by Mj Fields
I slid out of the bed, careful not to wake Georgie, and tiptoed into the bathroom where I gushed, totally and completely gushed, about Amias and told her I was definitely falling in love with him.
She didn’t reply the way in which I suspected she would, because hello, she’s Lily, and she’s tried so hard to push me to this exact point in my life, the point in which I was sort of, kind of, okay with opening my heart again. And when I finally do? Dead air.
I was quiet, she was quiet, and then she asked if I was sure that he was my type. In the next breath, she reminded me that I had said I was more than okay with giving Georgie a sibling and telling her when she was older that I went to a sperm bank.
I reminded her that it was kind of impossible to do that since, I repeat, he loves me and that I was ninety-nine percent sure he truly did.
She then sent me a screen shot of a message from her sister, Tonya, asking, Isn’t this one of our strippers?
There was a picture of Amias, looking over his shoulder as he walked out of a bar with a girl, a girl who looked nothing like me. The date? It was the first night we were in Clearwater.
She told me that she would help me get a lawyer if the Steel family tried to get custody and to keep it together until I got back, and then we could come up with a plan.
I tiptoed back to the bedside, grabbed my purse, brought it back into the bathroom, sat on the floor, dumped out the contents, and amongst the wipes, sunscreen, and antibacterial gel, were more baseball cards. One had an address, Lily googled it, then sent me a link. It was a mansion, a fucking mansion, not a house.
Together, Lily and I found flights for Georgie and me to take back, so not to allow her or myself to become any more vested in the entire Steel family.
I messaged him, he replied back, I went out to confront him at the pool wanting him to get mad at me, so it wouldn’t feel so guilty about what I knew I was going to do, leave Orlando. Lily booked our flights.
Lily picked us up at the airport and brought me to my car. During the ride to the private airstrip, she gave me her phone and told me to look at the screen shots on it.
Flipping through the shots, I learned that the whole baseball field fiasco was because the girl — Sophia—, Amias had left the bar with, had been dating the Nationals’ pitcher.
She took Georgie for a night, possibly two if it got ugly, so that I could sort out the situation.
Now I haven’t been home for more than a few hours, and he’s outside my door right now, banging on it, and none too lightly.
“Open the door, Ellis. I know you’re in there.”
I exhale a held breath and open the door, leaving the chain locked.
His nostrils are flared, and his jaw is tight. He’s angry, scary angry.
“You wanna tell me why you not only take off in the middle of the night but don’t bother answering calls or texts?”
“I don’t like confrontation.”
His lips curl up. “You don’t like—” He snaps his jaw shut and exhales again. “This seriously about the place we’re going to raise our kids, Ellis? You hate the house so much you take off in the middle of the fucking night, putting Georgie, you, and the baby in danger?”
“I’m a good mom. We weren’t in danger.”
“That’s it? That’s all you think you owe me as an explanation”—he points at the chain—“through a fucking locked door like I’m some animal?”
“As I said, I don’t like confrontation, and I think maybe, when you’ve calmed down and think back on our conversations, you’ll understand that I can’t be with you. But when our child is born, I’m sure we can come up with a suitable—”
“Back it up, Ellis, because, right now, I feel like you’re talking in riddles, and as I’ve mentioned every time you start retreating, I’m not afraid of your past or doing the work that—”
“This isn’t about my past. As you can see, I’m not mentally incapacitated due to any issues I’ve dealt with in my past. I have a good job, a home, and a degree in which will help me maintain a home, a happy home, for my children for years and years to come.”
“You sound an awful lot like a lawyer right now, and not like a girl who’s afraid to be loved, Ellis. Care to explain?”
“No,” is all I can manage to say because I do not want to cry and look or sound like a bitter ex-lover.
“No?”
I shake my head and repeat, “No.”
“So … no doesn’t work for me. Try giving me something more to work with, yeah?”
I shake my head again.
“You gonna let me in or—”
“No.”
Pissed is gone from his face. Hell, so is confusion. What I’m seeing now is hurt, and being the pathetic, weak shit show I am, it hurts me to see that.
“You think you love me, but it’s okay that you don’t.”
“What the hell—”
“Please just …” I pause and decided to allow my hurt, my anger to show a bit. “Why did Sam Sisco try to hurt you?”
“Because he thought I fucked his …” He stops and shakes his head. “No.”
I quickly bat away a tear.
“Ellis—”
“I want this baby to be wrapped up in big hugs when it’s time, but I think it’s best for me and my Georgie to enjoy what I have worked my butt off to provide for her and I.”
“I walked the girl out and called her a fucking car. I told you—”
“I hope we can be professional at the stadium. I’d like to finish my time there, so that when I have this baby, I can find a place that better suits what I envisioned—”
“You seriously just gonna lower that gavel and judge me without looking at facts, Ellis?”
“I won’t cause problems for you. As a matter of fact, I’d love to give you the opportunity to cut ties altogether. I hadn’t planned on—”
“Falling in love with me. You hadn’t planned on that, but you did. And we can work through all that together, but we can’t do it if you won’t—”
Closing the door, I whisper, “Drive safe.”
