Accidentally on Purpose 6 Book Box Set

by L. D. Davis

  Remembering all of the things Emmy said Lucas needed, I nodded in agreement. Lena stepped away and I stood up and wiped at my eyes.

  “Thank you,” I said to her.

  “I didn’t say anything profound,” she smiled. “In fact, I wasn’t very helpful at all.”

  “You were here for me, as always,” I said. “I appreciate that.”

  “I always will be. Listen, why don’t you bring Emmy and Lucas over for dinner tomorrow? I’ll break the news to mom and Lorraine and we’ll have a nice homecoming for your baby.”

  “Okay,” I said. “That sounds like a good plan.”

  “Excellent,” she said, clasping her hands together. “I get to meet my nephew.”

  “I better go. I have a lot to do. Thanks for the cocoa.”

  Lena hugged me. “No problem, little brother.”

  I left Lena’s with a clear head and a determination I was lacking deep down when I asked Emmy to move in with me. I sucked up my girly tears and drove back to my apartment, eager to make it a home for Lucas.

  Chapter Three

  I stayed up more than half of the night looking for the best and safest baby items. I wasn’t going to let my son sleep in some subpar crib on flammable sheets in clothing that would leave him itchy and red. I didn’t care about how much it was going to cost me, though I may have snickered at the expensive top of the line items my sister Lorraine had bought for her kids in the past. What kid needed a Gucci diaper bag? But there I was entertaining the idea of buying an upscale diaper bag for my own child.

  After a couple of hours of sleep, I pushed myself off of my couch where I had crashed, and started the coffee pot in the kitchen. I had to clean and baby proof the apartment. I wasn’t a pig or anything, but when you’re used to being a single guy living alone without anyone to answer to, you kind of don’t care much if you leave a few—or a lot—of dirty dishes in the sink and on the counters, or if the milk and eggs in your fridge predate the creation of fire. You tend not to care that you have piles of dirty laundry on your floor or that some of it smells like sweat and ass. Though my big sister was awesome, Lena was not the kind of big sister to come into my house and clean it for me. She had dropped off some of the crap I had left in her basement before I got my apartment and left the mess as it was.

  I put my coffee in a traveling mug so that it wouldn’t spill and took it with me as I went room to room cleaning. I pushed all of my dirty laundry into laundry bags and called a laundry service to come take care of it. I wasn’t opposed to doing my own laundry, but I had too much to do in preparation for Lucas and Emmy. When the apartment looked pretty decent and actually smelled clean, I took a quick shower and got ready to go pick them up. Claire called me on my way out and this time I answered.

  “What the hell?” she whined. “You cut me off yesterday and ignored my calls and texts. I get that you don’t want to be my boyfriend, but even for a friend that’s a pretty shitty thing to do.”

  “I know,” I agreed. “I apologize but something very important came up.”

  “What was so important that you couldn’t send me a text that said ‘hey, I apologize, but something very important came up’?”

  I’m an attorney. I get put on the spot and have to think quickly, but here I stumbled over my words. I didn’t know how Claire was going to react, but after a half a minute of non-words, I realized that it almost didn’t matter. She wasn’t my girlfriend, and Lucas would always come first, but I wasn’t a complete asshole.

  I checked my watch. I could spare a half hour before meeting Emmy, but not much more.

  “Can you meet me at the coffee shop around the corner from your office?” I asked her.

  “Sure, I guess. When?”

  “I’ll be there in ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay. Must be something pretty heavy if you need to meet me in a public place,” she said doubtfully.

  I didn’t respond to that. I told her I’d see her in a few and hung up.

  I found Claire in the café a little while later, seated at a small table all the way in the back. Our relationship was casual, I hardly owed her a big explanation, but I had known her since I was thirteen years old, dated her for a year many years ago, and remained friends with her thereafter. I wasn’t the nicest guy, but I wasn’t a dirt bag either.

  “Hey,” I said taking the seat across from her.

