by Kat T. Masen
“Uh, wait a minute. Now you’ve got my back?” I laugh in his face, infuriating him even further.
Knowing that I am playing with fire (or Kitty’s selfish need to see the rainbow and get her happily ever after), I grab onto his forearm to move him out of the way. Ignore that it’s hard . . . his muscles . . . his muscles are hard! Jesus Presley, jump ship now. You’ve got two young guys in front of you and Kitty is having a nervous breakdown. Luckily, I am carrying my spare big-girl panties and just like Superman, I magically whisk them on and give it back to the Jerk.
“I believe Dee requires your attention.” Leaning in further, I whisper in his ear, “Not sure why you’re holding back from her since you had no problem unleashing on me.”
Pulling myself back, I hear his jaw literally drop to the ground. My work here is officially done. The look on his face is priceless and I have never felt so empowered.
Marcus grabs my hand and I allow him to do so, watching Haden divert his eyes from this intimate gesture. Against the partition, Haden’s knuckles are stark white as he restrains himself. I have no idea what his problem is, apart from the obvious male ego and pride bullshit.
I’m not a prize; this isn’t a competition.
We aren’t even dating, and we both agreed it was a ‘sweep it under the rug’ type of fuck.
Raising my head to meet his eyes, I give him my most evil grin. “See ya later. Jerk.”
***
Marcus and I sit in the booth near the entrance, lucky to get a seat at a popular diner. The burgers here are delish, and so is Marcus. I have no idea how old he is, and given that it’s rude to ask, I settle for assuming he’s in his twenties. God, when did I become such a cougar?! Guys in their twenties have this wicked aura around them. At least that’s what Vicky tells me. I can see it though. They seem to care a hell of a lot more about their appearance, obsessed with working on their physique. They tend to dress in all designer labels, and even when they are dressed down, they rock a pair of jeans and a tee like a model on a runway.
Then there’s the hair.
Marcus has beautiful jet-black hair.
Although it’s short, you can tell it’s silky smooth. If he grew it out, he would look like Cleopatra and I would happily feed him grapes from a golden plate.
While the waiter serves us our meals, my cell vibrates. Expecting a much-needed text from Vicky, I’m surprised to see it’s from the Jerk instead, and immediately roll my eyes before even opening the message.
#Jerk: What do you mean unleash on you? Are we talking about this now?
I should have responded with something witty, but Marcus seemed to have focused his attention on me. I throw my cell into my purse and dive into my meal. He has quite an appetite on him, almost polishing off the burger in a second.
“I could do another,” he says with a satisfied smile.
“Why not? You only live once. There’s always the gym . . .” I trail off.
“So tell me, why are you a gym virgin and why the sudden urge to work out? You look amazing, hot, sexy, just in case no one has ever told you that.” He smirks.
“Nice flirting.” I laugh in return, relaxing us both. “Long, long story. Maybe another time.”
“I’ve got time.”
“Super long.”
“Hmm, okay sixty seconds. Ten questions, I get to ask you anything and that’ll satisfy my curiosity.”
“Huh?”
He looks at his watch. “Time starts now. Who did you last date?”
What was the rule of the game? He taps on his watch, so I answer quickly.
“Date? I was engaged to a guy named Jason.”
“Why did you guys break it off?”
“It wasn’t right,” I stutter nervously.
He raises his eyebrows, but does not pry any further.
“Where did you grow up?”
“Virginia.”
“Siblings?”
“An older sister, Gemma.”
“Favorite band?”
“Band? Bon Jovi.”
“Nice,” he adds. “Favorite song?”
“In These Arms . . . Bon Jovi.”
“Favorite movie?”
“Father of the Bride.”
He pauses, then follows with a short chuckle. “I love that movie too.”
“Really?” I laugh out loud.
“Favorite food?”
“Nachos.”
“Ultimate holiday destination?”
“Australia,” I answer with a smile.
“Why did Haden take you outside on Friday night?”