I stand and wait for him to beat on the door again and am grateful when he doesn’t.
The sound of my phone wakes me from the soft comfort of Georgie’s bed.
I roll over, grab my phone and hit accept.
“You really think he fucked that skank when he said he didn’t?”
I know that voice, but my eyes haven’t yet adjusted to the light of the screen in the dark.
“Jesus, Tris, give her a minute to wake up.”
“Whatever,” Tris huffs.
I sit up when I quickly realize I accepted a FaceTime call.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“Broken my brother’s heart?” Tris snaps.
“No, I shouldn’t have answered the call.”
I hold my finger over the end button, and she yells, “You hang up on me, and I will unleash my yet-to-be named monster on your yet-to-be named—nope, wait, yours now has a name it’s—”
“Don’t you dare,” Brisa cuts her off.
“He’s never loved anything outside of family and baseball, Brisa. He loves her, and she—”
“I’m sorry about this, but—”
“The hell are you two doing?” It’s Amias.
“Nothing,” Brisa says, shoving the phone somewhere so that the screen goes dark.
My finger lingers over end call.
“Are you going to help or scheme? Because if it’s scheming, I’ll hire the help like I wanted to begin with, but you two had to come over—”
“We brought plates,” Brisa says with a smile in her voice. “We can break shit, My. Break it so you can get better.”
“I am better,” he says, no voice inflection caused by severe heartbreak, and he just freaking continues, “I met the woman I love. As luck would have it, I got her pregnant, which means, if we pop them out like Mom and Dad did, we can have like five more by the time she really hits her peak.”
&n
bsp; What. The. Hell?
“And I bet, during that time, we can make at least two more before she settles into only wanting it three times a week, which will be okay, because we’ll both be exhausted from—”
Tris snorts. “Not only are you an asshole for wanting her to give you eight kids—”
“Nine. Georgie girl’s mine already. A team.”
“And you’re delusional. She literally ran away from you in the middle of the night, hopped a plane, doesn’t answer your calls, and shut you down just—”
“She’s hurt. Broken. She handled it better than I would have. She needs a minute to think about whether she’s going to fight for her happiness, for our future team, for love, and then she may need a minute more to break shit.”
Brisa asks, “And you’re just going to what? Sit back and—”
“She said she needed me to slow down, and I didn’t listen. I’m owning it.”
“Okay, so you do get that she’s not pissed at you for pushing. She thinks you cheated on her with Suckhole Sam’s girl—”
“I’m aware that she was led to believe that. I’ve got a way to disprove it, if she needs that. Just wish she didn’t need it.”
“So, you do have a plan,” Tris states.
“I don’t need a plan. I have the truth. I also have Cannon—”
“The catcher from your minor league team?” Brisa asks.
“Her best friend, Lily’s, sister, Tonya, was at the bar that night. She was talking shit about my Ellis. I didn’t even have a drink, because I figured if I tore Tonya’s ass up about being married any more than I did, and she kept acting like a cunt, I’d hit a chick.”
“You would not.” Tris laughs.
“She was talking shit about Ellis, T. I’m thinking, yeah, I wanted to. The blonde the boys tried to set me up with before I even arrived, asked if I was ready to get out of there, and I said yeah, because I was. Once outside, I realized she was thinking the hook up was going down. I told her I was with someone and not interested. She cringed, told me her ride was cuntosaurus, and I’m guessing she didn’t want to be treated like shit, so I called her a car.”
“Did you tell Ellis all that?” Brisa asks.
“Not all of it, no.”
“Why?”
“Did you hear the part about Tonya being a cunt? No way in hell would I want to relive, let alone repeat, what was said, so no. Cannon’s getting the blonde’s info from the cunt—”
“Would you stop saying that word?” Brisa demands.
“Not when it comes to the cun—”
Brisa laughs. “Oh my God, stop and continue on with the plan.”
“It’s not a plan. This isn’t a game. I was just gonna call her and have her give Ellis a ring, but Dad told me to hold back because, apparently, Sam is threatening to have me arrested or some shit.”
“Did Dad also tell you that you were fucking stupid to expect Ellis to talk to that bitch?” Tris snaps.
“Again, T, nothing happened, so yeah, I think Ellis is mature enough to—”
I end the call, because I obviously am not that mature because I didn’t listen in on the whole thing, and sure as hell wasn’t mature enough to not get Tonya’s number from Lily and rip her a new asshole.
It’s midnight when I pull up in front of a house that completely freaked me out when I saw it online. A house that now has my hands shaking so hard that I almost can’t type out a text to send to Tris, asking her to please meet me out front and not tell Amias I’m here, but I manage.
Looking in the mirror, trying to wipe away the tear stains with a babywipe, the passenger door opens and Tris slides into the passenger seat.
“Oh shit,” is what she says when she sees me.