  “Hey,” she said, eyeing me with caution.

  Her short blonde hair was pulled back in a small ponytail at the base of her skull. Her dark blue eyes raked over me as they always did as if she was assessing me. She was thin with sharp cheekbones and virtually had no curves on her body, but she was pretty nonetheless. She could have been a European supermodel. Too bad her looks weren’t enough to entice me into a serious relationship.

  “So, what’s up?” she asked after I asked the waitress for just a water. I had drunk nearly the whole pot of coffee while cleaning the house. I didn’t need to be any more wired than I was.

  “Emmy sent me a letter,” I started.

  “So?” she shrugged.

  Of course she would just shrug. She knew that I came home from the east coast with a broken heart, but she didn’t know the specifics, and I didn’t feel the need to relay them to her even now.

  “So,” I sighed, and decided to just be blunt. “So, she was apparently pregnant when I left and now I have a five month old son that I didn’t know about until yesterday morning.”

  “What?” Her eyes were open wide and her slender fingers gripped her coffee cup so tightly I thought it would shatter in her hand.

  “Yeah, that’s about the reaction I had, too,” I said, forcing a small smile.

  “That’s bullshit! How do you even know that kid is yours? This is probably just a ploy to get you back. What is she stupid or something? Doesn’t she know that DNA will prove she’s lying?”

  I had questioned Lucas’s paternity myself, and I was not at all happy with Emmy, but hearing Claire call the mother of my child stupid bothered me.

  “Don’t call her stupid,” I said with a quiet anger that unsettled Claire. “Don’t ever disrespect her. Ever.”

  She shrunk into her seat and dropped her eyes to her coffee. “I’m sorry, but…you must have had the same thoughts.”

  “I did,” I admitted. “But then I went to see them, and he looks just like me, Claire. There is no mistaking who is father is. Besides, Emmy would never be that cruel or desperate.”

  She sat there in silence for a moment, thinking of her words before speaking.

  “So…what are you going to do?” she asked quietly. “Are you going to be with her again?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “But I asked her to move in with me so I can be a part of Lucas’s life without all of the crap that comes along with shared custody. She and Lucas will take my room and I’ll take the couch.”

  “Oh,” she said, putting a hand up to her lips as she thought about the situation. “That’s a lot of shit in one day.”

  “I agree,” I sighed.

  “And…you think this is going to work? You two aren’t going to fight living under the same roof?”

  I didn’t think Emmy was capable of fighting anything or anyone. By all appearances, all of her fight was gone.

  “No, it will be awkward and maybe even a little tense, but I don’t think we’ll fight.”

  “Do you think…” she swallowed hard and looked at me nervously. “Do you think you guys will…get back together…like ever?”

  I thought about my broken heart and my time missed with Lucas and frowned.

  “No,” I said flatly.

  “What about you and me? Can I still see you sometimes?” Claire asked and then forced a smile.

  I shifted in my seat. “I’ll need some time to adjust, Claire. I can’t make any promises.”

  She nodded and looked away from me. I checked my watch and knew that I had to go.

  “I have to get going. I have to meet Emmy and Lucas.�
� I reached over and touched Claire’s hand, making her look at me with shiny eyes.

  “We’re still friends, Claire.”

  “Of course we are,” she smiled. “Good luck with everything. Keep me posted. Send me some pictures.”

  I stood up, kissed the top of her head, and left her sitting there. Even though I knew I had done the right thing, I felt like an asshole.

  ***

  After one trip to back to my apartment to drop off the belongings Emmy and Lucas had brought with them to Chicago, we went back out to buy everything Lucas would need. As I carried Lucas in my arms and zipped around the enormous baby store, Emmy followed quietly behind, only speaking if I spoke to her first. I was fine with that. I didn’t want to be her damn friend, but I didn’t have to be a dickfuck about it either. Silence was our common friend. She didn’t say anything when I told her about going to Lena’s, but she look terrified. I wasn’t her friend, as I said, but it wasn’t necessary for her to be so frightened.