The question, a giant curveball, stuns me. Mentally, I try to calculate how many questions he has asked me, but all I think about is some excuse that will satisfy him without having to let the cat out of the bag.
“How many questions is that? I think your time is up.”
“I’m sure you can answer the last one.” His stern tone catches me off guard.
I could tell him the truth; besides, if this goes any further, I can’t hide something like that from him. What are the chances of this going further? He is young, I am older. The best we could achieve is copious amounts of hot sex.
“We had an argument earlier that day. Frankly, your cousin is a jerk.”
He seems fixated on my movement, and I give him nothing to see how uncomfortable I am with this conversation.
“I think I will order that second burger.”
“Don’t I get to ask you the lightning round of questions?”
“The next date you can.” He winks.
“Oh, there’s going to be a next date?” I ask coyly.
“Why wouldn’t there be?” He angles his face closer to mine, and with his lips slightly parted, I follow his lead until our lips brush together. The butterflies have crept their way into my stomach, causing some major excitement, but it’s soon followed by the grim reaper—guilt. I don’t know who or what I am feeling guilty about. My second attempt at playing the field since Jason and I broke up only two weeks ago, or the fact that he is the Jerk’s cousin.
Don’t answer that.
“Marcus?” I say softly as we both move away. “I just broke up with my fiancé. I’m slowly adjusting to life being single again.”
“I’m not asking you to marry me, Presley. We can have fun together.”
Fun. That either means hanging out at the amusement park or being tied to the bed with a gag ball and chains. Kitty has her voting cards out already, proudly holding up ‘option two.’
Traitor.
We finish lunch and head back to the office. Marcus insists on taking me back to my desk. I put my purse away and before I know it, he leans in to gently kiss my lips again. In the background, I hear a throat being cleared. It’s Dee, and she is standing with an overly thrilled Clive.
“Listen, I better go. Call me tonight, okay?”
I nod, and when he turns the corner, I think all is sweet until the whispers become louder and the three of us are standing there trying to eavesdrop.
“Just like when we were kids,” I hear the Jerk say.
“You said I had free rein,” Marcus responds, frustrated.
“When did you ever hear me say that?” he bites back.
“Friday night. Though you never explained why you pulled her away from the dance floor? C’mon Haden, you’re fucking the blonde. What do you care?”
Silence falls between us all. Dee looks hurt, but that soon turns to anger. She glares at me like this is all my fault.
“You’re right, I am fucking the blonde. So why should I care about Malone? She’s all yours, bud.”
It’s my turn to be crestfallen. I’m not angry or upset with Marcus; they have some bro code going on and he clearly has been given the green light.
Yet, I am not a possession.
I don’t belong to Haden, but hearing him admit that he doesn’t care for me, not even one minuscule of a feeling after he had his way, is enough to eat away at me.
I cannot fall for hi
m. I cannot even want him in any way.
Praying for a miracle is my only exit, and thankfully, that miracle arrives at 3pm when Mr. Sadler announces that Haden Cooper will be taking on an assignment in London for four months.
Halle-fucking-lujah!
Chapter Eight
With the Jerk away in London, I was able to piece my life back together again. Jason still hadn’t contacted me, yet every week a realtor would show prospective buyers around. I wasn’t in a financial position to buy him out, so I settled for apartment hunting in a more affordable neighborhood. Nevertheless, I started packing my belongings and getting rid of items I no longer needed, like my MC Hammer pants from the nineties. There’s nostalgia and then there’s just plain hoarding. Hammer pants fall into the hoarding category.
As Marcus promised, we had fun. Fun was hitting the clubs, late night dinners, and of course, hot sex with a confirmed 27-year-old. He didn’t tell me directly but when he took a shower at my place, I ‘stumbled’ upon his license. On a drunk bender one night, he asked my age. I wasn’t going to lie, and when I asked him if he had a problem with that, he replied by taking me back to his place and making me come on his roommate’s expensive leather sofa.
He told me only after, his roommate was his cousin, Haden.
