Sweet and Wild - Carmen Jenner Page 0,32
leading him down the stairs. “Come on, before Daddy changes his mind about letting us go to the fair.”
We head out to Colt’s truck and I pull him toward the vehicle before Daddy can stop us for another lecture. As if he can read my mind, my father calls, “Not a minute after ten.”
“Eleven,” I counter.
“Lemon,” he warns.
“Please, Daddy?”
“Fine. Colt, you have her back at eleven on the dot.”
“Yes, sir.”
We pile into the cab of the truck but I don’t smother him in kisses the way I normally would, and worry etches itself into the muscles around Colt’s mouth. “Lemon, you gotta tell me what’s going on.”
“I will. I just … I wanna have fun tonight. I just want to eat too much funnel cake and ride the Ferris wheel.”
“I don’t know if I can have fun when you’ve clearly been crying your eyes out all afternoon.”
“I’m okay. Would you please just get me out of here before someone else comes to stall us?”
Colt frowns. “Yeah, sure.”
He starts the engine and gives my folks a wave as he peels away from the house and floors it. We don’t talk much on the drive. I couldn’t even hold a conversation right now. The only thing going through my head is that little plus sign on the pregnancy test. How am I gonna explain this to Daddy? I’ve just celebrated my eighteenth birthday and I’m pregnant right out of high school. What will everyone say?
I chew my lip. My thoughts send me spiraling. Colt places his palm faceup on the bench seat of his truck—an invitation. I slip my hand in his and interlace our fingers. How does he know without saying a damn word just how to make me feel better? How do I tell him he’s going to be a daddy at twenty-two years old?
We go to the county fair, but we don’t stay long. I can feel the tension in Colt when he pulls me close and I’m a giant ball of anxious energy too. The sights and scents of the fair are making me dizzy and nauseous.
“You wanna get out of here?” I whisper in his ear. “Go somewhere quiet?”
“Yeah, I’d like that.” He takes my hand and leads me out of the fair to his truck.
We drive to the town reservoir, a place we often hang out, and when we’re alone at the top, all the way above our little town with its lights twinkling in the summer breeze, he grabs my hand. “Are you finally gonna tell me what’s going on with you?”
“I don’t know how to say this …”
“Just say it.” He draws my hand to his lips and presses a tender kiss to it. “Whatever it is, everything will be okay. Just tell me, Lemonade.”
I take a deep breath and blurt, “I’m pregnant.”
All the blood drains from Colt’s face and I start crying again as he pulls his hand free of mine and drives them both into his hair. He stares as if he’s looking right through me and shakes his head in disbelief. “How? We used protection.”
I shrug and a sob escapes me. “Apparently not enough.”
“Your daddy’s gonna kill me,” he whispers. I cry, huge ugly sobs that wrack my whole body and Colt pulls me close. “Hey, don’t cry. It’s okay.”
“How? How is this okay? I’m barely eighteen, Colt. You’re twenty-two. We’re both just kids as it is.”
“I don’t know, but we’ll get through it.”
“It’s a baby, Colt. It’s not a rough patch with no light at the end of the tunnel. I’m carrying a human being inside me. My whole life is ruined.”
“No. No it’s not. I love you, Lemon, and I’m here for whatever you want. Whatever decision you make. I ain’t ever leaving you. I ain’t ever gonna stop lovin’ you.”
“You don’t know that.”
He cups my cheeks. “It’s the only thing I know.”
“I’m scared, Colt.”
“I know, but whatever happens, you have me. You’ll always have me.”
When we pull up to the house, Daddy is waitin’ on the front porch. He’s always waitin’ up when Colt takes me on a date, but I know by the bottle of whiskey beside his rocking chair and the stoic look on his face that he knows.
“Oh, God,” I murmur. I’m gonna kill Wyatt.
Colt shuts off the engine and looks at me. “Lemon?”
“He knows, Colt.”
“What? How?”
“Why don’t you come on out here, son?” Daddy calls from the porch.
I glance at the lights on in every room in the second story of the house. Lights