by London Casey
The crib was empty. Hanging above the crib were letters, dangling by white string, spelling out the baby’s name.
“Jude.”
11.
(Ashlynn)
I carried a sleeping Jude in my arms as I approached the apartment door. There was no reason for me to stay at the hospital. Call me the worst daughter ever, that’s fine, but considering my mother came into my life after she found out she was sick, I think we could call it pretty even.
She was sedated and would be for at least a day as the doctors would run more tests. Dr. H wanted me to call friends and family? There were none. Any bridge my mother crossed she was sure to toss her lit cigarette over her shoulder and watch it burn.
That was just her style.
I forced Leah to go home. I dropped her off and watched her go inside to make sure she didn’t try anything funny. Yeah, she could have snuck right out the back door and went to her boyfriend’s house, but that wasn’t my problem.
I offered to talk to her mother about what had happened, but Leah begged me not to.
I felt for her.
Hell, I felt for myself.
I felt for Jude.
I even felt for him. For Jude’s father.
If only…
I stuck my key in the lock and turned. I opened the door, shaking my head. My head was so beat up and tired, thoughts I shouldn’t have been thinking were racing through my mind.
The TV was still on in my mother’s room. I had no urge to turn it off. So I shut the door. I didn’t want to see or smell the room ever again. I’d pay someone to clean the room up. The odor was hard to describe. Sick. Death. Just… bad.
I went for my room, my bed, Jude still in my arms. Baby books and overzealous people warn against sleeping with a baby. I didn’t give a shit. Jude was comfortable on my chest and I felt safer with him close to me. It was like my subconscious knew something I didn’t quite know.
Worst case? I had a gun tucked in my nightstand drawer.
There had been a customer at the restaurant who took to the pregnancy thing way too much. I helped at the place as much as I could while pregnant. Not wearing bikinis and running around, trying to earn tips. But I helped with the paperwork, ordering, accounting, that kind of stuff. A guy named Charlie confessed he had a thing for pregnant women and wanted to help me get the baby out.
No lie.
Ricky had the guy roughed up pretty good and then Ricky gave me a gun. I never had to use the gun. Thankfully.
But as I shut my eyes, with Jude on my chest, I had a sick feeling that I was going to need to use the gun… soon…
12.
(Noah)
I knew how to be a fucking stealth.
I heard the door unlock and I waited.
Gun in hand.
Ready to attack.
I wasn’t going to kill him… just take him down. Scare him. Report it all to Benito. Get that first thrill, that first high out of the way.
Again, something felt really wrong.
I was in an apartment. At least two bedrooms. One with the TV on. The other one for a baby. Just something…
The floor creaked and I tucked my gun away. I was going to use my fists.
At the last second I saw him… but then realized it was a her.
It was a woman in the apartment. And she was holding a baby.
I quickly dropped back into the baby’s room.
I waited and listened.
A bedroom door shut, muffling the TV sound even more. She shut the bedroom door.
Another door squeaked, opening. Then it shut.
I emerged from the baby’s room and stared at what must have been the third bedroom in the apartment.
I stood there, damn confused.
A sliver of light showed through the bottom of the door.
So I stood and waited. What choice did I have? I couldn’t just bust in, not with a baby. Maybe the version of myself from a year ago would have done that. Fuck the kid, right? But after spending all that time with Bo and seeing him desperate to protect his two boys… I could never think about putting a child or infant in any sort of danger.
I thought about leaving right then and coming back at a different time.
But then the light went out in the bedroom.
I bided my time a little more, trying to make sense of it. Usually when I was out on the hunt for someone, it was pretty cut and dry. I’d go after the person when they were alone. And it was never a woman. That was one rule I always had - I would never hurt a woman.
Yet there I was standing outside the bedroom door of a woman and a baby.
I should have left and called Benito. He’d give me a pass because of the jail time bullshit. But I wanted to know what I was in. Plus, there was a feeling so deep inside me that refused to let me leave.
I touched the doorknob and turned it. The door pushed open without a sound. A nightlight plugged into an outlet next to the bed cast just enough light on one side of the bed to show the woman and the baby sleeping on her chest.
Why the fuck is my heart racing so much?
