Chapter 7: Bathroom Ultimatum
The bare bulb in the stairwell seemed to pulse with her words. Late. The syllable hung between them, a little death sentence. Lucas’s hand fell from her neck. He took a full step back, the distance feeling like a canyon.
“How late?” His voice was flat.
“A week. Maybe more.” Ava tugged her ripped underwear from where it was caught in her jeans, the gesture absurdly practical amidst the chaos. Her own calm felt foreign, like she was watching someone else speak.
He ran a hand over his mouth, his gaze darting around the concrete space as if looking for an answer written on the walls. The fury was gone, completely evaporated, leaving something emptier behind. “Okay,” he said finally. The word meant nothing.
They didn’t speak in the car. The drive to his apartment was a silent blur of streetlights and shadows. He held her elbow as they walked from the parking garage, not tenderly, but like he was preventing her from floating away. Or like he needed an anchor.
Inside, his apartment was as she remembered: clean in a masculine, transient way. A surfboard leaned in the corner. A shelf of field guides. The couch they’d once half-slept on. He went straight to the bathroom and came out with a small paper bag. He placed it on the kitchen counter with the care one might use for a live explosive.
“You should take one.” He didn’t look at her.
“I bought three,” Ava said, her voice quiet. She hadn’t planned to say it. She pulled the drugstore bag from her own purse, the crinkling sound obscenely loud. She’d been carrying them for two days, a secret weight.
He stared at the bag in her hand. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Right.” He turned and walked to the window, staring out at the dark city, his back to her.
Ava took the tests into his bathroom. She did what the instructions said, her hands steady. She set the three white plastic sticks on the edge of his sink and sat on the closed toilet lid, watching the digital windows. She didn’t pray. She just counted her own heartbeats.
One by one, the symbols appeared. Not blinking. Not uncertain. Clear, definitive plus signs. All three.
She didn’t move. The hum of the refrigerator in the next room was the only sound. She looked at herself in the mirror over the sink. Her lips were swollen. The bite on her neck was already purpling. She looked exactly like what she was: someone who’d just been fucked hard in a stairwell and was now pregnant.
She picked up the three tests, walked back into the living room, and lined them up neatly on the coffee table. Then she went to the kitchen counter and lined up the three from his bag beside them. Six positive tests. An undeniable battalion.
Lucas turned from the window. His eyes went to the counter. He stared at the six tests for a long, silent minute, his face unreadable. The first hint of dawn began to bleed a weak grey light into the room, catching the dust motes in the air.
He walked over slowly. He picked one up, turned it in his hand, put it down. He did this with a second. His actions were methodical, like he was verifying data. His knuckles were white.
Ava leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest. Her heart was a frantic bird in a cage, but her voice, when it came out, was unnervingly steady. “So. Are you running again, or are you finally going to fuck me like you mean it this time?”
He flinched as if she’d slapped him. His head snapped up, his eyes meeting hers. They weren’t angry anymore. They were devastated. And something else, something fiercer.
He crossed the space between them in two strides. His hands came up, cupping her face, his thumbs pressing into her cheekbones. “Don’t,” he whispered, his breath warm against her lips. “Don’t do that. Not now.”
“Why not? It’s what we do. We fuck. We run. It’s our thing.”
“Not anymore.” The words were final. He released her face, but only to slide his hands down her arms, her sides, settling on her hips. He pulled her against him, not with violence, but with a crushing certainty. She could feel every hard line of his body, the frantic beat of his heart against her breast.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, his voice low and raw. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, his lips grazing the fresh bruise he’d left. “But you?” He walked her backwards, through the living room, into the dim bedroom. “You’re never leaving this bed again.”
It wasn’t a threat. It was a vow, soaked in desperation.
He tumbled them onto the unmade sheets. The sex this time was different. There was no rage, no punishment. It was slow. Deliberate. His mouth was on hers, not biting, but learning. His hands moved under her shirt, pushing it up, his palms skimming her ribs, her stomach, with a reverence that made her want to cry.
When he entered her, it was with a deep, aching slide that felt less like possession and more like a homecoming. He moved above her, his eyes locked on hers, his rhythm a deep, rolling wave. Each thrust was a silent question. Each sigh from her lips was a fractured answer.
The dawn light grew stronger, painting his skin in gold and shadow. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and for a moment, the terrifying future—the tests on the counter, the unknown, the sheer fucking mess of it all—receded. There was only this. The slick heat between them, the sound of their breathing, the solid, real weight of him keeping her from flying apart.
Afterward, he didn’t pull away. He stayed inside her, softening, his forehead resting against her shoulder. His fingers traced idle patterns on her bare hip.
“We should tell Riley,” he murmured into her skin.
Ava’s breath caught. Of all the practical horrors—doctors, decisions, parents—that one sent a cold spear through her gut. Her sister. His… whatever Riley was to him. History. Unfinished business.
“Not yet,” she said.
He lifted his head, his eyes searching hers. He didn’t argue. He just nodded, once, and kissed her shoulder. A silent pact.
They lay there as the room filled with morning light, the city’s hum growing outside the window. The six plastic tests on the coffee table were waiting. The world was waiting. But for now, in the tangled sheets, they held onto the only truth they had: the beat of two hearts, too close to tell apart.