Screwed by Laurie Plissner Page A

dizziness, the anticipatory throbbing between his legs — all gone in an instant as his blood turned to ice, seemed to stop flowing through his veins. Inside his bathing suit, his hard-on, courtesy of Amy’s practiced hand, wilted.
    “What did you say?” Nick had heard exactly what she’d said, but he needed time to let it seep into his brain.
    “I’m going to have a baby, your baby. I’m almost eight weeks pregnant.”
    This wasn’t nearly as bad as telling her parents had been. Nick had no moral authority over her. Her only fear had been that he didn’t care about her, but she already knew that he didn’t, that she had just been one of many back seat conquests — definitely not the first, and certainly not the last. Her shoulders fell as the tension left her body and her breathing returned to normal.
    When he felt he could speak without his voice shaking, Nick said, “It can’t be mine. I used a condom. I was careful.” He didn’t doubt for a second that it was his — until he got to her, she’d been convent material. It was a knee-jerk reaction. That’s what guys were supposed to do. Deny, deny, deny.
    “That was my first … and last time. Apparently condoms don’t work all that well. It must have been defective, or you put it on wrong.”
    Although Grace had vowed not to lay any blame, since she had willingly gone along with the program, he
had
been the one wearing the condom. Closing her eyes for a second, she waited for him to reach out to her, to wrap his arms around her and tell her everything would be okay, that they would figure this mess out together. But she wasn’t in charge of his feelings, and Nick just sat there, mouth hanging open, his hands balled up in fists, glaring at her with anger and frustration.
    This couldn’t be happening to him. “What are you going to do about it?”
    Nick wanted to grab her by the hair and drag her to the nearest clinic, but he knew that ultimately it wasn’t his choice. He could see his whole life slipping away through what must have been a microscopic hole in the fucking condom, like sand sliding through that tiny opening in the center of an hourglass. Since he was fifteen, he’d been a loyal Warrior Condoms customer, buying the giant box at PriceSaver, coasting on their reputation as the protection you can depend on when you march into battle. There was no way he had put it on wrong — he could unwrap it and get it on in the dark in under ten seconds, including blowing into it to check for any holes. But in spite of that extra step, the Warrior Corporation had failed him. He wondered if he could sue them for wrecking his life. The way he saw it, Warrior should have to pay for the abortion, or the baby, or the hit man.
    “I don’t know.”
    She noted that he hadn’t asked what
we
were going to do about it. Whatever happened, she was going to have to handle this on her own. But she wished he would at least ask her how she was feeling, if she had morning sickness or if she was scared. It wouldn’t have cost him anything to show a little sympathy.
    “Did you tell your parents?”
    Nick’s family, although not nearly as devout as Grace’s, belonged to the same church as the Warrens. He was well acquainted with their very public abstinence outreach program and their prim, first-pew sensibility. In fact, although now he felt embarrassed to admit it, that had been a large part of her appeal. Nailing Grace had been like winning the Heisman Trophy of sexual conquest. She wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill virgin — she was an
über
virgin. Sticking it to her was an ego boost for an ego that needed very little boosting.
    Bile rose in his throat as his new reality took shape. If Grace’s parents knew about the baby, Nick was sure he was doomed to become a father. Panic engulfed his body as he thought about the lacrosse scholarship that had been a certainty until this second. He didn’t know anything about becoming a father — could he still go to