping me up, washing away the trace of his sweat and scent on my skin. For the second time in as many days, I’m sort of numb. I just stand there, and let him clean me up, but when his palm skates the inside of my thighs and touches the sensitive flesh between my legs, I flinch.
    Jack cocks his head to the side, and sighs. “Out with it, Hols.”
    “Out with what?”
    He raises a brow. “Can’t bullshit me, remember?”
    “I’m fine.” I shove his hand away, and turn into the warm spray.
    “This doesn’t have to be weird. How many times we ridden this pony now? You and I make sense, because we’re not attached to one another. We can fuck, and still keep all that romantic bullshit separate.”
    I bite my lip. Take a deep breath against the tsunami tide of emotion threatening to crash over me. It doesn’t work. All the fears I’ve been burying since I first saw that little plus sign glaring back at me from the pregnancy test come rushing to the surface.
    “Not anymore we can’t,” I say, and instantly regret it, because the wary expression on his face makes me want to punch myself in the vagina. “I’m about to be a mum, Jack. You know what that means? Stretch marks, and poo, sleepless nights, and saggy boobs. And crying, lots and lots of crying. I shouldn’t be fucking my roommate in the shower. I should be going to those bullshit prenatal classes, and watching videos of women pushing babies through their flabby snatches, not sticking penises in mine.”
    I suck in a breath through clenched teeth to keep from crying. I’m almost afraid to look at Jack’s face, but I do anyway because I have to know how he feels about all I’ve just said. I stare into those blue eyes that are capable of conveying so much—even when he thinks his poker face is indecipherable—and I’m met with impassiveness. I don’t know what I was expecting, but that was not it. Why isn’t he freaking out right now? Or comforting me? Or at the very least showing some indication that he heard what I just said?
    “How do I do this? I don’t know how to do any of this. I don’t know how to take care of a kid. I’m still a fucking kid myself.” A sob tears from my throat, and I struggle to reel it in. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m one step away from losing my shit altogether, and ugly-crying all over the hottest dude I’ve ever banged, so I spin around and stick my face under the warm spray.
    I startle when Jackson wraps me in his arms, and pulls me back into his chest. Then he kisses my neck, and says, “You’re gonna be a great mum, Hols. This kid’s gonna be lucky to have you. I’m kinda jealous of the little brat.”
    I give a half-hearted laugh. “I’m pretty sure breastfeeding isn’t as fun as it sounds, Jack.”
    “I’m serious. You got this, sweetheart. And you’ve got me for as long as you want me here.”
    My heart kicks into overdrive hearing those words. As nice as they are, coming from his lips, I know that’s not quite true. How could it be? I’m pregnant with another man’s child. Pretty soon I’ll get bigger, and when this kid comes screaming and ripping its way through my lady parts and crying into all hours of the night, Jackson will be out. Because that’s what I would do. And, like he said, there are no secrets between us. There’s no hiding, and there’s no pretending we’re anything other than what we are.

F UCK, FUNERALS are boring.
    I mean, yes, it’s sad. The family member/friend/co-worker/acquaintance you used to know is lying in a box inside a church they more than likely only set foot in once. They’re painted up all creepy with colour in their cheeks, like at any moment they’ll sit up, and go, “I’m just shitting you, guys. How bout a drink at the pub?” And, yes, people are crying, and whispering half-hearted condolences, but they’re so fucking depressing you think you might just keel over if you have to