I approached the bed, my weapon tucked away. As though I trusted this woman. For all I knew, she could have been using the baby as a diversion. And I was easily falling for it.
The light spread across her side of the bed.
I stood there and look at the baby first. Head facing me. Chubby cheeks and chubbier lips pouted as he rested on Mama’s ample chest. His face, his hair… something about the baby…
The woman took a deep breath and then sighed. She turned her head toward me, hair covering her face. Next thing I knew, I was reaching down, gently moving the hair from her face.
What the fuck are you doing?
That’s when I saw her face.
It was… her.
The woman from the fight.
Ashlynn.
The woman I fucked in the bathroom.
And she had a baby…
My mind raced, trying to figure out the timing of it all.
I felt like someone had punched me straight in the heart.
The woman stirred again and I had to get the hell out of the room before I got caught.
I stormed through the apartment in darkness, my mind racing with one question: Was that baby… mine?
~
I had to kill her?
I sat on the edge of the bed in some motel room. The TV was on, the morning news broadcasting the weather and traffic. I managed to steal a few hours of sleep but that was it. Benito had called me twice and I ignored him.
“The storage unit,” I whispered.
All my shit had been put away when I went inside. I gave up my apartment and Benito was nice enough to make sure everything inside was put away in a storage unit, paid for two years. His consolation for me serving time.
Believe it or not, for how fucked up my life had always been, I had a small photo album of myself as a baby. It was the only true memory I had of my mother and father. Well, my old man was only in a few of the pictures. Then he took off… and never came back. Last I knew of him, he was a pile of bones in a three foot hole.
I had pictures of myself as a baby though. I needed them. To see if that kid sleeping on Ashlynn’s chest was my baby.
My baby?
“Holy shit,” I whispered and rubbed my face.
That was intense to think about.
If it was my kid, then that meant Ashlynn had gotten pregnant that night at the fight. That meant she had carried the kid alone. Without my love and support. Then she had the baby… and…
Then it hit me.
I wasn’t there to kill Ashlynn. I wasn’t there to hurt the baby either.
I was sent to the apartment to rough up a guy named Craig. He was the one that owed Benito the money, not Ashlynn. So that meant Ashlynn had moved on. Rightfully so. Why the hell not? I was just a blip on the radar for her. She had never experienced anything wild in her life until that night with me. Then she left with a memory that would last forever. So she got tangled
up with some other guy that was helping to take care of her and that baby. But that guy owed Benito a lot of money. He was going to pay dearly for his sins against Benito.
“Holy shit,” I said again.
I stood up and walked to the dresser. I grabbed the phone and called Benito.
“You’re sure about this guy?” I asked.
“Of course I’m sure,” Benito said. “Who the fuck do you think I am? Why?”
“There was a situation last night,” I said. “There was other people in the apartment. I got inside though. He wasn’t there. I crashed at a motel a block away from the apartment. I’m going back now.”
“Noah…”
“I’m going to question the people that are there,” I said. “I didn’t expect that last night, Benito. I’ll take care of things.”
“I know you will,” Benito said. “I trust you, Noah. It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Hey,” I said. “The storage unit with all my stuff…”
“It’s safe.”
“Can I have the location?”
“I’ll have Dante relay the information to you, Noah.”
The call went dead.
I took a deep breath and ran a hand through my hair. I turned and saw my gun on the nightstand. Time to load up and go.
To see a woman that had gotten to my damn heart… and had possibly carried my child while I was in jail.
13.
(Ashlynn)
I woke up and Jude was squirming in my arms. I realized how dumb it was to sleep with him on my chest. He could have rolled off me and off the bed. I hurried to sit up, cradling him. His little hands were on the move, touching his own face, touching my face, finding strands of my hair and pulling.
“Ouch,” I said with a grin.
Jude smiled a toothless smile.
He pulled at my hair again.
I played with his little fingers and again said, “Ouch.”
As Jude did his little giggle-gurgle, I laughed.
This was the best way to wake up in the morning. Considering how bad the previous night had been. Getting kicked out of work. Dealing with Leah and her teenage angst. My mother going to hospital.
I hurried and grabbed for my phone, checking to see if there were any calls from the hospital.
Nothing on the phone.
Jude grabbed at my boobs, knowing what they were there for. He had no shame in tearing down the top of my shirt.
