Complication (Rock Stars & Romance Book 6)

by A. K. Evans

  I pulled into the driveway, parked my car, and got out as quickly as my growing belly would let me.

  Seconds later, I was pressing my finger to the doorbell.

  Before I even had a chance to take a deep breath, the door opened and Addy’s beautiful, smiling face was there. She held out her arms and threw them over my shoulders.

  “Oh, I missed you so—” She stopped herself, loosened her hold, and stepped back. Her eyes widened. “What the heck is going on?”

  I bit my lip as my gaze locked on hers. “I’m pregnant,” I shared.

  Nodding her head slowly, she replied, “Yeah, I can see that. Come on in.”

  I stepped inside as she closed the door behind me. “How was the honeymoon?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” she scolded me. “We’re not discussing anything else right now other than the fact that you’ve got a baby inside you. We’ll talk about the honeymoon later. Let’s go sit down.”

  I barely got my booty on the seat cushion of the couch when Addy demanded, “Tell me what I missed while I was gone.”

  “Technically, you were still here when it happened,” I shared. “I’m twenty-six weeks pregnant.”

  Surprise washed over her. “You’re more than halfway done,” she declared.

  “Yes, I am.”

  She was looking at me with such disbelief. “So, you’re dating someone? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  If it wasn’t so heartbreaking, I might have laughed.

  Dating someone.

  Addy was going to go crazy when she learned the truth.

  I must have been wearing my emotions on my face because she surmised, “The guy didn’t stick around, did he?”

  I sighed. “Addy, I have to tell you something,” I said with a clear warning in my tone.

  She immediately grew alarmed. “Oh no. What is it?”

  “I got pregnant the night of your wedding,” I started. “And the baby’s father is Roscoe.”

  Shock washed over her. “My brother got you pregnant? You and Roscoe had sex? Are you guys together?”

  “Yes. Yes. And no.”

  Her mouth dropped open. She blinked her eyes and shook her head. “Okay. Hold on. Let me rewind here a minute. First, are you okay? Is the baby okay?”

  “The baby and I are both healthy,” I confirmed.

  “Alright. And when are you due?”

  “October sixteenth,” I answered.

  Addy nodded as she digested this information. “Roscoe knows you’re pregnant?”

  I dipped my chin and explained, “He found out only a few weeks ago. I was twenty-two weeks pregnant. With him being on tour and you being away, I didn’t have a number to contact him. Though, I’m not sure I would have shared this over the phone anyway. I told him a few weeks after he got back.”

  “How did he take the news?”

  I could tell from the tone of her voice that Addy already knew this wasn’t going to be good. I hated that I was going to confirm her suspicions.

  “He asked me if I was sure the baby was his,” I rasped.

  She closed her eyes and allowed her head to drop forward. After giving herself a moment, she returned her attention to me and lamented, “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I guess it was a valid question, considering I slept with him only hours after seeing him for the first time in years,” I noted.

  “It absolutely was not a valid question,” she insisted. “That was a dick move on his part. Wait until I see him. Do my parents know?”

  I shook my head. “No. Or, I’m assuming they don’t. I thought Roscoe should be the one to tell them, but considering I haven’t heard anything from them, I’m assuming that he hasn’t said anything.”

  “Alright, start at the beginning and tell me what happened,” she demanded. “I want to know how this all went down between the two of you. But please spare me the intimate details. You’re my best friend, and in any other situation, I’d be cool with it. He’s my brother, so I hope you understand why.”

  I offered a smile and assured her, “I get it.”

  With that, I started at the beginning and told her all the details minus the intimate parts. I explained how things had been between us at the wedding, how attentive and charming he’d been, and how I’d had a crush on him years ago. I went on and told her how he took me home the next morning and indicated that he was interested in seeing me again when he was finished on tour. I then shared how Walker and Sadie saw me at the store, gave me Roscoe’s number and address, and how I visited him on Father’s Day to share the news. I filled Addy in on the details of that visit and the one that followed at my place later that evening. And finally, I told her about how I’d run into him at the grocery store.

  Of course, throughout all of it, I also told her all about how I’d been invited to Beck and Chasey’s for a girls’ night in and how Chasey accompanied me to the store so I could put together a registry for the baby shower that my mom wanted to throw and had been planning for months, noting that my mom would be calling her sometime tomorrow.

  When I finished, which took a fair bit of time to do, Addy stared at me in silence and was still very much in shock.

  “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you through all of this,” she lamented.

  “It’s okay,” I insisted. “I wanted you to enjoy yourself, and if you knew this was going on, I know you would have been worried the whole time.”

  Addy didn’t refute my claim because she knew it was the truth. What she did do was ask more questions.

  “So, can I ask about the conversation you had at the grocery store with Roscoe?” she questioned me.

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  “Well, it’s just that you said he has said he wants to help and provide support,” she started. “Did he explain how he wants to do that?”

  “He wants to provide financial support, Addy. But I told him I didn’t want his money.”

