by Claire Adams
I frowned. “Yes.”
Brent nodded. “Is he still pissed at me?”
“He’s not the kind of man who holds on to anger,” I said. “To be honest, I don’t think he spends much time thinking about you. Phil and I, we have our own life now.”
“Is he still firefighting?”
“Yes.”
“And you, what are you doing?”
“I was promoted a few months ago. I’m a manager at one of Bradshaw’s larger retail departments now. And, I’m still working on my degree. I’ll be graduating in six months.”
Brent looked away from me, as though hearing about my life was painful to him. I realized that it probably was painful, knowing he was stuck here for the next few years.
“You can turn your life around when you get out of here, Brent,” I said. “You can change your future.”
He looked down. “I never had that kind of strength.”
“Well, try,” I said firmly. “You don’t really have a choice.”
“Thanks for coming to see me,” Brent said, as he stood up.
“You’re going?”
He looked at me. “Did you come here to hear me tell you I’m sorry?”
I hesitated for a second. “That’s not the only reason,” I admitted. “But it would be nice to hear.”
“Seems to me that if I say it, it would have to be sincere to count… right?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Right.” I nodded.
“Then I’m not going to apologize today,” he said. “But… I’ll work on it so that the next time you come, it will count.”
It wasn’t an apology, but it was a step in the right direction. I smiled and nodded.
“Will you visit me again?” he asked.
“Yes.” I nodded.
“Okay,” Brent replied.
Then he turned and walked out through the door he had been brought in from. I took a deep breath and headed out where Phil was sitting in the car waiting for me. He looked at me in surprise as I got into the passenger’s seat next to him.
“I didn’t expect you back so soon.”
“Brent cut our meeting short,” I replied. “But…it ended well, actually.”
“Really?” Phil asked as he started driving back to our apartment.
“Yes.” I nodded. “He’s still immature and selfish, and I think he still blames everyone else for his lot in life, but I think he also wants to grow. And I think he can, if he tries hard enough.”
“You told him we were married?” Phil asked, taking my hand.
“I did.”
“And?”
“He seemed resigned to the idea,” I replied honestly. “I don’t think he’s quite got over his jealousy of you.”
“Do you think you’ll visit him again?”
“I think so.” I nodded. “He gave me some hope that he could change for the better today. And knowing that he has the potential to change, I know I can’t turn my back on him now.”
“Good for him,” Phil nodded.
I smiled at my husband and kissed his hand gently. “You know what?”
“What?” he asked.
“I’m craving ice cream.”
“There’s a gelato place coming up… Wanna stop there?”
“Definitely.” I nodded excitedly.
Five minutes later, we stopped outside this cute little gelato store and Phil and I walked in and ordered a serving of hazelnut crunch and salted caramel. Then we picked a tiny little booth by the window and settled in there with our ice cream. Phil put his arm around me and I tossed my legs over his lap.
“Mmm,” I said happily. “This ice cream is heaven.”
Phil laughed and kissed the top of my head. “You know, what with work and your class schedule, we haven’t had time to plan a honeymoon.”
“We’re trying to save up for our future,” I pointed out. “A honeymoon costs money.”
“I think we deserve a nice honeymoon, especially after our wedding.”
“What was wrong with our wedding?” I demanded. “It was perfect.”
“I agree completely.” Phil nodded. “But we got married at town hall with two witnesses, and we had a dinner at our apartment with fifteen guests—it was hardly extravagant. I figure we saved a lot on the wedding so that we could splurge a little on the honeymoon.”
“Hmm…you have a point.” I nodded.
“How about someplace warm, with beaches?” Phil suggested. “We could take a week off.”
“A week?” I repeated. “I’ll only get that time off three months from now.”
“Well, we’ve waited this long to go on a honeymoon… What’s a few more months?” He shrugged.
I took another spoonful of ice cream and glanced at him with a secretive little smile. “There is a small problem.”
He frowned. “What’s the problem?”
“If we’re going somewhere with a beach, I’ll have to wear a bikini,” I said, enjoying the drama of telling Phil like this. “And I’ll be showing by then. I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“I… Um… What?” Phil asked.
“By my calculations, I’ll be about five months pregnant…give or take.”
Phil stared at me for a moment and then his eyes filled with realization and I couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction.
“Oh my God,” he breathed. “You’re pregnant?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“When did you find out?”
“I’ve suspected for about a week,” I admitted. “But I took three tests this morning, and they all came out positive. I just didn’t want to tell you before my visit to the prison.”
Phil laughed and kissed me hard on the lips. “This is amazing news.”
“You’re excited?”
“Can’t you tell?” he said, kissing me several times on the lips, cheeks, and forehead.
“I love you,” I whispered to him.
“I love you,” he whispered back.
“What do you think we’re going to have?” I asked, excited to finally talk about this with him.