From that moment, we only ever had sex at my place.
The Jerk had virtually disappeared, and occasionally, Mr. Sadler would send out a group email in which Haden would respond. That was it in terms of contact. He never once tried to text or send me anything work-related, so it was easy to assume that drunken night in the alley was all in the past and could easily be forgotten.
Marcus was fun, he made me forget the stresses of everyday life, including my bad bout with the flu a couple of weeks back. I wasn’t sure that I saw it going anywhere, I simply enjoyed his company and for once in my life, I was happy to just go with the flow. Very un-Presley like.
Then it all went pear-shaped—he said he loved me.
It happened last week at the Bon Jovi concert. The third beer of the night and halfway through “Bed of Roses,” he pulls me into an embrace and whispers into my ear, “I think I love you, Presley Malone.”
My instant reaction was to dry heave, which ultimately had me running for the bathroom so I could projectile vomit my fears into the dirty toilet. How do you tell someone, “Oh, hey, thanks for saying I love you, I don’t feel the same way but it’s nice to know you care”?
I remember walking back to him and the puppy dog look on his face when he saw me; it was the look of being in love. I simply smiled, told him thank you, and changed the subject by telling him that I wasn’t feeling too hot. He didn’t seem to think there was an issue, so after the final song we made our way home and I pulled out the ‘Aunt Flo’ card; he understood and left me alone.
It wasn’t a complete lie; I was almost due and this month I was predicting a bitch of a cycle since the past three months had been light. That bitch never came, and the emergency sirens were ringing, sending Vicky to the rescue.
“It’s blue.”
Frozen on the spot, I stare at the little blue line and its evil twin. This cannot be happening. I am not irresponsible! I got straight A’s in sex education class. I paid close attention to that rubber being placed on the banana. In fact, I even took notes!
“No shit, but are there two lines?” Vicky is panicked, walking back and forth in the confined bathroom, or what I like to call my personal hell.
Without saying a word, I hand it over, wrong end first as Vicky snatches it away from me.
“Oh gross, I’m touching your pee!” It falls to the ground, not that it matters; the damage is done.
“Is it Marcus’s?”
Mental calculations of who you were sleeping with at a specific time scream “slut” like nothing else. With Marcus, I stuck to my five-month-rule, minus four months, two weeks, and four days. Turns out the older you get, the shorter the timespan. Alright, Kitty was becoming a desperate diva pouting like she was deprived of water . . . or air.
“Okay, let’s take this into the living room with some Chinese take-out and get to the bottom of this,” Vicky reassures me.
An hour later, the Chinese delivery guy has delivered our food and Vicky is wearing her Sherlock Holmes cap and glasses. When it comes to sticky situations, Vicky Flinders is the person you want by your side. Despite nausea sitting in the pit of my stomach, I shove food into my mouth, not allowing myself any air to breathe.
“When did you last get your period?”
“Like, a month ago? It was an odd color and lighter than usual.”
“You can still get your period while you’re pregnant.”
“Marcus and I only started sleeping together not long ago, and to be honest, he has an obsession with blowjobs so we don’t really have intercourse as much as you think,” I mumble, in confusion.
“Okay, that’s a lot of information for me to take in. What is it with men and blowjobs? You know, it could be Haden’s or Jason’s—”
“Wh . . . Why would it be Haden’s?” The anxiety is curling in my stomach at the mention of his name. I hadn’t even thought of him being part of this equation. My immediate thoughts went to Marcus. Even Jason seemed so far-fetched, yet would have been my preferred option if given the choice. The tears are barely being contained and I choke them back in order to get to the bottom of what the fuck I’m going to do.
“Uh, because he stuck his GI Joe in your Polly Pocket?”
I almost choke on my eggroll. “You’re getting cruder with age.”
“I prefer the term ‘wiser,’” she corrects me. “So?”
“Look, Vicks, he wore a rubber, I think.” God, I sound like a whore. “But if I didn’t come then he probably didn’t.”
