by Cassia Leo
But that’s not the reason I’m leaving.
I didn’t want to come here to Elaine’s, but she’s the only one I know who won’t turn me away. Why would she? They take anyone and everyone in here: crackheads, prostitutes, murderers. I lived with Elaine until I was nine and Molly was one, when we moved here to Raleigh from Maine. After that girl did those things to me in the ice-cream shop, I lied to Grandma and told her I found a needle in Molly’s playpen. I didn’t think she would report Elaine. I never told Grandma what happened at the ice-cream shop. I never had to. I never saw that blonde girl again.
I roll my bike behind a box hedge to hide it, then I knock on the door. My heart pounds against my chest like a crackhead on a dealer’s front door, which is probably what they think I am. The door opens and I freeze when I see the shotgun pointed at my face.
“Who the fuck are you?” an old guy covered in tattoos demands.
“I’m – I’m here for Elaine.”
He narrows his eyes and his leathery skin crinkles at the edges. “What the fuck do you want with her?”
“Who is it?” Elaine’s voice makes me cringe inside, but there must be relief on my face because the guy lowers the shotgun a little.
“She’s my …” – gulp – “… my mom.”
The guy smiles, but only with the left side of his face, as he lowers the gun to his side and opens the screen door separating us. “Well, come on in, son.” I tuck my hands into the front pockets of my hoodie as I step inside so he can’t see that I’m still shaking. “Don’t worry. I ain’t your daddy,” he says with a laugh as he closes the door.
I shouldn’t have come here, but what other choice do I have? When I went to Noah’s house this afternoon, all the watches we stole from the kiosk in the mall were laid out on his kitchen table. His mom had left a note saying that she had gone to pick up Noah’s little sister and we were to wait for her until she got back. There was almost $2,000 in watches staring me in the face and I knew that I couldn’t stick around to see what kind of punishment Noah’s mom had planned for us. Even if she didn’t call the police, I knew she’d at least make us return the watches; and what if the owner of the kiosk called the police? It would break Grandma’s heart to know that I fucked up so badly.
Fuck Noah and his bitch mom.
I’ll call Grandma in the morning to let her know I’m going to stay with Elaine for a few weeks, until school starts, so she doesn’t send out a search party. Then I’m going to make some cash at Elaine’s and get myself a motorcycle. Then I can quit school, get a job, and go anywhere. I can help Grandma with money and maybe she’ll forgive me for stealing those watches.
I stand next to the grimy blue sofa, unsure whether I should sit since I wasn’t offered a seat. The sound of footsteps is quickly followed by Elaine’s entrance in a T-shirt that barely covers the tops of her legs. She’s smoking a cigarette and her dark hair is pulled up in a messy bun that hangs over the back of her neck.
“What are you doing here? It’s almost three o’clock in the morning.”
“I need some money. I just need a place to stay for a few weeks until I can make some money for a motorcycle.”
She cocks one of her thin eyebrows as if I’ve asked her to go to a fucking PTA meeting with me. “So you came here?” I nod and she’s overtaken by a bout of shrill laughter. “Well, I’ll be …. Mom is going to love this.” She takes a moment to compose herself, then she asks, “Why don’t you just get a summer job? It’s not so … illegal.”
“School starts next week. I don’t want to go back.” It’s also my birthday next week. August 27th. Do you even remember that?
She shrugs and nods toward the hallway. “Come get some blankets so you can make up a bed on the couch. Tomorrow, we’ll put you to work.”
Chapter Thirteen
After Senia blew me off last weekend in favor of studying, I didn’t expect her to come over tonight. She claims she still has a lot of studying to do, but Claire is out of the dorm for a Friday-night birthday dinner with Chris and Jackie. This is her opportunity to sneak out undetected.
I get why she doesn’t want Claire to find out about the pregnancy. I’m not a complete asshole. I don’t want Chris to find out either. But she won’t be able to hide it for long. We need to discuss this – and I need to get her alone – soon.
When I open my front door, I’m not surprised to see her in jeans. She thinks the extra clothing will deter me.
“Welcome to my not-so-humble abode.”
“This house is way too big for one person,” she says as she turns her back to me so I can take her coat.
I slip the coat off and hang it up in the coat closet as she glances around the foyer at the marble floors, the sweeping curved staircase, and the enormous industrial-era chandelier.
“You want something to drink,” I ask as I take a few steps toward the kitchen, hoping she’ll follow me instead of standing there with her mouth agape.
“The only thing that’s missing in here is a ten-foot-tall self-portrait.”
“That’s in the study.”
She turns to me and purses her lips. “Exactly how rich are you?”
“I’m not rich. I’m wealthy.”
She sighs as she follows me into the kitchen. I open the refrigerator and pull out a bottle of water. When I turn around to hand it to her, she’s too busy admiring the glossy white cabinets to notice. I press the cold bottle against the back of her neck and she gasps as she steps aside.
