Baby Surprises 7 Book Box Set

by Layla Valentine

  “When you met him, was it like a date, or did you just get down to it?”

  “Oh, it was definitely a date,” she said confidently. “That’s his whole gig. Makes you comfortable. Makes you feel like the only girl in the world before taking you to bed. He says it’s the only way… Women, he says, don’t usually get there if they aren’t one hundred percent comfortable, so he puts in his time.”

  “I see,” I said, my heart sinking. “So I guess he would share stories from his own life and stuff.”

  “Yeah, a few,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I usually talk too much when I’m nervous, and he mostly just let me talk his ear off.”

  “Makes sense. He probably adjusts his approach depending on the kind of woman he’s with that night.”

  “I guess he would. That’s really the only way to get repeat customers, I would think.”

  “You’re probably right. Okay, well, that’s all I guess.” I was trying very hard to keep the disappointment out of my voice, but I don’t think I succeeded entirely.

  “If you’re sure that’s all,” she said doubtfully. “Hey, Carmen, are you doing okay? You’ve seemed a little off lately.”

  “I’m all right,” I assured her. “Just, you know, feeling the passage of time a little stronger these days.”

  “You say that like you’re old.”

  “Thirty isn’t exactly young.”

  “Tell that to my mama. She’d slap you silly.”

  I laughed at that, but I didn’t really feel a whole lot better. The one guy I had met in over a year who had managed to make me feel like dating again was only in it for the money, and whether Valeria wanted to admit it or not, my time was running out. All of my mental pictures of weddings, babies, and cute houses were fading ever more rapidly by the day.

  After hanging up with Valeria, I took my coffee out to the sunbaked balcony, watching the world go by beneath me. Young couples in love, little families with babies strapped to them or tucked snug in their strollers; mothers wrangling a gaggle of small children, looking worn out and frustrated until the youth was magically brought back to their cheeks by aggressively enthusiastic hugs and sticky kisses. I watched, alone.

  “Self-pity doesn’t look good on you,” I reminded myself as I sipped my coffee. “Feeling like an observer of life doesn’t make you an outsider.”

  My words felt hollow and false even as I said them. My mind took that thought and ran with it, flashing pictures at me of every time I had ever felt like an outsider in my own life. Dozens of tiny little moments in the last week alone. Every time I tried to join a conversation with my coworkers. Every time I walked down the street and watched two mothers share a look of quiet desperation and camaraderie. Every time I had to excuse myself to squeeze past a couple locked in a loving embrace on public transportation.

  Humans tackling the world together in pairs and in groups, leaning and being leaned upon. Then there was me; just getting by. No matter how much money I had in the bank or how many accolades I received for being the best worker bee in a hive of mediocrity, it didn’t matter. The whispers were always the same, whether they be from someone else’s lips or my own mind.

  “She’s only that good because she doesn’t have to rush home to a family.”

  “She can afford the expensive wine because she has no reason not to drink it.”

  I probably imagined these comments from the people around me, but I surely didn’t imagine them from myself. No matter how good I was at my job, I could never shake the feeling that it didn’t really count because I wasn’t also a mother.

  “Which isn’t even fair,” I told myself bitterly. “Thanks, superwoman standards.”

  My inner monologue being nowhere near in line with the beautiful day, my mind wandered back to the happier thoughts of Nick. I recalled the feeling of his hands on mine, his strong arm around my shoulder, the way he moved, and God…that kiss! I let the morning age away as I basked in the memory, only shaking myself when my stomach informed me that breakfast would be highly appreciated.

  As I scrambled eggs in the kitchen, I imagined going on a breakfast date with Nick after a night of successful passion. It was a silly dream, of course, and I knew it; last night had been nothing more than unpaid labor on his part.

  It struck me at that moment that if I did ever decide to date Nick, assuming he was interested, it would only end in heartache. He wasn’t going to give up his lucrative side-career for me, and how would I sleep at night knowing that he was spending it having sex with beautiful women? No, that wouldn’t do at all. Better to stop daydreaming entirely than to get stuck on the imagined love affair between an exceptional escort and a humdrum clerk.