“Girl, boy…it doesn’t matter to me,” Phil said. “We’re going to have a tiny little person that’s half you and half me. I mean, it can’t get better than that.”
I had to agree. It couldn’t get better than that.
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DR. DADDY’S VIRGIN
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Claire Adams
Chapter One
Allie
I could tell from the look on my mother’s face that she was not impressed with my new place. Disgusted might be a better word, or maybe that was pity; with her, it was hard to tell sometimes. We were sitting at the kitchen table, and the blueberry muffins I had picked up earlier from Brown Bag Bakery were still slightly warm. The butter was organic and local, from grass-fed cows. All the sorts of things I would’ve thought she’d appreciate. The kitchen floor had black and white tiles and glass door cabinets with little panes that made me feel like the cups and plates were outside a window, looking in on me. I chose not to share this thought with her; she’d probably tell me it was clear that thinking something like that meant I was going insane because I’d been living out in the country for too long.
“It’s so...” My mother made a face. “It’s so quiet. What on earth are you going to do with yourself up here?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been managing all right so far.”
She broke a piece off from one of the muffins, the gold bangles on her wrist jangling. “You say that now, but you’ve only been up here a week. Just wait until the newness wears off—then you’ll be crying to move back to the city, where, you know, life is actually happening. Are there any restaurants? Delivery? What happens if you don’t want to cook dinner one night, but there’s no one that will deliver because you live out here in the sticks?”
I moved up to Chapin, Maine from Boston because I couldn’t deal with city life anymore. I had never lived in a rural area like this, where the trees outnumbered both the people and the buildings, but so far, I liked it. I liked the feel of all the space around me, of the clean fresh air, of the relative quiet at night.
I’d searched on Craigslist and found my own little house, too. It was a winterized cottage, a small two-bedroom with blueberry bushes and a split rail fence. There was an overgrown garden in the back that I’d been thinking about maybe doing something with. I just liked the fact that I had a yard, even if it meant a lawn that I would have to mow. I’d never mowed a lawn before, but I didn’t care; I loved that the place was mine, that it was a dwelling not attached to any others, that I wasn’t above or below anyone.
I took a sip of my coffee and chose not to tell her a large part of the reason I had fled Boston to begin with was because I couldn’t be in her vicinity anymore. Not that I didn’t want to be around my mother, but I simply couldn’t stand being around my stepfather, Bill. It had gotten worse over the years, though my mother was somehow blind to it all. How was that possible? The few times I had tried to talk to her about it, she had gotten irrationally angry and said that I was jealous and ungrateful. That Bill had provided for us over the years—more than just provided for us, allowed us to live a very well-off existence in a Beacon Hill brownstone—and that I couldn’t seem to appreciate the fact that there were probably a million other girls who would be willing to trade places with me in a heartbeat.
Bill, for his part, always gave me this wounded look whenever my mother was around, but when we were alone (which I tried to make sure never happened), that wounded look would change to something more predatory, though he hadn’t tried to make any moves on me since that night when I was 15.
“You just wait,” my mother said. “Once the novelty of this place wears off, you’ll be—” She stopped and straightened, looking out the window. “Now who is that?” she said.
My next door neighbor had just stepped outside. The houses in this part of town weren’t right on top of each other, but they were close enough that friendly neighborhood interaction was a requirement.
“I assume that’s one of my neighbors,” I said.
My mother craned her neck, squinting. “He’s very handsome. You haven’t met him yet?”
“No.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t come over to introduce himself.”
“I think he’s pretty busy. He’s a doctor.”
“A doctor?” She sounded surprised, like it was unheard of for a doctor to live anywhere but a bustling metropolis. “He looks young to be a doctor. How do you know he’s a doctor if you’ve never met him?”
“My other neighbor, Diane, told me. I have met her.”
“Well.” My mother picked up the paper napkin and dabbed at the corners of her mouth. She stood up. “No time like the present.”
“Mom—” I started, but it was too late, she was already pushing out the side door, striding across the yard, her blue Jimmy Choos stabbing the lawn as she went.
“Shit,” I muttered as I stood up to follow. It would be easy to hide in here, but I wanted to make sure she didn’t say something ridiculous.
By the time I caught up to her, my mother was already shaking his hand, laughing.
“Allie,” she said. “This is Cole.”
“Hey,” he said, extending a hand to me. Up close, he was extremely good-looking—almost uncomfortably so—but I just pasted a smile on my face and shook his hand. My stepfather was good-looking too, and the majority of my childhood I’d watched the way women had fallen over themselves around him. I imagined that people did the same for Cole, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to be one of them.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
My mother beamed. “Allie just moved in.”