“You bastard!” she cries. I chuckle as I hold the bottle out to her and she waits a moment before she takes it. “You’re a child. How the hell are you able to live here by yourself without setting the house on fire?”
“Baby, this house has been set on fire multiple times.”
“Ugh. You are such a player,” she groans, holding her hands out as I approach her. “Don’t touch me.”
“That won’t last long.”
“Are we talking about your erection?”
I chuckle as her hands press against my chest. “Your humor only turns me on even more.”
She pushes me hard and quickly scoots sideways to get away from me. “We need to talk,” she says as she scurries around the kitchen island and takes a seat at the breakfast bar with her bottle of water. “I’m scared shitless.”
“I can help you with that.”
“With what?” she whispers breathlessly as I stand behind the barstool and brush her ponytail aside.
“All of it. If you want to talk, we’ll talk.” I kiss the back of her neck and the plastic water bottle in her handle crackles as she tightens her grip. “If you want to keep the baby, I’ll be there. Anything you need” – I spin the barstool around so she’s facing me – “I can give it to you.”
I lean in and she whimpers as I brush my lips softly over hers.
“Don’t do this.”
“Why?” I whisper, then I slide my tongue into her mouth so she doesn’t have a chance to respond.
She tastes like orange Tic Tacs. Grabbing her face, I kiss her slowly as she grips my forearms. I suck on her luscious bottom lip and she wraps one of her long legs around me.
She turns her face away and shakes her head. “Stop. We have to talk.”
I sigh and try not to look too disappointed as I take a step back. “Let’s talk.”
“You said you’d give me anything I need,” she says, and the tough, sarcastic exterior she usually wears so well is peeled back for a moment. “I need to talk about this.”
Her brown eyes search mine for a sign of understanding, but I’m just frustrated. “Do you mind if I have a beer while we talk?”
I’m not sure why I’m asking her permission other than I don’t want to hear a snide remark or see her roll her eyes when I grab the beer out of the fridge.
“You kind of just did that,” I remark as I take a step back, but she grabs the front of my Vandals T-shirt.
Before I can even question what she’s doing, my shirt is off and my hands are under her sweater, roaming over her soft, warm flesh. Her breasts feel bigger than the last time we fucked, and this instantly gets me hard. I kiss her neck as I move my hands down to grab hold of her ass. Then I scoot her forward on the barstool, so she can feel me hard against her.
“I don’t want to fuck you here,” I murmur into her ear.
“Why?” she whimpers as she reaches for the button on my jeans.
“Because I have something so much better planned for you.”
I grab her hand and lead her toward the French doors that lead out onto the patio and outdoor dining area. Just beyond and to the right of the dining area is an Olympic-length saltwater pool and jacuzzi.
“If you think I’m getting in the jacuzzi with you when it’s fifty degrees out here, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“Shh. We’re almost there,” I say as we pass the pool and the outdoor shower area. Finally, we reach a cedar-plank door in the rear corner of the house. I reach into my back pocket to pull out the door key and she shakes her head.
“You knew you’d get me back here.”
I smile as I turn the key in the lock and push the door open to the steam room. I left the lights on and put the steam going before she got here. I’ve had other girls in here. It’s nothing new to me. But I’ve yet to meet a girl who wasn’t pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly hot experience of sex in a steam room.
“I’m not having sex with you in a steam room. I’ve done it before and I nearly suffocated. I don’t want to know what will happen if I try to do it while pregnant.”
“Shit. I didn’t think about that. But, wait a minute, you’ve had sex in a steam room? When?”
“Uh … how is that any of your business?”
Closing the door to the steam room, I clench my jaw as I attempt to bite back my response. If a girl isn’t being needy and clingy, she’s playing hard-to-get. Why can’t they just chill out and enjoy the offer of commitment-free sex?
“Why do you look like I just crashed your car?” she asks as she follows me back to the patio. “I didn’t say we can’t have sex. I just said I we can’t have sex in the steam room. And, really, that’s just common sense.”
“Common sense?” I repeat this as I hold the patio door open for her to enter the great room.
“Yeah. I mean, why would I want to have sex in a steam room when I nearly passed out while throwing up this morning?”
“You what?” I bark this question at her and she appears startled.
“I was sick this morning before I got a chance to eat anything. I was dry-heaving so badly that I felt like I was going to pass out. It’s no big deal. I took a ten-minute nap in the dorm after Claire left for class.”
“No big deal? Don’t you think you should talk to your doctor about that? Have you even seen a doctor yet?”
“Fuck no! I’m still on my parents’ health insurance and they can’t know anything until we figure out what we’re gonna do.”
I try not to let her see the conflicting emotions and thoughts racing through my mind right now. I want to offer to pay for her doctor visit out of my own pocket, but I also want to hold off. This is a card I may want to hold onto so I can play it later when I lay down my whole hand.
I take a seat on the gray sofa in the living room and pat the seat for her to join me. “Can’t you go to the campus health center and get a free exam? Shouldn’t you be taking vitamins or something?”
She narrows her eyes at me as she sits. “Are you trying to tell me you want me to keep it?”
