Eleven Weeks (10 page)

“Hey, take it easy, Einstein. I didn’t know you wanted to be recognised for the scholar that you are,” Michael says, a smile warming his face again. “No bimbo I’ve ever met comes first in drama.”

My cheeks warm. “It’s just a performance thing; anyone can do it.” I shrug, and study the tar beneath me. “And with only nine other people in the class …”

“Hey.” Michael places his hand under my chin, tilting it up so I look into his eyes. “Not anyone;
you
.”

This time, the heat flushes through my body and I bite down on the smile that creeps its way to the corners of my mouth. “I guess, I—”

Before I can finish my sentence, Michael grabs my hand and pulls me out of the alleyway, back in the direction I came from. He darts into the shallow of a shopfront and jerks me in after him, my body landing flush against his.

“She’s coming,” he breathes, the warm air from his words caressing my skin.

He is right in front of me, his arms touching my arms, his legs touching my legs …
his chest touching my chest.

Swallow.

That is infinitely worse.

“Michael …” I blink. This time there is no
don’t look at his eyes
or
please don’t look at his lips
. I can’t stop myself gravitating toward him. My eyes flick down, looking at his pink lips, imagining how soft they’d feel, how much I want to taste him, and—

“She’s gone.” Michael steps back.

I turn to face the street and see Kate as she disappears around the corner, heading safely into our hotel.

I want to die. What the hell is going on? Does he like me or not?

And why am I hitting on a guy in a sell-out concert support band if I’m pregnant?

Once again, my stupid reality smacks me in the face. “All right. Well, looks like I’ll head back.” I put on a cheery face. Yep. Cheery. That’s how fake it is.

“I’ll walk you back.” Michael takes a few steps in the hotel’s direction.

“Why?” I narrow my eyes.

“Stace.” He runs his hands through his hair again, staring up at the sky. “It’s no secret I like you, yeah? And I don’t want you to get murdered. Or raped. Or—hell, I don’t even want you to get cold.”

I give a wry smile. It’s a warm summer night, and I can feel the damp sheen of perspiration on my forehead.
At night
.

Still, that isn’t what I smile about. He likes me. He really thinks he likes me.
Me!

On the way back to the hotel, my head keeps swirling with thoughts. I have to deal with this. What the hell am I going to do? Michael. He likes me, but he’s leaving. The baby. Hell, my career. I haven’t applied for any university courses. I’m not stupid enough to fight my fate. I’m destined to work at the supermarket and marry some guy and sprout out his kids. I’ve most likely failed three of my subjects, and I doubt you can get a scholarship based on
good at cheerleading and bossing around your peers.
I’ve always known that.

When you’re the only blonde in a family of brunettes, and grew up with lines like “By the time Mum and Dad got around to creating you, all the intelligence genes had been dished out,” it’s hard to think you can be more. What’s the point in trying when you know you’re going to fail? Sometimes, it’s easier to admit defeat. To admit that just as everyone predicted, I’ve failed.

What if this baby is the one thing I could be good at?

When we get to the lobby, Michael helps me over to the elevator.

“Well, I guess I’ll be go—”

“Stay.” The word is out of my mouth before I have time to process it. I want, no, I need him to stay, so badly.

“I don’t mean to sound like a dick … but why?” Michael withdraws his arm and the cool air-conditioned air caresses my back.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. My bottom lip trembles. “I just … I don’t know.” Tears well in my eyes and in a heartbeat, Michael’s arms wrap around me and I’ve never felt safer or more secure while feeling such loss and emptiness inside.

What is right? What is the
right thing
in this situation?

The elevator dings open and Michael and I step inside. I click the button for our floor and watched the numbers flick up, the elevator sending a familiar lurch through my stomach as we pick up speed.

“You okay?” Michael cups my chin, and I give a weak nod. He must think I am a psychopath.

We walk to our door and I usher Michael in, pointing him toward my room.

“Nice place,” Michael whispers, taking in the large, white bed and the view that stretches out over Surfers Paradise below. Lights twinkle from the clubs and pubs on the strip, all the way to the freight ships out at sea in the distance. The city has turned it on tonight.

“Thanks.”

Michael sits on the edge of the bed and takes off his shoes.

“Shall we … talk?” Michael asks.

I shrug. For once, I am all out of words.

“How are things with your family?”

The words are so soft, I’m almost not sure I hear them. “What—what do you mean?”

“You know.” Michael shrugs and presses his body farther up the bed, relaxing against the headboard. “The mum who said she’s not confident in your grades. The overachieving siblings.”

“They’re fine.” I swallow.

“Oh, come on. That must be hard shit to live up to.” Michael taps my arm.

“Not really.”
Lie.

“How could it not be? Are you gonna be a doctor?” He edges closer till our legs are touching.

“No.” My voice is small.

“Did your mum apologise for that text about not graduating uni?” Michael’s voice is proportionately louder to my diminishing one. He seems to tower over me.

“No.” Quieter than the last.

“Do you have a steady boyfriend who’s about to propose?”

Kapow!

Boom!

Boof!

Owee!

I am in a cartoon. No, I don’t have a boyfriend who’s about to propose. I have a baby whose fate I have to decide on. I have a guy I really like in my hotel room, who has finally said he has a crush on me but is about to go away on tour while I nurse a baby.

Unless … I don’t.

I think about Kate. Can I kill a human when a human my best friend loves is being murdered by a disease?

Can I?