“Yeah, we noticed that the For Rent sign had been taken down,” Cole said. “Sorry that we haven’t been over to introduce ourselves yet, but things have been kind of crazy this past week.” He smiled, exposing a row of perfectly white, perfectly straight teeth.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’ve been pretty busy, too.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my mother’s smile faltering—he had said we—but before she could inquire about a wife or a girlfriend, a little boy was suddenly there, weaving around us like an overexcited puppy.
“Oh!” my mother said, stepping back. “What—I mean, who is this?”
“This is Declan.” Cole squatted down so he was at Declan’s level. “Declan, these are our new neighbors. This is Allie and...” He looked at my mom. “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was again?”
“Jen.”
“And her mom, Jen.”
Declan, with big blue eyes and shaggy, light brown hair, grinned up at us. “Hi,” he said.
“I’m not a new neighbor,” my mother said. They both looked at her in confusion. “Just Allie is. I’m only visiting. I’ll be returning to the city later today.”
“I go to preschool,” Declan said.
“You do?” I asked. “How old are you?”
“Four.”
“What preschool do you go to?” I was going to be starting my new job on Monday at the Learning Center, which was a preschool the next town over.
“The Learning Center,” Declan said proudly.
“Well, isn’t that something!” my mother said. “That’s where Allie is going to be working. That’s the whole reason she moved to this town to begin with—because they offered her a job! Not that there aren’t plenty of teaching opportunities in Boston, either.”
“They’re not really interested in hearing about that, Mom,” I said. “Anyway, it was nice to meet you both, and it sounds like I’ll be seeing you soon, Declan.”
“Yeah, great meeting you,” Cole said. “Sorry to rush off like this, but I’ve got to get Declan to school, and I’ve got a full day of patients.”
“So, you are a doctor,” my mother said.
Cole smiled. “Have you been inquiring about me?”
I winced inwardly. This whole first meeting was really going great.
“Diane had mentioned it,” I said quickly.
“My dad’s the best doctor,” Declan said. “I want to be a firefighter when I grow up, though.”
“That’s a very good job to pick,” I said. “Firefighters are very brave.”
“I am brave! Look, I can pick up this spider.” And he leaned down and plucked a rather scary-looking spider from the edge of the driveway. I almost jumped out of my skin just seeing the spindly legs and the black, bulbous body, but I forced a grin. “You are very brave,” I said. Instead of squashing it, like many little boys his age would have, Declan carefully walked the spider over to the front lawn and put it down. “It’s not bad if spiders get into the house,” he said. “Because then they’ll spin webs and catch other bugs, like mosquitos.”
“All right, bud, let’s say bye and get in the car,” Cole said. “It was very nice to meet you two.”
“You too,” I said, and I waved at Declan as he went over and climbed into the back seat of the car.
“He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring,” my mother said once we were back in the kitchen.
I tried not to roll my eyes. “Of course you would notice that. And just because someone isn’t wearing a wedding ring, it doesn’t mean that they’re not married.”
“I got the distinct feeling that he wasn’t, though.” She sighed. �
�Not that you want to get involved with a man who has a child. That’s a whole Pandora’s box that’s probably better left untouched.”
“Kind of ironic coming from someone who did exactly that,” I said, though of course she had a point. If she had never gotten involved with Bill, he never would have tried to come into my bedroom when I was a teenager.
“Allie, I don’t want you to think I’m not supportive of your decisions,” Mom said. “It’s just that I can’t help but worry about you alone up here. I mean, you’re living in a house all by yourself! What if you need help with something?”
“Like what? Opening a jar of pickles? I lived alone when I was in Boston, too, Mom, and I somehow managed just fine.” It was when I was living with her and Bill that things weren’t so great, but I didn’t bring that up.
“So what have you got planned, other than work?” my mother asked. “Not that there’s much to do around here.”
“Well, work is a pretty big one,” I said. “I definitely want to get settled into my job, and I’ll probably do a little exploring. I need to set up some appointments once my insurance goes through. I haven’t been to the dentist in like a year.”
“You’ve got good teeth. Do you floss?”
“Yes.”
“That’s more important than brushing, you know.”
“It is?”
“Absolutely. Especially as you get older. Just ask your dentist. He’ll tell you I’m right.”
“I need to make an appointment for a physical, too.”
“That’s a good idea. You definitely want to take care of your health. When was the last time you had an annual? That’s probably even more important than the dentist, you know.”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “They both seem pretty important.”
“Well. It’s more important once you’ve become sexually active...” My mother let the sentence die off, waiting to see if I would confirm or deny anything.
“Still not,” I said. “And still don’t feel like having this conversation with you, either.”
Ever since I’d turned 18 (I guess the age that my mother had decided a girl should have lost her virginity by), my mom had been pestering me about the fact that I still had not had sex. At first it had been something like a joke, something she gave me a good-natured hard time over, but now it seemed more as though she was actually concerned.