Her words make my breath hitch in my chest. The truth is I’m probably more prepared to take care of this baby than Senia. But being prepared doesn’t mean I’ll be any good at it. The last thing I need is to screw up my own kid the way I’ve obviously screwed up Molly. I had to pick her up from school early yesterday. She was suspended for cutting class two days in a row so she could smoke weed with her innocent friend Carissa at the park. It’s always the kids with the most clueless parents that seem to get into the most trouble. Maybe if I had been there for Molly this past year, none of this would be happening. I’m not ready to be a father.
But I don’t think I can pass up this opportunity. This is my chance to send Grandma off with a full heart. Who knows? She may even live long enough to meet her great-grandchild. I don’t think anything would make me happier than that.
“Yes. If you want to keep it, so do I.”
Chapter Fourteen
After a moment of awkward silence, I grab the remote and turn on the TV. “What do you want to watch?”
She stares at the TV for a moment as the picture materializes, then she turns to me. “I should get going. Claire will probably be getting back from dinner soon.”
“Did Claire-bear give you a curfew?”
“I don’t want her to ask me where I was tonight.”
I’m used to being a dirty secret. I’ve had affairs with plenty of girls, and women, who were otherwise attached. But this just pisses me off. There are very few things about my personal life that I feel comfortable sharing with anyone. But this … This is something I want to share, like a fucking Circle of Life moment, I want to shout it from the mountaintops. I made a human.
I’ve watched way too many Disney movies with Moon.
“Why are you wearing jeans today?” I ask so I don’t have to address the issue of when we’ll be sharing the news of our lovechild with our BFFs.
“It’s cold.”
“Can I tell you a story?”
She looks at me as if I’ve asked her if I could tap-dance for her. “Okay …”
I clear my throat and smile. “I was eight when Molly was born. I was still living with … with my mom.” Senia doesn’t need to know that I only refer to her as Elaine. “I was still living in Maine with my mom.” Man, it feels weird to call her my mom. “We were living in a shitty apartment in South Portland and I hadn’t slept the whole night, waiting for my mom to come home with Molly.”
“Who was with you?”
“No one,” I reply without thinking, and she looks at me with a sad look that I’m all too familiar with. “It’s not like it was the first time I had spent the night alone.” This doesn’t make the concerned look on Senia’s face dissipate, so I continue before she can ask any more questions. “Anyway, when my mom came home with Molly, I finally fell asleep on the floor next to her bassinet. I think that was one of the happiest moments of my life. So …”
Her eyebrows are scrunched together awaiting the next words out of my mouth. “So … what?”
“So … I think I know why Chris and Claire got back together. And I think I want to tell them about the baby … soon.”
“Oh.” She puts her feet up on the coffee table and sits back as she contemplates this. “I just don’t know how she’s going to feel about it. And you should be worried about how Chris is going to take it. From what I’ve gathered, he is hanging all his hopes on this whole open adoption thing. If he finds out you’re having a kid …”
“It will kill him.”
For the last few months, Chris and Claire have been embroiled in negotiations with the adoptive parents of Abigail, the daughter Claire gave up for adoption earlier this year. I still don’t understand how Chris could forgive Claire for doing something like that without giving him any choice in the matter. I know he thinks she did it so he wouldn’t cancel the tour and give up on his dreams, but I don’t think I’d be as forgiving in his place.
“Do you want to kill your best friend?” she asks.
“Maybe
it will help him to think that I know a little about what he’s going through.”
Before Senia can respond, her hip twitches and she pulls her phone out of her jeans pocket.
“Who is it?” I ask. Not that I have a right to ask, but I can pretend I do.
“It’s Claire,” she says. “She’s spending the night at Chris’s condo. Chris has a condo?”
I shrug, even though I already knew this. He told me about it a couple of days ago after he and Claire got back together. “That means you can stay the night here,” I murmur as I reach over and tuck her dark hair behind her ear.
She scoots farther away from me and shakes her head. “No, it doesn’t. I still don’t know what time she’s coming back to the dorm in the morning.”
She grins at me as if this is just an invitation for me to convince her to stay a little longer, even if she doesn’t stay the night. “Yeah, maybe you should just go.” I don’t need to tell her that I always have breakfast with Chris on Saturday mornings. It’s a tradition that began after he broke up with Claire and we stopped doing the usual breakfast with the band on Sundays.
“Are you telling me to leave?”
I stand from the sofa and smile as I hold out my hand to help her up. “You should probably go so you don’t fall asleep in my bed and your whole secret is blown wide open when Claire sees your empty bed in the morning.”
“Fall asleep in your bed?” She takes my hand and allows me to pull her up from the sofa. Our noses are centimeters apart when she replies. “What makes you think you can even get me into your bed?” She shakes my hand loose and heads for the foyer. “I guess we’ll break the news to them sometime before Christmas. Until then, I’d appreciate it if you could keep this to yourself, and … I’ll let you know how the exam goes at the health center.”