  My best friend tipped her head to the side as she assessed me. She seemed utterly confused by my statement, or more specifically, she was confused by my decision. I’d need to clarify it, but I decided to wait for her to ask whatever she wanted to ask.

  Finally, she questioned me, “So, you’re not going to let him take care of his baby?”

  “You’re not going to want to hear this, but Roscoe doesn’t want to be involved in this baby’s life,” I remarked. “He merely wants to provide financial support. And after the way things went down when I told him I was pregnant with his baby, I don’t like the idea of taking any of his money. It was never about that for me.”

  Sadness marred her features. “He hurt you. He got your hopes up and let you down.”

  “It sounds awful, but I didn’t have any expectations the night of the wedding. We both had a great time together all day, and it was almost the natural order of things by that evening. We both wanted it. I won’t lie and say I didn’t. That’s all I expected it to be; however, when he took me home the next morning, he made me believe there was a reason to have hope. I had hope for months while he was on tour. He came back and crushed that hope very effectively within a matter of minutes.”

  There was so much pain and disappointment in Addy’s expression. I appreciated that she was understanding where I was at with this, but I hated what it was doing to her.

  “Listen, Addy, I don’t want this to cause any problems with your family,” I said. “I’m okay now. I’ve had time to cope and prepare myself for being a single mom. I know I’ll be fine.”

  “But this isn’t fair. You shouldn’t be doing this on your own,” she reasoned.

  I shrugged. “Maybe I won’t always have to. Maybe one day I’ll meet a guy who will want to be in my life for the right reasons. I hope that day comes. But if it doesn’t, I’ll be grateful for all that I do have.”

  She audibly sighed. “Am I having a niece or nephew?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I keep thinking it’s going to be a girl, but I haven’t found out the sex of the bab
y yet. I kind of want to keep it a surprise.”

  Shaking her head with a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, she muttered, “Of course you would do the exact opposite as me. What else is new?”

  I appreciated her attempt at lightening the mood then because things had gotten pretty heavy. But as quickly as she’d made me laugh, things had turned serious again.

  “I have to tell your parents, Addy,” I told her. “He’s clearly not going to do that, and I don’t want to continue hiding this from them. I understand if it’s too much for you, especially being in the middle, but I’d really appreciate it if you could be there.”

  “You know I will be if that’s what you need,” she promised. “But I want to talk to him first.”

  Now it was my turn to sigh. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I advised. “I don’t want him thinking I put you up to this. Really. I’m disappointed with how things are, and I’d choose for it to be different if I could, but I don’t want to make a difficult situation even more complicated by making Roscoe believe that his family is out to get him.”

  “You’re my best friend, Sienna. Whether Roscoe was this baby’s father, or it was someone else, I’d be going to bat for you. He doesn’t get a free pass because of who he is. But I’ll make sure he knows you did not put me up to it,” she promised.

  I loved her.

  I loved that I had her.

  And I knew she would do exactly as she said.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “But after you talk to him, you’ll go with me to talk to your parents?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Yes. But I’m hoping I can talk some sense into my brother and that won’t be necessary.”

  I wasn’t holding my breath about that happening.

  “Thanks, Addy. Now, will you please tell me everything about this amazing honeymoon? I want all the details.”

  My best friend’s face lit up. “We had the best time,” she declared.

  Then she went on to tell me everything about her honeymoon. It was a wonderful and much-needed distraction from my current situation.

  And I was going to take that as long as I could have it because I had no doubt that after Addy talked with Roscoe, I might not get much more opportunity for happy conversations or distractions.

  Thirteen

  Sienna

  I felt like I’d been in a perpetual state of deep breathing that had nothing to do with being pregnant.

  It was Monday morning, and I was back at work. I’d just left the hub a few minutes ago with a truck full of packages that needed to be delivered. Once I’d reached the twenty-week mark of my pregnancy, and after talking with my doctor about it, we decided it was time to take action and make some adjustments to my job duties.

  I spoke with my employer and was put on light delivery duty, which meant that none of the packages I’d be delivering would weigh more than twenty-five pounds.

  And since I was currently driving and hadn’t even started lifting any of those packages, the deep breaths were all about what was happening inside my head.

  Before I left Addy’s house last night, she told me that she had every intention of going over to her brother’s house to talk to him about this. I wasn’t going to stop her from doing that; he was her family. But there was no doubt it was all giving me a lot of anxiety.

  I couldn’t stop myself from wondering how it was all going to go down between the two of them. Roscoe was clearly a passionate man about certain things, like music and sex, but I didn’t know how he’d respond to Addy showing up at his place and giving him a piece of her mind.

  Because that was what she was bound to do. I struggled against breaking out in a grin since it was at that moment that I realized a bit of her had rubbed off on me. The way I’d handled the encounters with Roscoe after I’d shared the news of the pregnancy with him was mostly due to what I now knew was protective mom instincts kicking in. But I had a feeling that seeing Addy’s fiery spirit for so many years helped guide me in the right direction, too.