  But the daydreams persisted in spite of my best efforts, so by Monday I was relieved to be working again; the piles of boxes provided a welcome distraction. An hour before my lunch break, Tyra texted me.

  Hi! I’m so, so sorry about Saturday. Let me buy you lunch to make up for it.

  Shocked that I had actually managed to forget that she had stood me up, I replied that I would love to see her. I shook my head at myself as we finished arranging where to meet, still in disbelief that I could have forgotten to check up on her after she failed to show.

  We met at the cafe near my office, and she was absolutely glowing. A secretive smile flirted around her lips, and I immediately suspected that I knew exactly why she hadn’t joined me on Saturday.

  “Carmen! I’m so sorry I stood you up the other night. I got some news that sent my head spinning and I lost track of everything. How are you? Are you okay? What happened Saturday? I hope you weren’t sitting there alone the whole time.”

  “Of course I wasn’t. I can be social when I want to be,” I told her with a laugh. “But first, what’s your news? You look like you’re about to burst.”

  Her secretive smile trembled, then burst into a full-fledged joyful grin. “Oh, I shouldn’t tell you! I shouldn’t tell anybody. We swore we were going to keep it a secret, at least until after it happened.”

  Suspicions rising, I eyed her sideways.

  “After what happened?”

  “Oh, okay, okay! After the baby happened!”

  I gasped. “You’re pregnant?”

  “No, no, not that. Not yet. But Donovan wants to start trying! His sister had a baby recently, and he’s been thinking, after all the time they’ve been spending together, that he’d like to start trying!”

  “So you spent all Saturday night doing just that,” I concluded with a laugh.

  “How did you know?”

  “Come on, Tyra, it’s pretty obvious,” I giggled. “I mean if you’d spent the night fighting about it, you wouldn’t be smiling like that.”

  She laughed, then nodded acknowledgment. “Your logic is impeccable as always, hun. Now you’ve uncovered my deep, dark secret. So let’s talk about you! How did it go on Saturday?”

  “It was actually a lot of fun,” I said. I hesitated, weighing the pros and cons of telling her exactly what had happened.

  “Well?” she asked, leaning on her elbows and tackling me with her sparkling gaze. “What happened? Cute guy? Cute girl?”

  “Oh, come on.” I laughed.

  “Well I don’t know, you haven’t seemed all that into dudes lately. I don’t know your life.” She grinned wickedly at me, and I rolled my eyes.

  “No worries about that anymore,” I said.

  “You met somebody! What’s his name? I’ll look him up.” She whipped out her phone like a super sleuth on a mission. I put my hand on her phone and pushed it down.

  “Tyra,” I said firmly. “It’s not like that. It was a one-night deal. It’s not going anywhere. No need to stalk the guy. Besides,” I said and sighed as I pushed myself back in my chair and examined my coffee cup a little too closely. “You probably wouldn’t like what you found anyway.”

  She eyed me sideways, holding her tongue as our food arrived. After it did, she picked at her salad for a moment before approaching t
he subject again.

  “A bad boy? That’s not like you, Carmen. I expected another dreamy artist or aspiring physicist or conspiracy theorist or something. Somebody with a trust fund and no drive.”

  “Clearly that hasn’t been working,” I said wryly. I shrugged. “It’s not like I meant to. It was kind of a fortunate mistake.”

  “My mom calls my sister a ‘fortunate mistake,’” she said sharply.

  I laughed. “We didn’t even go there,” I said. “God, I wanted to though. He’s gorgeous. And smart. He works hard… Well, he works smart, anyway. I don’t know how much hard work it could actually be.”

  “What does he do?”

  I held my breath for a moment, then let it out on a shaky bubble of nervous laughter. “He’s a bartender?”

  My tone turned the statement into a question, and Tyra pursed her lips at me.

  “A stripping bartender? A criminal mastermind bartender?”

  “You remember your birthday party?”

  “Vaguely. That night was wild.”

  “Remember Valeria’s whole…confession?”

