Fake It, Baby

by Scarlet West

  I often wondered what my parents would have to say if they knew they were about to be grandparents. I wondered if they would be ready, or if they would feel old. I missed them both, but especially my dad. I wished he could see me now. He was outgoing and caring. He wouldn’t have judged me for what I’d done.

  With a sigh, I headed to the kitchen and put on a cup of tea. I was going to spend the evening quiet and at home, maybe texting my best friend for comfort. She was the only person who knew the truth, and she often told me I ought to just come out with it.

  “How are you going to hide a child forever?” she asked.

  “I’m not. I just need to keep them out of my grandparent’s minds until I get the money. It’s for them that I’m doing this. I want the best for him or her, and I can’t give them the best if we end up on the streets,” I’d replied.

  “It’s a bad idea,” she warned. “This is going to come back to bite you, trust me. You have got to be careful with this.”

  And I was being careful. I knew what I was doing, and I didn’t feel I was doing anything wrong. I didn’t want to tell the world I was going to have a baby, and I felt that was my right.

  The tea pot started screaming, and I poured the steaming liquid into the cup. It was fall, and the air was getting colder. I was happy for the excuse to wear baggy hoodies on my day off, though I had to say, it had been hard getting through the last half of summer.

  I turned on the tv and settled in with my mug, ready to sip the night away. One of the reasons I was glad for the pregnancy was because it had gotten me off of alcohol altogether. I didn’t want to drink as much as my mother had, and I worried I was on that path.

  When I found out I was pregnant, I knew I was going to have to give it up, and it had been a lot easier than I thought it would be. Now, with my tea in my hand, I knew I could deal with my stress in a healthy way.

  Hell, I had to. Stress was bad for the baby, and I didn’t want to do anything worse to this child than I’d already done. After all, I couldn’t imagine having a mother who didn’t tell anyone that I even existed.

  “It’s only for a while, Baby,” I said out loud as I put my hand on my stomach. I had wanted to keep it a surprise, whether I was having a son or a daughter, so I often just talked to them as “Baby.” The doctor told me they could hear me, and I wanted them to know my voice.

  A knock at the door startled me. I wasn’t expecting anyone, and my best friend knew that I hated it when people showed up unannounced. I turned down the tv and set my mug on the table beside me, unsure of what to do. The knock came again, and I didn’t feel I could ignore it.

  If it as my grandfather, or anyone he sent, he’d freak out if I didn’t answer the door. It had been that way since they had worked on moving back to the City. It didn’t matter to them that I’d grown up here. They were sure I would get murdered if I wasn’t absolutely careful.

  I walked over to the door and paused. I hated the fact that I didn’t have a peephole.

  “Who is it?” I called out. “I’m not expecting anything or anybody.”

  “I’m a friend of yours, Ashley, open the door!” I recognized the voice and felt sick.

  “I told you I didn’t want to be bothered!” I called out.

  “I just want to talk to you!” he replied. “I’m just going to stand here until you open the door, so you can come out now, or you can come out later, it’s up to you.”

  “I’ll call the cops on you!” I said.

  “Then I’ll tell them I was trying to do a wellness check and they’ll make you open the door,” he replied. I sighed. If he was out there when the cops showed up and they opened the door then it would all come out anyway.

  “Or I can call your grandfather and tell him that I’m concerned about you and feel he needs to check on you!” he called out.

  “Bastard,” I muttered. It was as though he could read my mind, but he knew that would get to me. Of course, I had told him that I didn’t want anything much to do with my grandparents that night we’d spent together.

  “Have it your way,” he said.

  “No! Don’t call him!” I said. “I’m opening the door, but you aren’t coming in.”

  “Fine,” he said. I slid back the lock and hesitated once more before throwing the door open. His eyes widened as he saw my obviously pregnant belly.

  “You’re?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I don’t want my grandparents to find out. If they did, they’re going to”-

  “Who’s is it?” he interrupted me. “How far along are you?”

  I hesitated once more. I didn’t know how to answer the question. I cleared my throat. “Why don’t you come in after all?”

  He walked through the door and looked around the apartment, clearly surprised at the place I lived in. It wasn’t dirty, but it wasn’t fancy by any means. I couldn’t afford it on the bank teller job I worked most of the time. Until my grandparents gave me the inheritance, there was no way I could get anything better.

  “I have to make do with what I have,” I said. “I don’t have any family money to speak of yet.”

  “So you just got into that party – six months ago – because of who you are?” Blake asked.

  “Pretty much,” I said with a sigh. “Don’t hate me for it.”

  “I don’t, but you didn’t answer my question,” he said. I looked at him, and he pointed to my belly.

  “How far along are you?”

  “Almost six months,” I said at last. There was no getting out of it now, and I didn’t want to lie to him. He’d find out the truth eventually anyway, and I knew I would be in a lot more trouble if he found out later that I’d lied than if I just told him from the beginning.

  “And who’s is it?” he repeated. “I want to hear it from you.”