  As I pulled up outside my first delivery stop, I recognized I had no expectations for the outcome of Addy and Roscoe’s meeting, and I certainly didn’t want to cause any problems between them and the rest of the Perry family. But she, like me, thought it was worth going to him first before taking the news to their parents. She was going to let him know that my mom was planning a shower and that his mom was going to receive an invite. If he wanted to be the one to share the news, now was the time.

  My best friend promised to call me on my lunch break to let me know how it all went down and suffice it to say that I was beyond ready to get to that part of the day. Until then, I had a feeling I’d simply continue to keep taking deep breaths, hoping I’d get good news.

  In a perfect world, Roscoe would have accepted the pregnancy from the start and stepped up to the plate to be the man I needed him to be, the man I could depend on to protect my heart and love both our child and me.

  Sadly, life wasn’t perfect, and I knew I’d never get that. So, at this point, all I was hoping for was there to not be any sort of divide in the Perry family over this, and that Roscoe’s family would still welcome and accept me. At least I knew I’d always have Addy.

  I parked my truck and got up to locate the package from the back.

  I wished I could have simply remained focused on doing what I needed to do today because the whole situation, complete with all the stress it was causing me, couldn’t be good for me or the baby.

  And I learned that was especially true when, after grabbing the eight-pound box, I stepped awkwardly out of the side of the truck and lost my footing.

  Even though it felt like it was all happening in slow motion, I couldn’t do anything to stop it other than what I did.

  The package and signature and scanning device I’d been carrying went flying from my grasp as my hands came out in front of me to break my fall.

  And break they did.

  I heard a pop as pain shot through both my palms and through my right wrist. My belly took part of the impact, but other than the pressure I felt against it when I landed, I didn’t feel any lingering pain.

  “Are you okay?” a woman asked as she came to a stop beside me.

  I shifted my weight around to sit on my ass, feeling completely embarrassed. “Yeah. No. I think my wrist is broken,” I answered.

  “I’m calling an ambulance,” she said.

  “No, no. That’s okay,” I replied. “I’ll be alright.”

  “Ma’am, I hate to sound presumptuous, but you’re pregnant and you just fell,” she noted. “You should make sure the baby is okay.”

  My left hand immediately flew to my belly. I didn’t think I hit the ground that hard. Was it possible my baby suffered some kind of trauma?

  At the thought, I started to panic.

  “Just relax,” she said gently as she sat down beside me. “I’m going to stay with you until someone gets here.”

  I barely paid attention as she made the phone call. What was I going to do? There was no way I couldn’t go to the hospital. Not only should my baby be checked out, but it wasn’t like I could lift any packages with my wrist feeling this bad.

  Oh God, this was not what I needed right now.

  A moment later, the woman said, “My name is Victoria.”

  “Sienna.”

  “Is there anyone else I can call for you, Sienna? Your husband, maybe?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that there was not only no husband but also no boyfriend either.

  Instead, I shook my head. “Would you mind getting my purse? It’s right there in the front of my truck. I think I need to call work and tell them what happened.”

  “Sure.”

  After Victoria got my purse, I quickly dug through it to find my phone. A few minutes later, I disconnected the call. They were sending someone out to deal with the truck and packages and insisted that I take the ambulance to the hospital since this happened while I was working.

  “Are y
ou sure it’s just the wrist and your hands that hurt?” Victoria asked.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I think so,” I said.

  Though I truly didn’t feel any pain in my abdomen, I didn’t know if I would have been able to admit if I was experiencing any. It would have been too much, and I would have been panicking more than I already was.

  Before I knew it, we heard sirens. The paramedics arrived, assessed me, and got me strapped onto a gurney. After I’d thanked Victoria for waiting with me and calling for help and just as the medics were about to load me into the ambulance, two coworkers arrived to get my truck. One of them grabbed my lunch off the truck, gave it to me, and wished me well.

  Then I was off and on my way to the hospital.

  “Would it be alright if I called my mom and my friend to meet me at the hospital?” I asked, since I was unaware of the rules of using a cell phone in an ambulance.

  “Sure.”

  I decided to call my mother first.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  “Hey, Mom. First, I want you to know that I’m okay, but I’m heading to the hospital right now. I fell and hurt my wrist.”

  “Is the baby okay?” she panicked.

  “As far as I know,” I promised.

  “Steel Ridge General Hospital?” she asked.

  I confirmed that information with the paramedic before I answered, “Yes.”

  “I’m leaving right now.”

  We said goodbye, and I disconnected the call. Then I scrolled to Addy’s contact in my phone and tapped on her name.

  Halfway through the third ring, she answered, “Hey, Sienna. Can I give you a call back in a little bit? I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. Actually, I’m really at the beginning of something.”

  “I’m in an ambulance on the way to Steel Ridge General,” I told her. “Can you meet me there?”

  “What?” she shrieked. “Are you okay? Is the baby okay?”

  “Well, I did some damage to my wrist, which took the brunt of my fall, but my belly did impact the sidewalk.”

  Her voice was utterly tortured when she rasped, “Oh, God. I’m on my way. I’ll meet you there.”