  “That I do remember.” Tyra laughed. “I’ve never seen a person turn so red, I thought—wait. You didn’t.”

  I could feel my face heat, but I merely took a sip of coffee and casually looked out at the people walking by.

  “Carmen!” Tyra hissed. “You hired an escort?”

  “No,” I corrected her quickly. “I was going to hire an escort, then I decided not to. But the cancellation message never actually left my email, so he showed up…and you didn’t.”

  “But we were going to meet at our place,” she said, sounding a little jealous.

  “Yeah, but I set up the appointment right after your birthday party, Tyra. You really think I could come up with the name of a different bar at that point?”

  Tyra shrugged a begrudging acknowledgment. “Okay, so what? I thought sex was his whole thing, but you say you didn’t—”

  “I didn’t hire him,” I laughed. “It was a whole big misunderstanding, and after it stopped being embarrassing, it was funny. And we had already started talking, and we were having a really good time, and he asked me if I would like to just have a date with him instead of…you know.”

  “Charming,” Tyra said wryly. “No doubt trying to up-sell you later.”

  I shrugged, a little embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of that. “I mean, if he never gets in touch again, I’ll assume that’s all it was, but—oh, excuse me.” My phone had just jingled at me, and I assumed that meant that work was going to try to cut my lunch short in spite of all the extra work I’d been putting in lately.

  “Yeah, I mean, if he’s actually interested in you, he’ll be calling you up for casual, fun dates. If not, he’ll probably start pressuring you to hire him. I mean. The world does run on money and sex, doesn’t it?”

  “Hush,” I said dazedly, holding up a finger as I stared at my phone. “Oh my God.”

  “What? What is it?”

  A grin broke across my stunned face as I looked away from the screen and met her eyes. “He wants to meet me again. He has tickets to a baseball game, and he wants me to go with him.”

  “Whoa. Maybe he really is into you.”

  I could barely believe it. Someone who looked like him—an underwear model, a superhero, somebody who could be an A-list actor—seeking out my attention? That thought alone froze my brain for a good minute. My heart didn’t, though. It was screaming yes, again and again. Do it. Take the risk.

  “Okay, okay, so tell me what he’s actually like,” Tyra said eagerly, suddenly invested. “I mean, I know he’s a bad boy and everything, but tell me he’s got some redeeming features.”

  “Oh, he does,” I told her. “A bit of a hero complex, but he’s deeper than he looks, and he looks like a demigod and I—oh my God, Tyra, he wants to see me again!” I squealed like a schoolgirl and gripped both of her hands in mine, watching my own excitement reflect back at me from her beaming face.

  “Go for it,” Tyra urged.

  “But you were right,” I realized as my heart sank. “He does this for a living. He’s probably just trying to get me to hire him.”

  “Two dates in a row? Doubtful. I mean, the way you and Valeria were talking about him, I doubt he needs the networking, and you’re clearly not the kind to spread the word about him anyway. Think about it, doll. You’re the last person in the world a guy like him would try to use.”

  “Yay, I’m useless,” I said wryly.

  “Yeah. And that’s a good thing. It means he just wants to see you again because you’re awesome.”

  “I am awesome, aren’t I?” I said, trying the words out in my mouth.

  “Yes, you are. You’re awesome and fabulous and woman enough to take the risk and tame this wild beast. Well, at least for a while.”

  “Long enough to change the status quo?”

  “We hope,” she said, raising her glass in salute. “Here’s to changing the status quo.”

  As we clinked glasses, my daydreams rushed back in a flash. I texted him back and told him that I would love to go; as I did so, I realized that the decision had been made by my heart long before I had been able to convince my head.

  Chapter 7

  Carmen

  As excited as I’d been to begin with, I almost backed out of the date six times throughout the week. I was haunted by the idea of dating an escort, no matter how charming and sweet he seemed. I called Tyra on Wednesday night after work, hoping she could help me sift through the conflicting thoughts in my head.

  “You aren’t thinking about canceling, are you?” she asked.