“It’s bad, right?” I ask, trying to fix my hair, hair that I decided needed a trim, because, well, sometimes a girl can’t drink wine –because they’re pregnant– when they’re wrecked and need to do something, anything in order to feel like they’re in control, when they feel completely the opposite.
She smooths her hands over my hair and does it so gently that it surprises me.
“It’s better than Britney’s was.”
“I googled it. It’s called emotional shedding.”
“Well, on the bright side, a pair of scissors to the hair is better than a knife to the wrist.”
My jaw drops.
“Shit, is that what your mom—”
“Pills I think.”
“My kind of girl.” She smiles, and then her smiles drops. “Yeah, so, I also tried to off myself. But not when I was pregnant. There was a year between—”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“You know, sometimes it’s just easier to own it.”
I nod.
“So, I’m guessing you’re not here for me, huh?”
I shrug. “Is he okay?”
“He’s trying to be chill.”
“Is he mad at me?”
“I am,” she says, completely serious.
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugs. “Just know he’s one of the good ones. He’s not going to hurt you, but you can’t hurt him, okay?”
“Okay.”
“No, like seriously, I need you to promise, because when shit’s crazy, he still makes me laugh, and he also evens me out.”
I nod.
“He would also bury a body if I needed him too, whereas Brisa would feel sorry for the corpse and make me take it to the hospital, even though it’s a corpse.”
“Oddly terrifying and comforting at the same time.”
She smiles. “Right?”
“I think you and I are going to be friends.”
Still smiling, she opens the passenger door. “Well, then buckle up. It’s one hell of a ride. Now let’s go find your man.”
Home Sweet Home
With Brisa and Tris here, I am forced to play it calm. I’m not calm. Not one fucking bit. I hate that she’s twenty miles away and should be here, sitting on the big-ass bed in our room, online shopping with me to pick out the rest of the furniture to fill up our home.
After I left her place, I went to a hardware store to buy bolt cutters but decided I didn’t need to scare the hell out of her and Georgie girl when I knocked again and snipped that damn chain, because I was fucking tripping.
Instead, I hit a couple of furniture stores in Trenton and bought our bedroom set, knowing if she didn’t like it, it could be put in one of the other seven bedrooms. I then bought a set for Georgie, threw some cash at the owner for delivery, let them take a picture of me to post on their social media sites, and the stuff was delivered within an hour. Pretty fucking sure of myself, yeah?
Yes. One hundred percent sure. Just like I was when I saw her and called dibs.
I also bought a desk for my office. How fucked is it that I have an office? Pretty fucked, and it wouldn’t feel even half-fucked if she was right here with me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
Now that that’s out of my system, I hit the FaceTime app on my laptop, phone set up on one of the built-in bookshelves, taping my call in case I have to show Ellis proof. Stupid to think I won’t have to. She’s had a shit life, and then I swoop in, cock out and ready to rock out this family thing, because yeah, I not only know how it’s done, but I also want to do it with her.
Sophia Butler —the blonde from the bar— appears on the screen. “Amias?”
“Sophia, how are you?”
“I’m really sorry Sam pulled—”
“Not gonna blame you for him acting like a dick any more than I blame him for wanting to hurt a man he thought fucked around with his girl.”
“Well, if he hadn’t have fucked around on me, I wouldn’t have looked up the woman he cheated with, befriended her, and—”
“Wait—what?”
“The girl with your friend, Tonya, well, Sam and her hooked up. So, there’s that. Probably blew any shot I had with you, huh?”
“A wise woman once said she doesn’t won
der what makes a person go crazy; she wonders why they haven’t already been there and back, or something like that. I—”
“So, there is a chance that you—”
“How messed up were you that night in Clearwater?”
“Not bad. Why?”
“You remember what happened with you and I?”
“I remember you walked me out of that bar as I counted my blessings that my revenge fuck was hot. Instead, you were a gentleman, called me a car, and told me you were taken. I also remember telling you I didn’t care. But that, Amias Steel, was a lie. That’s not me. I was—”
“Trying to get back at Sam. I get it. No judgment.”
“So, the reason for the call, if not to finish, or rather start, what I was trying to—”
“My girl was sent a picture of you and me walking out of the bar, and she’s doubting me. Just wanted to see how you felt about talking with her if I needed you to.”
“I wonder if that’s the same picture Sam got the morning of your game.”
“I’ll get it and send it over, and if it is, that would be the bitch from the bar. But back to my favor; would you give her a call, if necessary?”
“I would, yes, but I’m not sure she’d believe me. If she’s already got trust issues, do you really think it’s worth it to put in that much effort?”
“Yeah, she is.”
“You have a lot of years ahead of you in this game, Ami—”
“She and I have more years ahead of us than this career will ever give me.”
“She’s a lucky girl.”
“Nah, I’m a lucky man.”
“Are there any more like you left out there?” she asks.
I nod. “I’m sure there are a million, but only one of them is the right one. When you find him, you’ll know.”
“This is worth repeating, she’s a lucky girl.”
“Not sure she knows that, but I’ll make damn sure she does.”