Vicky spits out her drink all over my coffee table. Disgusted, I quickly grab some paper towels to wipe it down, mumbling under my breath at her disregard for a sanitary environment.
“You can’t be that gullible. If I know Haden, the jerk blew his load and left you hanging, wanting more.”
“I don’t know,” I barely admit. “As for Jason, we hadn’t had sex since his trip back from Chicago. That was so long ago. Surely if it was his I’d be showing right now.”
My mind is reeling with all this information, all the while reminding me how unbelievably stupid and irresponsible I am. I take a step back and think about the scientific side of things, but Vicky interrupts my thoughts.
“So that was like . . .” Counting her fingers, Vicky does the math that my brain refuses to compute. “That was like five months ago, right? And you fucked Haden four months ago? So it’s simple, you get your blood test done and see how far along you are. Then you’ll know who the baby daddy is.”
Oh dear god, baby daddy. How could such a name freak me out?
“Vicky, it has to be Marcus’s baby. I’m not ready for this, plus he is so young and not ready to be a dad. How can this fucking happen?!” I yell in frustration.
“Well, you weren’t exactly being responsible.”
“I was on the goddamn Pill back then! Besides, we always use condoms.”
“Oh,” Vicky mouths. “Well, it says on the warning label that the Pill is only ninety-nine percent effective and condoms can break. Maybe you’re one of those super fertile women and Marcus has super sperm and together it can break through anything.”
“This isn’t a joke. I cannot be that one percent, Vicky.”
“Someone has to be,” she points out. “Why would you stop the Pill?”
“I don’t know,” I sulk. “I have no idea who I am anymore! I got so caught up in having fun that I just forgot one day and didn’t think it would be a big deal since we used protection anyway.”
I sink into the sofa, smothering myself with cushions and praying that they would turn into monsters and suffocate me to death. Instead, I sit here feeling like a cheap hooker. I am worthy of being on Jerry Springer or Maury Povich. How could I not know who the father is of the ba
by I’m carrying? This isn’t how I was raised; this isn’t who I am. I know better than this.
“It’s okay to cry, Pres.” Vicky rubs my shoulder.
My hands are shaking. “I don’t want to cry. I’m so angry at myself. How could I be so irresponsible? I planned to have kids with the right man when we were married. I didn’t sign up for being a single mother. What will my parents think? What will everyone think?!”
“It doesn’t matter what everyone thinks, Pres. This is your life, not theirs.” She continues, “As for your parents . . . they’ll get over the initial shock and I’m sure they’ll be excited to have a grandbaby. It’s not like Gemma is popping one out any time soon, you know, eating pussy and all.”
“Vicky!”
“What?! It’s true. You’ll look back at this moment one day and be thankful you’re blessed with a child. Think about all those women trying their asses off . . . well, not their asses but you know what I mean.”
“So in the meantime can I wish I could climb into a time machine and stay celibate?”
“Yes, but first you need to find out who the baby daddy is. Then you can revert back to OCD Presley and plan your life away.”
***
Stupid doctor’s office with its sterile walls that make you feel like you’re in a nuthouse.
It took me a week to find the courage to make an appointment and have my blood taken. In that week, I avoided Marcus at all costs with every believable excuse I could muster. He understood, but warned me that if he hadn’t fucked me by Saturday, I was in major trouble.
What does a pregnant woman say to that? I had no response but to send him a smiley face.
“Miss Malone, I have your results here.”
Dr. Taylor procrastinates in the most annoying way possible. He’s pushing close to a hundred (okay, exaggerating a little) and even the way he writes everything on paper versus using a computer bugs me. Hormones . . . blame the hormones.
“You’re definitely pregnant, and the blood work shows you’re about four months along.”
The lump in my throat is the size of the planet Jupiter. My chest tightens, constricting my ability to breathe. My eyes start to twitch followed by the room spinning in circles. Dr. Taylor is concerned, calling my name in the distance. I focus in on his face, mumbling the question that is bursting to come out.