Nata

"Your package has been delivered," insists the app. The attached photo looks like my doorstep and my door mat. I emerge into the fall Chicago morning and shiver from the breeze, my PJs too flimsy for the lowering temperatures outside. I wrap my arms around my torso and peek under the bushes, in case this morning’s delivery was blown away by an unusually hard blast of wind. Not that it’s been that windy.

Nothing.

My teeth clatter, but hot punches of irritation hammer in my chest. I’ve heard about thieves stealing packages from people’s porches, but I’ve always lived in dorms or apartments in the US and never in a place where my packages were lying aroundin the open for anyone to see. I trudge to the sidewalk,  and examine the waist-high decorative grasses that border the path leading to the front porch.

No sign of the package.

The burning frustration travels from the middle of my chest into my gut and churns there.

Phillip said it’s a safe neighborhood, but I  guess package thieves prefer them, because other trusting people like me, who can’t bring in the package the moment it arrives, live here. I slam my door, plop on the couch, and pull out my phone to search for the closest pharmacy in the area.

A knock on the sliding door to the back yard distracts me from calculating how long it'll take to drive to the pharmacy and back, or if it’s worth running there and getting rid of some of the pent-up frustration. Phillip waves at me through the glass.

“It’s unlocked. Come on in,” I shout at him.

He enters with in one hand, the largest cup of coffee I’ve yet seen him make, and a box in the other.

His attempts at making coffee have become part of the routine. Every morning, at five a.m. on the weekdays and at leisurely seven or eight a.m. on the weekends like today, we take turns making coffee. I don’t have to spit out his attempts at lattes and cappuccinos anymore. Today’s offering even has a cute lopsided leaf design on it. 

“You’re venturing into coffee foam art?”

“Dabbling.” He sits on the couch next to me. “What won’t I do to impress a woman.”

“Count me impressed.” I sip the hot brew and hum. “You’re almost as good as me.”

“That is the best compliment I’ve received from you.” He wipes the foam that ends up on my nose because the cup is so wide it might be a bowl. A bowl of coffee. He might've just unlocked a new level in my coffee consumption.

“Enjoy," I say. "I don’t give those away lightly.”

“I’ll add it into my ‘compliments by Nata jar’.” Phillip sets the box, which was clearly opened before, on the coffee table.

“What’s this?”

He lifts both hands in the air. “I didn’t realize it was yours. I didn’t look at the label and just ripped it open.” 

I pick up the box. Natalia Boyko is printed next to our address in small enough letters that his explanation is plausible. Phillip. That’s who stolev my package. I gulp down the rest of the coffee and wish it were truly stolen, because I’d much rather the thieves enjoyed the contents than deal with the fact that Phillip saw what I ordered. Maybe he didn’t see everything I ordered.

Philip grins and puts his arm over the back of the couch. “Quite a selection.”

“I didn’t know which one to choose or how many we would need.” I pretend not to notice him biting the corner of his mouth to stop his smile from growing as I take out boxes of pregnancy tests from the top. Maybe he only saw those and not the other item that was part of the delivery.

The wrinkles around his eye and sparks of laughter in his eyes diminish the chances of him not having seen my entire purchase. “I didn’t think you needed…twenty.”

“They were on sale.” I stop at the last item on the bottom of the box, close the lid and move it away, pretending there’s nothing else.

“You’re not going to show off all your purchases to me?” He covers his laugh by a cough. Phillip’s tone and his growing smile bubbles up a desire to press my lips against his to stop him from full-on laughing.

Instead, I turn away from the temptation. “I can buy that you didn’t realize this package was addressed to me, but when you saw the pregnancy test, you didn’t think that you should stop digging through the box an not snoop any further?”

His laughter cancels out any anger I still have at this package situation. 

Phillip places both hands on my shoulders and turns me back to face him. “It was like a car full of clowns,” he croaks between bouts of laughter.

“I took one test, and there was another, and then another I couldn’t stop.” He wipes tears out of his eyes, and I roll my lips to stop myself from joining his belly laughs.

I’m supposed to be offended here, not enjoying this ridiculousness.

Phillip breathes out to calm himself enough to keep talking. “Wanted to see if I could get to the end of them.”

“Funny.” I narrow my eyes and make one last attempt at not smiling.

“I got sucked in.” The laughter rolls through him, and no breaths or covering up his mouth helps him with stopping the laugh-attack. 

Sucked in. He thinks he's so clever. He not only saw the final item in the box, he read the details about what it does.

“Phillip.” I clover my face both in embarrassment and in an attempt to conceal my smile.

He takes my hands off my face. “Is that what you prefer on the days you’re not ovulating?”

I frown and press my lips together. My new suction vibrator was supposed to be for the witching hours when the memories of Phillip's hands on me became too hard to ignore, and walking over to his side of the duplex in the dark to ask him to do everything again, ovulation or not, seemed reasonable.

“That’s none of your business," I say.

“If you let me”—his smiling lips lean dangerously close to mine—“I can make it part of my business. And I could probably do a better job," he whispers."I don’t suck at sucking.”

My nipples get hard at the memory of him sucking on them. Why do I believe he can do even better on my clit? Because what his fingers did to me was amazing. I’d love to test-ride his mouth as well. My pulse speeds up and liquid heat travels to my core.

