Page 80 of Say My Name

I close my eyes, and force the words out. “I need you to come over.”

Dominic’s answer loses every trace of teasing. “Are you asking me to finish what we started?”

The question is a door, and I’m walking through it. “Yes.”

The word is true. It still leaves me with no explanation for changing my mind this far ahead of the appointment.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then I’ll be there.”

I let out a breath. He has agreed without demanding a medical justification, and I’m still preparing to give him one.

“Is this only about finishing the call?” he asks.

I could say yes. It would still be a lie, just a smaller one. The truth feels sharp in my throat.

“No.”

“Tell me what else you want.”

“You know.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

He wants the words, the admission I’ve structured my life to avoid. My grip tightens on the phone. “I want you here.”

Dominic exhales slowly. “All right.”

He sounds affected, but he doesn’t turn my admission into a victory. That almost gives me enough courage to leave it there.

Then he presses, “What changed since the clinic?”

My eyes move to the clinic portal and the projected date on the screen. I can still stop. I can tell him I want sex and leave medicine out of it.

Instead, I give him the one reason I know he won’t ask me to defend.

“I took another ovulation test after I got home,” I say, keeping my voice perfectly steady. “It was positive. I’m ovulating.”

CHAPTER 12

Dominic

Ireach Elena’s building nineteen minutes after she tells me she’s ovulating.

The clinic’s projected date is still more than a week away, but projections change. The nurse warned us that the second appointment would move if Elena’s monitoring showed an earlier window, and a positive home test gives us information the calendar didn’t have this morning.

I believe her.

Elena researched every step of this process before she asked me to be part of it. She follows the clinic’s instructions exactly, records every date, and asks questions until she understands how each variable could change the schedule. If she says a test changed the window, then the window changed. I don’t need to see a portal update or call the clinic myself.

The agreement covers conception. It protects her job and my legal standing. It does nothing for the part of me that needs to know this is more than a transaction. Consent has to come from Elena, here and now. She told me she wants me there, and I need to hear the same answer when I’m standing in front of her.

Every floor the elevator passes is a test of my control.

Elena opens her door before I can knock. She’s barefoot and still wearing the black dress she wore to work, although her hair is loose now and the neat knot is gone. A flush runs across her cheeks and down her throat. She looks as affected as she sounded when Maya interrupted our call.