  “Yours,” I said flatly. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “You’re more worried about your grandparents finding out than me?” he yelled.

  “Don’t yell! I can’t stand being yelled at!” I yelled back.

  “How do you want me to react? I just found out that you’re pregnant with my kid! And the kid is due in three months, right? So what? Were you just not going to tell me and come out later with some story of something?” he paced back and forth in the apartment, and I crossed my arms.

  “No!” I snapped. “I told you, I didn’t want my grandparents to find out, and if it came out that you were the father of my child, don’t you think that it would?”

  “Why not?” he asked. Then he shook his head. “You know what, it doesn’t even matter. It doesn’t matter! This is going to fuck up my life more than you know. I’m supposed to be”-

  He stopped, and I wanted to ask him what he was going to say. What could he possibly be that I had ruined by getting pregnant with his kid? I wasn’t going to let him pin the blame on me. He was the one who had come onto me that night, and he had made it clear that was what he wanted.

  I had done my part. I was on the pill. I didn’t know that it was a bad pack and wasn’t working. I wasn’t aware of the fact they had recalled all of the batch until after the fact. So, I couldn’t say that I was surprised when I found out I was pregnant, but I hadn’t intended for it to happen.

  “Never mind. But this isn’t going to go well,” he said. “And you didn’t even tell me.”

  “Look at how you reacted. Do you think I really wanted to deal with this before? I didn’t even want to deal with it now, but you came pounding on my door. I didn’t want to answer for this very reason!” I snapped. “If I wanted something from you, don’t you think I would have come to you before now with the fact that I was carrying your kid?”

  There was a lump forming in my throat, and Blake shook his head. He dragged his hands down his face and stared up at the ceiling, then he shook his head again. “You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry that I freaked out.”

  I stared at the floor. He could apologize now, but it wasn’t going to change the fact that I was n
ow upset with him, and even more with the situation.

  “You know what? I’m sorry. Look, I want to talk about this more, but I’ve got to have some time to digest it, okay? You have my number in your phone now, so you can get in contact with me any time you want,” he walked over to me and I stiffened, but he only put his hands on my shoulders.

  “I’m going to be here for you, and I won’t tell your grandparents, okay? We’re going to get this figured out,” he looked into my eyes as he spoke, and I nodded.

  “Okay,” I said quietly.

  “Good,” he nodded and backed up, then hesitated for a moment. He seemed to want to say something else, but then he just shook his head. “I’ll get a hold of you, or you can get a hold of me. But we’re going to figure this out. It’s going to be okay.”

  I nodded once more, still unable to speak. He then turned and headed out of the apartment, closing the door a little too hard behind him. I shook my head. I never knew how it would go if I did tell him the truth, but now that it was done, I wasn’t sure what I felt.

  Part of me was angry, part of me was relieved. It was good to hear that he would be there for me, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure how he’d be able to do that while keeping the whole thing a secret. I’d managed it for six months, but there were still three to go, and with so many people watching him and talking to him in a day, I knew the truth was bound to come out.

  Paparazzi, something, something would get us.

  I didn’t even realize I was crying until the tears splashed on my shirt.

  7

  Blake

  “Fuck! Fuck! Oh come on, fuck!” I shouted when I was back at my penthouse. How the fuck could she be pregnant? How did that happen? I thought that you had to try for a while with someone before they conceived, not just spend one night together.

  There were plenty of people in my life I knew who had tried for months to get pregnant, but I managed to get a girl pregnant after having sex with her twice? This had never happened to me before, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle it.

  Things were already terrible with my father, and I knew this was just going to make them worse. He was going to lose his shit when he found out I’d gotten Victor Velvet’s granddaughter pregnant. Not only was it going to make the man pull out forever, it was also going to ruin the chances of me being with Candace.

  What the Hell are you thinking? You don’t want to be with Candace, so why the Hell are you upset that that would happen?

  Because you know that you do need money for your startup, and if you fuck this all up this bad, your father is going to disown you. He’s going to push you out of the company and off the will, and there’s not going to be any money left.

  Hell, if Pete finds out about this, he’s going to flip out, too. We were going to be big with that tech company, and now there’s going to be no money to get us started.

  I paced back and forth in my apartment. I’d talked to Pete on the way home from Ashley’s, only to find out that his endeavor with a new investor flopped. The man wasn’t going to invest in something my own father refused to invest in, and that brought us back to square one.

  “Why does everyone seem to care what your dad thinks?” Peter had complained. “I mean, we could be bigger than Bogart Enterprises if we get this going. The market is there! We just need to get it off the ground.”

  “You don’t have to tell me, Pete,” I said. “I’m not sure. My entire life people have worshiped my father as though he was somehow God’s gift to mankind. But that’s the fact, so we’ve got to figure out another way.”

  “It’s going to be so fucking nice when you’re finally CEO of the company,” he replied. “We’re going to have the funds then.”

  “Exactly. Let’s just keep working with my father as best we can, then when I’m in charge, things are going to be different,” I told him.