Whatever pheromones Phillip produces affect me entirely too much. I shouldn’t be this horny all of a sudden. He runs his teeth over his bottom lip while his eyelids half-close. His focus centers on my open mouth. Maybe I should let him show me what his mouth can do with my mouth or any other part of my body he’d like to suck. A ‘yes’ forms on the tip of my tongue.  

An alarm comes from the my phone on the coffee table. I jerk back. “No.” I retrieve my phone. 

“No?” Phillip looses the smile.

“Because if we are lucky we might never need to exchange bodily fluids again.” I point at the pile of pregnancy test boxes on the coffee table. “Let’s pick a test. I’ll go pee and see if we can move onto the pregnancy stage of this relationship.” Before I ruin the whole point of our deal and want more than a baby with this man.

Phillip gives me a serious look, that drains any remains of laughter from the air around us. “You think you’re pregnant?”

Although I’m five days late on my period, it's my first month off my IUD and regular periods don’t tend to be a thing for a few months according to my research.

The chances of me getting pregnant on the first try are pretty negligible. My heart still squeezes with the anticipation of the 'what if.' What if this time I get lucky? What if my plan works? What if this deal was a good idea? I dig my nails into my palms to stop them from shaking. “Let’s find out.”

He rifles through the pile of creatively colored tests and chooses a digital display one. 

“This one seems like it’s the least complicated.” He opens the package and pulls out the instructions. “You pee, wait for three minutes, and the digital display is going to tell us pregnant or not.”

I remove the test stick from the wrapper. The little device is going to either give me hope or will send us back to step one. Not that I hated step one, but the competitive streak in me wants us to be that couple who gets pregnant the very first time they try.

There’s no prize for getting pregnant in the first month versus third or twelfth, as long as a baby comes eventually—that’s the sole reward I’m after. But still. If I get pregnant the very first month of trying, I might thank my parents for passing that ability to me. One thing I’m glad to get from them.

“Are you ready?” Phillip sets his hand on mine and pats it in a reassuring way.

Am I ready? Goosebumps run up my arms to my neck from his touch. My stomach tenses. If the little window says pregnant, my life is going to change. There’ll be no way back, no changing my mind. I will get what I want. Finally. I’ll be happy for once.

My heart beats in my throat and words tangle. The dream of having a child—one of the biggest things I’ve wanted in my life is so close. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

I stand and speed-walk for the half-bath on the main floor.

Phillip catches up with me and tries to enter the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” I block his entry.

“Coming with you?” He puts his foot over the door frame.

“You don’t need to be in the bathroom when I pee.” I put my foot down on his and push is back outside.

“I’m trying to be supportive.” He sneaks his ankle around mine.

“You’re hovering.” I step on his toe. “Is that the kind of parent you plan to be?”

“You are not my child.” He pulls his foot away and slinks the other one on my other side. “You are my partner, and I want to be there to support you.”

“You are here.” I continue our game of footsie and push him back out of the room. “I’ll pee in private. Then we’ll set the three minute timer, and you can sit and look at it with me during those three minutes all you want.”

“I’m not a masochist.” He braces himself against the door frame. "We’ll go make another cup of coffee for you and come back to a result.”

“I’m not going to NOT know the result for extra five to ten minutes because we’ll be making coffee." I try to pry his hands from the door jamb. "I want to sit and wait. The instructions said it can take as little as one minute for the results.”

Phillip catches my fingers and puts them behind my back in a playful hold. “You know the saying that a watched pot never boils?”

“This is not a pot." I lift my chin and instantly regret the motion,  because it brings my lips inches from his. I should move farther away but that's showing a sign of weakness. I put on my scientist face on. "This is a device that reads the level of hormones in my urine and if they are high enough, the results can be delivered quicker.”

Phillip hovers over me, his breath fanning my cheek. “I think we’ve been arguing about it for longer than three minutes." He lets go of me and steps back. "We could've known already."

“Exactly.” I close the door, leaving Phillip on the other side of it.

I hover over the toilet sit and aim my stream at the tip of the test. One. Two. Three. Four. FIve. I remove the stick and set on the wrapper on the counter.

“Start the timer,” I shout through the door.

“Done,” he shouts back.

I flush and wash my hands, hoping that this eats up enough time for the test to give its verdict.

It doesn’t.

My breathing becomes erratic. The blood migrates to my fingers.

“Can I come in now?” Phillip says in a serious tone.

I open the door in response.

“Do we know yet?” He glances at the stick and then me.

I shake my head.

Phillip joins me in the small half-bath and stands by my side. We watch the device, the sound of our exhales completing with the pulse in my temples.

6.26. 23

Author's Note

Sorry for the major cliffhanger, but I'm on vacation and only got this far in edits. You're getting at least two more chapters this week though and I'll aim to post the first chapter of Season 2 as well. I'm calling it Love Consequences. You can add it to your library when it's up and running at the end of the month.

Let me know what you think the results of the test will be.

As always, please, vote and comment.  Your reactions motivate me to keep going. I'm so thankful to have such supportive readers.

Thank you!

Love,

GR