  “They’re going to be fine. No one is going to be nasty. They’re not like that,” I had said, knowing that she was afraid of facing my family after her Keep-Away-Lucas stunt.

  The old Emmy would have said something funny at this point while trying to express her anxiety, but this woman, otherwise known as Lucas’s Mom, just absently wrung her hands together, swallowed hard, and looked at the floor.

  True to my word, at dinner that night, my family embraced Emmy as if she had done no wrong. They treated her like she belonged and harbored no hard feelings towards her whatsoever. My family is great like that. Me, not so much. I talked around her, over her, and through her, pretending she wasn’t really there unless it was really necessary. I didn’t do it on purpose, not really, but I felt there was a barrier between us that wasn’t there even after I broke up with her. The barrier was there because of her actions and I didn’t want to try to break through it. I was fine working around it and limiting our communication through a small open door in said barrier. The old Emmy wouldn’t have taken this shit from me, but Lucas’s Mom cowered in her seat. When she jumped up suddenly, excusing herself in a low murmur, Lena, Lorraine, and my mother all set their evil female eyes on me.

  “This is hard enough for her,” Lena hissed. “You don’t need to be such an…” she considered all of the kids that were wandering around before continuing. “Asshole,” she silently mouthed.

  “You’re going to push her away and she’ll take Lucas with her, stupid,” Lorraine said and punched me in the arm.

  I looked at my mother’s disapproving eyes and immediately looked away. She didn’t raise me to be an asshole to women, but I couldn’t help the anger I felt inside towards Lucas’s Mom.

  Lena got up from the table after giving me a final look of warning and left to go after Lucas’s Mom. When they returned a few minutes later, Lena immediately brought out the apple pie my mom had made for the occasion. Once Lucas’s Mom had a larger than reasonable slice of pie on her plate with a side of ice cream, she managed to even smile a little. I rolled my eyes and said nothing. If only pie could be the fix-all to my problems.

  Chapter Four

  I really thought I was going to struggle falling into the role of someone’s dad without any kind of real preparation, but I found myself settled in the position easily. Admittedly, Lucas’s Mom was a large part of the transition. She wordlessly and effortlessly began routines that gave me plenty of quality time with my son while allowing me to take on some of the responsibilities involved—bath times, feedings, doctor’s appointments, and more. Every moment with my son counted. Every moment was an attempt to make up for all of the previously missed moments. The truth was, I could never make up for any of those missed moments before Lucas’s Mom sent that letter, but I damn well tried.

  She stayed out of my way while taking care of me at the same time. She cooked, she cleaned, washed my damn underwear and left reminders on the fridge. I always thanked her, but unless Lucas was involved, we really didn’t speak. I had nothing to say, and though at one point in her life she would have had way too damn much to say, she too had nothing to say. At night, after Lucas went to bed, I would sit down on my bed slash couch and sometimes work and sometimes just chill. Lucas’s Mom would shut herself in the bedroom. I don’t know what she did in there. Okay, sometimes I wondered what she was doing in there, but I never cared enough to go find out or to ask.

  Though I was enjoying my new life as a dad, I started feeling a little restless. I felt trapped in my own home with Lucas’s Mom taking up the other half of my apartment. Having company over was just awkward—not because she was awkward, but because of the situation we were in. One night after Lucas was asleep and his mom was in the kitchen silently cleaning up after dinner and cleaning Lucas’s bottles, I felt like the walls were closing in on me. I jumped up off of the couch, grabbed my keys, and without looking at her, I announced that I was going back to the office to work.

  I didn’t lie. I did go back to the office for a little bit, but instead of going directly back to the apartment afterward, I found myself parking my car near Claire’s. I stood outside of her building for a few minutes, debating whether or not I really wanted to go up there. I didn’t show up for a booty call, but I just wanted a change in environment for a little while. Somewhere that wasn’t home and wasn’t work, somewhere rather neutral where I could just have a couple of beers and bullshit. I had friends I could have turned to, but so many of them still didn’t know my circumstances and I wasn’t in the mood to explain that Lucas’s Mom was just that—Lucas’s Mom and nothing more to me.