  “Kind of? I don’t really want to cancel, I mean, it’s been forever since I’ve looked forward to a date this much, but—”

  “But what? Is it the escort thing? Look, if it gets serious between you two, then you can put exclusivity on the table. Just go with it for right now. What could it hurt?”

  “It’s not that,” I sighed. “Well, okay, it’s partially that, but it’s also…” I trailed off, looking myself over in my full-length mirror.

  “Talk to me, doll. What’s bothering you?”

  “He’s like Clark Kent and Fabio had a love child. He’s freaking gorgeous.”

  “So?”

  “So I’m not. No, don’t argue with me Tyra, I have eyes. I can see. We’re a total mismatch. I’m soft, chubby in places. My hair’s this nondescript brown nonsense, and it doesn’t even know if it wants to be straight or curly, so it doesn’t do anything. I’m not beautiful, I’m not ugly, I’m sort of…meh.”

  “Meh? Carmen, come on. You’re adorable. You’ve got that little button nose, great eyes, and you never need lipstick or anything. You’re a wholesome kind of pretty, and you rock it like nobody’s business.”

  “Wholesome? He’s not exactly the churchgoing type, Tyra.”

  “Trust me, doll. Bad boys want good girls. It’s natural.”

  “Why?”

  “Balance,” she said firmly. “It’s the nature of things. Everything searches for its complementary pairing in order to find a balance. He’s a bad boy with a lot of semi-illicit things going on. He’s unstable, but he’s got serious momentum. You…you’re stable. You’ve never done an illicit thing in your life, not counting the opossum incident in college—”

  “We don’t speak of that,” I said quickly, my face heating.

  “Anyway, the point is that you desperately need excitement in your life, and it sounds like he needs comfortable familiarity. Nobody’s better at that than you. Think about it, for a second. What do you want most after a crazy night out?”

  I glanced over at the well-worn oversized tennis shoes and hoody lying on the chair by my bed; easy access for those mornings when I needed them.

  “Comfort,” I told her. “Gray colors and worn edges.”

  “Exactly. Not that you’re gray or worn, mind you. It’s just that you’re the comfortable sweater. He has crazy nights all the time. Don’t y
ou think that maybe he’s dying for a comfortable sweater?”

  I smiled softly as something in me shook itself and came to life at the idea that maybe he needed me. Or at least someone like me. It was hard to believe, but…

  “You make a lot of sense, Tyra. Pretty sure you just made all that up out of thin air, though.”

  “Sense is sense,” Tyra said dismissively. “Doesn’t matter who made it up.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “So you’ll go?”

  I sighed, looking myself over once more in the mirror. Comfort. I could embody comfort, couldn’t I? I wouldn’t even have to try very hard.

  “Yes, I’ll go,” I said. “But if I make a fool of myself—”

  “Then I’ll come over with a gallon of cookie fudge ripple and a bottle of wine.”

  “Deal.”

  We stayed on the phone for a while longer as Tyra vented about her hopes, dreams, fears and anxieties about pregnancy and subsequent motherhood. I sympathized as well as I could, but having never been there, there was only so much I could say. I definitely learned a thing or two, but I don’t think I helped much.

  After extracting another promise that I wouldn’t break the date with Nick, Tyra said goodbye. I knew her well enough to know that her next phone call would be to Staci. After all, Staci knew way more than I did about what Tyra was preparing for.

  I shook the thought away as soon as it landed on my brain; the last thing I needed right now was to start obsessing about my overwhelming lack of children. Talking to Tyra made me feel a lot better about going on my date, but I still had more than a few reservations. Now that my own self-esteem had taken a back seat, his choice of career was top of my anxiety list.

  By the time Saturday morning rolled around, I had decided to keep my emotions in check, no matter how well the date went. Nick clearly wasn’t cut out to be my forever, nor was I cut out to be his, not with how he made his living. Maybe I wasn’t progressive or evolved enough, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle it long-term.

  One date couldn’t hurt, though.

  Dressed in red knee-high socks, a cute white-and-red T-shirt, and a pair of denim shorts, I decided to walk to Fenway Park. It wasn’t too far, and I could use the activity to clear my head.