Gateway Drug | Volume I

Gateway Drug | Part Eighty-One

Warning(s):
Explicit language
Drug abuse

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"Babe?" I call as I come in from the hottub, wrapped in a towel, holding my bottle of Pepsi. 

Duff's sitting on the couch when I come in, reaching his hand out to grab mine. 

"We're celebrating tonight," Duffs tells me, grinning around his cigarette, and I raise my brows. 

"For what?" I question him curiously. 

"It's been two months since we started dating." He replies. 

"And that's worth celebrating?" It comes out before I can stop myself and his smile slowly falters. 

"I think so, but if you don't want to—"

"—I didn't mean for it to come out like that, Duff." I tell him. 

"No, Viv, it's fine." He assures me. 

"I meant, we aren't really a couple, so—" I stop myself once more realizing the grave I'm digging myself as he looks at me with a slightly raised brow, blowing smoke from his nose. "—I'm gonna shut up. What time are we going out?" 

"Just whenever." He mumbles and I frown a little. 

"Duff, I didn't mean it like that, either, alright? I didn't think you actually considered us a 'couple' since I'm still technically married and you're like a mistress or something." I run a hand through my hair. 

"Well, we're having sex, we go out together, we have conversations about our future together, neither of us are seeing other people or have an interest in seeing other people—I assume—so, either we're dating or wasting each other's time." 

"Okay, we're dating." I say. 

"Are you sure?"

"Duff, seriously?" I question. 

"I'm dropping it." He ignores me, reaching for his cigarettes on the coffee table. "I gotta go grab a couple things from my apartment and I'll be back later."

"Alright." I reply, taking in a deep breath before mentioning, "hey if you get back and I'm not here it's because I'm gonna try to find Izzy a little later because we need to talk about something."  

"Alright, I love you." He kisses my hair quickly and grabs his keys. 

"I love you too." I tell him and he shuts the door. 

As soon as he's gone I'm rushing to the guest bathroom and opening the cabinet under the sink, grabbing the grocery bag of pregnancy tests that have yet to be taken. 

"God, if you love me…" I say, finishing the prayer in my mind.

Children are and always have been a blessing in my eyes, but that didn't mean I wanted a child then.

"Well, I'll be damned." Izzy mumbles, eyes squinting slightly, holding the test I plopped onto the bar in front of him as he peers into the little window of plastic, seeing another, "|" as opposed to the recent "||" we had seen on my first test. 

This is negative test number five of five taken over the course of three days…

"I'm not pregnant." I repeat to him, taking this last test as the set in stone reality. 

"Congrats, your gig isn't quite up, yet." He says, grinning crookedly and I roll my eyes as he throws back another shot before saying, "So, here ya go," he digs in his pocket and puts two condoms packets on the bar in front of me, making me shove at his arm, "you obviously don't have any." He states.