  After too much time thinking about it, I went inside, waved to the doorman and made my way up to Claire’s apartment. She opened the door wrapped in a robe and her hair was still wet from the shower. She looked surprised to see me but immediately stood aside to let me in.

  “Never expected to see you at my door again,” she said as I moved past her and headed to her kitchen for a beer.

  “Yeah, me either,” I admitted as I opened the fridge.

  “Not that I’m complaining or anything,” she said quickly.

  I opened two beers and handed her one. I took in her damp breasts pressing against the silk fabric of her robe. They weren’t very impressive breasts, but from a guy’s perspective, boobs are boobs, and Claire’s boobs were wet and her nipples were hard.

  “Something catch your eye?” she teased, arching an eyebrow.

  I immediately looked away and headed to her living room. I didn’t pop in to fuck her. It suddenly felt strange to think about having sex with someone else when I realized I was someone’s dad. Not that I wanted to have sex with my son’s mother, because I sort of didn’t like her anymore, but it felt strange to think of having sex with Claire anyway.

  I settled down in an armchair, opposed to the couch where bad things could have happened. Claire sat down on the couch, but made no effort to hold her robe closed. It hung open enough to show the swells of her breasts, the smooth skin leading to her exposed belly button, and just a trace of curly blonde hair peaking up between her crossed legs.

  “How are you and your happy little family?” Claire asked with a hint of sarcasm.

  “My son is incredible,” I said and tipped the bottle to my lips.

  Her face softened. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said quietly. “I guess you like being a dad.”

  “I do. Dirty diapers, puke, teething—all of it,” I laughed. “I can tell he’s going to be a handful when he starts walking and talking. He has a bit of an attitude already.”

  “Do you have any pictures?” Claire seemed genuinely interested in seeing Lucas, but I suddenly felt a little guilty for sitting in her living room and throwing Lucas in her face. She had wanted children a long time ago when we were dating and back then I couldn’t be bothered with even entertaining the idea of having any. I also knew I had hurt her, if only a little bit, when I stopped seeing her when I found out about Lucas, but she held her hand out and looked at me expectantl
y. With a sigh, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and brought up my photos before passing her the phone.

  “Oh, he’s adorable,” she smiled. “He does look just like you, Luke. Gosh.”

  She examined picture after picture for a little while, asking questions and listening to my comments about the pictures. She laughed and smiled or gasped in all of the right places. Though I knew it was probably bothering her inside, she didn’t outwardly show it, which was a big step for Claire who was really good at wearing her emotions on her sleeve. I appreciated her genuine interest, and I had begun to relax, but then she reached the one picture of Lucas and his mother together. So quickly I almost missed it, I saw an expression of bitterness cross her features and disappear before I could even open my mouth to address it. She handed my phone back to me then.

  “Lucas is a beautiful baby,” Claire said very quietly. As if she had just realized that her robe was hanging open, her fingers made quick work of pulling it together to cover her bare skin as she looked at my shoes instead of my eyes.

  “He is,” I agreed just as quietly.

  “You seem happy.”

  I knew this statement had a double meaning. I had to be careful how I answered it to not give her the wrong impression.

  “Lucas makes me very happy,” I said. “I wish the circumstances were different, but it is what it is. I just make the best of it and push myself to be the best parent I can be.”

  Claire nodded softly. She waited a moment before asking “Are you and Emmy trying to work things out?”

  Did she not just hear me?

  “No,” I said, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my legs. “I mean, we communicate as much as necessary for Lucas, but we’re not getting back together if that’s what you mean. We’re roommates that happen to share a child.”

  Claire finally met my eyes. “So…you’re single?”

  “Yes, I’m still single,” I said, letting my eyes rake over her body.