  They are going to be different now, that’s for damn sure. How are you going to explain this to anyone? Of course, you told her you weren’t going to tell anyone. But how long can that last?

  It would be a lot worst to get married to Candace to make my father happy, only to have her come forth with the fact that we had a kid together. I’m not sure she would want to do that, but she’s got to be playing some game of her own here.

  I refuse to believe she doesn’t want anything from me and is just hiding this for the sake of it. But what’s her game? What is she planning and who is she playing right now? Her grandparents? Why would that be? That apartment was shitty!

  She’s clearly not living off the money they give her if she’s living in a place like that. Hell, I wonder how much money they are giving her?

  I continued to walk back and forth for a moment, then I sighed. I knew I had to talk to her, and find out more of the details. She had to have her reasons, but she didn’t give me any, and that in itself was driving me crazy.

  I couldn’t think of many men who had one night stands with a woman would be glad to find out that she was pregnant, so I refused to believe her story that she didn’t want to tell me because she didn’t’ want me to be pissed at her. But what was the reason?

  There were different theories in my head, but I didn’t even know where to start. If I was going to get answers, I had to talk to her, and I had to get the truth. I was sure she didn’t want to talk to me, not after I blew up at her like that, but I had to at least try.

  Finally, I decided to send her a text. It seemed like the best way to get through to her. She wouldn’t feel so attacked by me being in her face, but I could still get my point across. I thought for a while before sending it, then I quickly typed and hit send before I had the chance to change my mind.

  Sorry I freaked out on you. I was in shock. I’d like to talk about this, can I meet you for a cup of coffee in the morning? I know a place we can go where we won’t be seen.

  I didn’t think she was going to answer. And I really didn’t think she was going to accept my invitation, but she did – both.

  Okay. I don’t have a car right now, so I might be late. Where did you want to meet?

  I smiled. I didn’t think it was entirely horrible between us, and she now showed me that it wasn’t. I sent her the name of the place, along with the time I wanted to meet, but I added, let me send a cab for you. Please? It’s the least I can do after how I acted.

  I waited once more, but it wasn’t long before she replied.

  Okay. See you tomorrow

  “I can imagine it was a bit of a shell shock for you when you found out,” Ashley said as we sat down with our coffee. “So I don’t hold it against you.”

  “I’m just still curious to know why you didn’t tell me – or why you really don’t want your grandparents to know,” I said.

  She sighed. “It’s complicated. I knew if you knew things would come to light, and my grandparents, well, they are traditional. If they were to find out that I’m pregnant and not married, then they would disown me, and I would be out of the will.”

  “The will?” I asked in surprise.

  “My parents are dead,” she said. “I think I’ve mentioned that before, but I guess they were in a lot of debt, and that debt has fallen to me to take care of. When I turn twenty-five, I’m going to get a large portion of my inheritance, and I’ll be able to take care of this baby as well as the debt my family owes.”

  “How long before that happens?” I asked. I’d never asked how old she was.

  “About eight months,” she gulped. “So I’ve had to keep this baby a secret, and hope to God they don’t find out about him or her before I turn twenty-five. After that happens, I don’t care what they say.”

  “Why twenty-five?” I asked. “Most get their inheritance at eighteen.”

  “I was still living with my father. He ended his own life when I was nineteen,” she said. “My grandparents didn’t particularly care for him, and they didn’t want him to have any say in it. They thought if they made it available to me too soon then I’d squander it
.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I had no idea.”

  “Well, now you do. That’s why I need to keep this secret, and that’s why I didn’t tell you. If I was married, things would be different with them,” she almost sobbed the words, and I sighed.

  “I don’t know how you managed to keep something like that a secret for so long,” I said.

  “It was easy. They didn’t live here. I didn’t have to ever see them, so I didn’t have to tell them. But now, they want to move here and it’s getting harder to hide everything. I’m not sure what I’m going to do when the baby is born, but I’ll figure something out,” she said. “I just don’t want you to think that I need anything from you. I didn’t tell you partly because I don’t.”

  “No, I don’t think you do,” I said, though I wanted to offer to pay her debt. I didn’t know how much it was, but I knew I could pay it for her. I didn’t want her to have to deal with the stress of that, or with the stress of her grandparents. Then again, if I were to pay another large portion out of the company money, I knew my father would really lose his shit.

  I’d have to figure out how to help her another way, biding my time until I got my own fortune. But, I didn’t think my father would give it to me before she turned twenty-five. This was something we were just going to have to work through with what we had.

  And with Candace on her way, I wasn’t sure how I was going to make that happen, either. It would be terrible for her to find out about this. She would do everything in her power to ruin me – to ruin both of us.

  I had to figure it out, but I didn’t know how.

  Come on, you’ve got to think. Candace is in Italy. You have virtually nothing to do with each other. You can help Ashley for now, then deal with her when she gets back. Hell, that might not even be for another eight months knowing how she is.