He turned me toward him. “I'll make you a deal. You let me look through your phone and I'll let you look through my phone.”
I smiled at him. “What makes you think that I'm hiding anything on my phone?”
“I don't, but, fair is fair. What if Nicole has been sending you sexy pictures also?”
“You'd like that, wouldn't you?” I said.
He shrugged. “Or maybe you've been taking them while she's not looking. I mean I don't know. Seems like you girls are awful close.”
“Har har har.”
“So, do you want to trade?”
“Sure, why not? I think I have more to gain anyway. I'll learn all your business secrets.”
“This was all part of your nefarious plan, I'm sure.” He jumped out of his bed and walked over to where his pants lay on the floor from last night, retrieving his phone from his pocket.
Just as he turned back to me, I grabbed my phone. I had a moment of deja vu, remembering when he had walked in here with the pizza a few minutes ago. Just then, I felt my stomach drop. James walked the distance to me while I looked at my phone in horror. I remembered that the last thing I had been looking at before he came in was the picture of the pregnancy test...
Chapter 40
“On second thought, let's just snuggle and eat pizza for a little while,” I said quickly.
He laughed. “Don't worry about getting grease on the screen, I've got a nice cleaning kit.”
“No, I mean...” I had to think of something quickly. “We were having such a nice time snuggling, and I'd hate to ruin that by pawing through your phone and seeing pictures of other girls.”
“Don't worry, Allie. Hardly any girls send me naked pictures on my phone anyway, and I delete them pretty quickly anyway. Dick pics on the other hand...” He paused, as if waiting for me to laugh. I was silent.
I felt sick. I wished I could delete this picture off my phone. Maybe I could convince him that I had to delete just one thing. No, that would make him even more curious, and he might even try to snatch the phone away from me. Why did I even take a picture of it in the first place? It was such a stupid thing to do.
He cleared his throat. “Uh, hello, Allie? That was a joke.”
I smiled and laughed, and the laughter sounded forced even to me. “Oh, yeah, for sure. Listen, why don't we just forget about
the phones for now?”
He shrugged. “I don't have anything to hide, and I'd like to prove that to you as soon as possible so that we can enjoy the rest of the weekend.”
“I am enjoying my weekend, James! I'm sorry I overreacted earlier.” I stole a nervous glance at my phone. All I would need is a few moments to myself and that picture would be deleted. “We have all weekend to look through each other's phones. Let's just relax for now.”
He looked nervous for a moment. Then, he slowly pulled his phone back. “You're acting kind of weird, Allie.”
I knew I was acting weird, but there wasn't anything I could do. I couldn't show him now, he deserved to find out a better way than this. And even if it was a negative test, he'd ask me why I hadn't immediately told him that I wasn't on the pill. He'd accuse me of tricking him, of 'gold digging' as he put it earlier. He'd be mad enough to leave me.
Anne was right. A lie of omission was still a lie, and it was bound to break up a relationship.
“I'm just... shy is all. Plus, I'm just so comfy here in bed.” I tried to sound seductive, but it sounded lame even to me.
“That's alright. I just want to take a look at all your naked selfies, and you can check out my phone whenever you want later if you don't want to do it now.”
So he was going to go straight to my pictures. I clutched my phone even tighter to my chest. “Could I delete the unattractive ones, then? I feel fat.”
James scoffed. “Allie, you weigh a buck twenty if that. Plus, I think I've proven that I find you pretty sexy no matter what you look like at this point.” He looked me up and down and his smile disappeared. “Let me see your phone.”
It was a command. His tone wasn't confrontational, but I knew he was serious. The picture was still there, waiting for him to look at. I had to try one last time. “One picture. Let me delete one picture and I'll hand it over.”
James' was super serious by now. “I can't believe this. I thought I was the one who had to prove that I wasn't a liar, but it turns out that you've had something to hide this entire time.” He pulled his hand back that had his phone in it. “I can't do this.”