“C’mon, Stace, answer me.” Michael bounces the bed a little, snapping my attention back to the present. “I can keep your secrets, you know.”

That’s when I hear it. Kate’s bedroom door opening and shutting. The click of the pipes in the bathroom. The thuds of her footsteps as she walks back to bed.

She can’t know I have Michael here. She doesn’t need reminding of Dave, and she sure as hell doesn’t need to know I’m not hooking up with some random dude on the beach when it was something she had been so adamant about.

I whip around to face Michael. “Pretend to have sex with me.”

His jaw drops, his brow furrowed. “What?”

“I don’t want Kate to think you’re here, or that it’s some other guy I’m just … talking with.” I throw my hands up. “It’s complicated, but she needs to think I’m screwing someone. She was really keen on me making out with a random guy, having fun. Okay?”

Michael is silent for a moment, worrying at his lip. “And why can’t she think I’m here?”

“It’ll remind her of Dave.” And I don’t know that I can deal with talking about you being here with me.
Not when I keep thinking about your lips.

“Stacey, do you like me?” His intense brown eyes bore into mine and I’m naked. To my very soul.

“I … you’re a good friend.” I nod, slowly.

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” he hisses, pushing up the bed until he’s right in front of me. His face is all hard lines, his eyes glittering like stones.

“Yes.” The word is an ant. It’s that tiny.

“So why can’t we
do
something about it?” he yells, and I press my shaking finger to his lips. They’re soft, and big, and warm, and
hell
do I want him in this moment more than I ever have before.

“You’re in a band … you’re going on tour,” I mumble, quickly jerking my hand back and picking at the threads on my dress. “And again, I don’t want to tell Kate about you because of Dave, and …” The words sound lame, even to me.

“That’s wrong; you know that, right?” Michael’s eyes flash. “You’re so freaking embarrassed of me that you won’t tell your best friend that we’re—what? Friends?”

“Michael …” I press my hand to his arm. What can I say? I want to be with you, but I’m pregnant, and I have a lot to deal with right now? I want to be with you, but I don’t think I can kill this baby and you can’t give your career a worthwhile shot if you have a girlfriend back home, let alone a pregnant one? “I just … I just want to give her some space to deal with this, and her dad, okay?”

“And in the morning? What then?” His fierce eyes shine into mine, interrogating me.

“I … I don’t know.”

He shrugs my hand off his arm, turning his shoulders in on himself.

We sit there in silence. I look out the window again. How can the world look so pretty when it’s really so damn ugly?

“Do you know how I knew you liked me?” Michael whispers. I shake my head, refusing to make eye contact. “It was one of the things you told me that night at the party.”

I swallow. I’d told him I liked him?

“And you told me you thought I wasn’t serious about you, because I was about to go away, and because I’d recently come out of a two-year relationship, and because I’d never made a move”—
Fact,
I mentally tick the boxes off in my head—“and I told you why I hadn’t.”

I freeze. “And … why was that?” I chance a tentative glance at him, hopeful.

He shakes his head and gives a soft laugh. “It’s … what matters is that we could make this thing work, Stacey. You just need to give it a chance.”

He leans back against the bedhead with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. I sigh and join him there. He thinks I’m embarrassed of him, when it couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s him who should be embarrassed of me.

What was …?

“Why is the bed moving?” I hiss at Michael. He’s rocking back and forth with his legs, pushing against the headboard so the mattress moves back and forth ever so slightly.

“Ugh,” he offers up what can only be described as the sort of grunt a cow might make while having sex. The mattress squeaks. He slams the palm of his hand against the headboard and looks at me, nodding, letting me know it’s my turn.

I smile. “Harder!”

He gives me back a grin in return. A part of me melts. How can a guy have dimples that freaking sexy?

The bed squeaks as Michael rocks and hits the head of the bed, over and over.

“Try it,” he whispers, jerking his head toward his hand. I scrunch up my nose.

I slap the headboard myself. That feels good. Really good.

“Do it again,” he whispers. “Think about your family, being all crap and overachieving and stuff.”

“Yes!” I scream.

Shae’s moving out of home.

Slap.

It feels amazing.

“Now how ’bout how Dave is a dick for hurting your friend?” Michael grins.

“Yes!”

Slap.

“Yes!”

Life is unfair for making Kate so miserable.

Slap.

That stupid guy who put this baby inside me.

Slap
.

Me.

Slap, slap, slap.

“Ugh!” Michael grunts again just as I give an almighty “yes” that I am sure will either have Kate putting on headphones or sending me a text telling me to can it.

There’s something cathartic about slapping things. For the first time in one and a bit weeks, I feel a sense of peace wash over me.

I let out a contented sigh and lift the edge of the blankets, snuggling down underneath the quilt. Michael rests his head on the pillow, his body stretched next to mine. After a few moments, my breathing slows, returning to a normal rate. I turn to my side, facing away from Michael. He moves one tentative hand to rest on my waist.

I like the way it feels.

A lot.

“So that’s what you sound like?” I look over my shoulder. One corner of his mouth rises in a smile.

“I sound better.” I shuffle back so my body is pressed against his. He is warm.

Firm.

Nice
.

“You know, you could always show me—”

“Hey! Don’t ruin post-sex cuddles.” I frown and wrap his arm around me tighter.

We lie there in silence for a few moments, me watching the bright lights still dancing around out the window, concentrating on his hot breath in my hair, behind my ear. He gives me goose bumps.