She’d crossed the rolling cylinder with no help from the trapeze during the last session without falling or peeing herself with nerves. A win by all accounts. Her body was feeling stronger and more solid with each passing week. If she had to do the costume race again, she would make it to the end without gasping for breath. That felt like a victory.
She needed one badly because the songwriting attempts had been like falling into the foam pit over and over again. She’d spent hours plucking out notes on her guitar and trying to find something that inspired her. Nothing had come together. The vein of creativity she used to tap when she was a kid wasn’t there. Or maybe it had never really been there. Her songs in high school had been performed for an audience of one—Nia. And it wasn’t like her sister was going to tell her that her songs sucked.
Maybe she couldn’t write. End of story.
She’d tell the group and Shaw soon. Right now, she just wanted to forget it all. The fund-raiser was ready to go. She’d celebrate that milestone tonight and not think about the rest. She wanted a nice, relaxing evening with Shaw.
That feeling of happy anticipation filled her as she reached Shaw’s apartment and knocked. He opened the door, and an automatic smile curved her lips. “Hey there, handsome.”
“Hey.” Shaw’s hair was damp from a shower, which was normal after a workday, but the drawn expression on his face was new.
Her smile faltered as he opened the door wider and let her walk inside. She waited until he closed it before speaking. “Is everything okay?”
He turned around and scrubbed a hand through his hair. He didn’t look her in the eye. “Probably.”
Her brows lifted. “Probably?” Her mind jumped to all the worst-case scenarios. Someone had found out who he was. The press knew. He was leaving. Click-click-click like dominos falling in her head, but she forced herself to slow down. “What’s going on?”
Finally, he looked at her, lines creasing his forehead. He let out a breath. “I was going to wait until after dinner to talk, but I’m not sure I can.”
“Talk?” A new bee of anxiety buzzed around her. “About what?”
A talk didn’t sound like news had leaked out. It sounded more personal. Maybe this was going to be it—the talk she’d been expecting. The talk where he realized they’d moved too fast and that things had gotten too intense. She didn’t know why she was anticipating such a talk, but somehow she’d known from the beginning it would come at some point. They were a temporary thing for each other. A respite with a time limit.
She’d prepared herself for that, but still she found herself bracing for his answer.
Shaw reached out and took her hand, leading her to the couch. They both sat, facing each other. “Taryn, everything is probably fine, and I don’t want to freak you out, but I also can’t not tell you this.”
She frowned. “What are
you talking about?”
Shaw licked his lips, looking more nervous than she’d ever seen him, and pulled something from his pocket. At first, she had this bizarre thought that he was proposing, but her brain quickly gave her a Girl, please reality check. Propose? She wasn’t sure what to be more what the fuck about—the fact that she’d thought a proposal was an actual possibility with this man or that part of her had thrilled at the thought.
That hopeless romantic inside her needed to take a seat in the corner and think about her life choices because she was getting delusional.
But when Taryn looked down at what was in his hand, her confusion deepened. Not a ring. Obviously. But a condom wrapper. She raised her gaze for an explanation.
“Taryn, this is from the box you found in my drawer that first night. I found it when I was cleaning.”
“Okay…” she said, still not tracking. “You found a condom wrapper. Not a surprising discovery.”
He wet his lips. “It’s over two years expired. We read the date wrong.”
“We…” Her stomach muscles tightened, and she looked down at the wrapper again, taking it from his hands. She held it up, reading the date. November 2016. “Crap.” He’d said we but she knew who’d really read it wrong—her and her faulty eyesight. “Damn. I’m sorry. Guess we got lucky they held up, huh? How many of these did we use?”
She lifted her gaze to him, finding his worried. “I didn’t keep track, but…enough. So, everything’s good, then?”
She felt an awkward smile jump to her lips. “Uh, yeah, sure. What do you mean?”
He released a breath and rubbed his palms on his jeans. “I mean, I was looking back at the dates. I don’t know how many we used or when we finished the box, but I feel like it’s been at least a month and we haven’t…paused for anything, so I was worried that maybe one didn’t hold up. But are you on a pill or something or the shot or…”
His words went long and distorted in her ears, like someone had hit the slo-mo button on her eardrums. It’s been at least a month… A month.
Had it been a month since she’d had a period?
Everything had been happening so fast and frantic, both with the fund-raiser and with Shaw, that the weeks were blending together. She never kept close watch on her period. She’d always had irregular cycles and weird hormonal patterns. It hadn’t crossed her mind that she hadn’t had one in a while. “I’m not on the pill or anything else. My body responds weird to hormones.”
His lips parted, a snap of fear crossing his face. “Taryn…”