Just like his father, right?
My face blushed as I thought about the way Noah handled that one night… one time…
I looked down at Jude.
“All it takes is once,” I said.
I then pulled my shirt down and fed Jude.
I remembered the first few times at the hospital when he was just born. He wouldn’t latch to me no matter what I did. The nurses tried to help and I cried each time he would scream for nourishment. It was a disaster. I blamed myself, thinking that Noah somehow knew how he was conceived. It was so silly. But in the hospital - alone - my body trying to figure out what to do next after pushing a seven pound living human from a place that shouldn’t have allowed it, my emotions were twisted.
Then Jude started to latch on. He never had a problem since then. When he was hungry, he was hungry.
When Jude was finished, I changed his diaper, changed his clothes, and rocked him for a few minutes, studying every little feature of his face. His eyes. His nose. His lips. His hairline. My heart swelled with so much love. I knew the path ahead of us was going to be long, winding, and sometimes hard… but I didn’t realize what that actually meant.
Until there was a knock at door.
~
I put Jude down in his crib. His eyes were already starting to shut. That was my baby though. He’d sleep through the night, wake up, eat, get changed, and then take an hour nap. I had been paranoid he was sick or something for the amount of time he slept, but my doctor laughed, touched my shoulder, and told me I should be thankful. There were babies that hardly slept at all.
The knock sounded again and I rushed through the apartment to the door.
“Hold on,” I said. “My baby is trying to sleep.”
“Sorry,” a voice said.
The voice blasted through my entire body. My memory, my heart, other places.
I froze for a second and then slowly twisted the lock on the door. I turned the knob and opened the door.
When I saw him standing there, at my door, I froze.
How… why… where…
“Ashlynn,” he whispered.
My body started to go weak.
Then I saw the gun in his hand.
That’s when I passed out.
~
I opened my eyes and I was on the couch. How the hell did I get on the couch? I touched my face; my cheeks were on fire. I looked at the door. It was shut.
Was it all a dream?
“Here, drink some water, sweetheart.”
I gasped and sat up. The room spun as I watched Noah approach me. He was like a giant hovering over me. He wore a black t-shirt that hugged his body in an unfair way. He looked tired, a little beat up, and more chiseled than the last time I saw him.
The last time being the first time… at that fight… in that bathroom…
He sat down on the coffee table, facing me.
He was brilliantly gorgeous in the roughest way possible. The lines of his face were cut against his jaw. It was as though he had been cut from stone and given life. A little scruff on his face made Noah look a little dirty but in a good way. A really good way.
I took the glass of water and sipped it.
“You okay?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m not okay. At all. What…”
“Hey,” Noah said. He put a hand to my knee, setting me right back on fire. He had been the only man to ignite what rested deep inside me. “I’m sorry about the gun, okay? I didn’t come here to hurt you. I didn’t come to hurt your baby either. I have to…”
“How do you know about Jude?” I asked.
Noah gritted his teeth. “Shit.”
“Tell me right now.”
“I was here last night, Ashlynn,” Noah said. “I need you to listen to me carefully here.”
“You were here?”
“I was here when you came home. With the baby. You went into the bedroom. He was sleeping on your chest. That’s when I realized who you were. I…”
I had no idea what to think or do… so I used what I had. I threw the glass of water at his face. It splashed, covering his hair and face, and then the rest hit the table and the floor. I dropped the glass and jumped up from the couch. I made it two steps before Noah was right there. Of course, right? It was just water I threw at him.
He had me by the waist and lifted me up as though I were a feather. His fingers dug into loose skin that wasn’t there the first time we met. My body had changed… because of him.
He put me against a wall and stared at me, water dripping from his face.
Why did he have to look so fucking sexy?
“I’m trying to do this the right way, sweetheart,” Noah growled. “Don’t make it hard.”
“Hard? You want to talk about hard? Do you realize what I’ve gone through?”
Noah smirked. “Do you realize what I’ve gone through?”
“So it’s about you then. Not about me, right? Not about the woman you fucked in a bathroom without a condom on. Not about the woman who fled the scene when cops showed up. Not about the woman who pissed on a test in a gas station bathroom and cried when it was a positive. Not about the woman who had to live in embarrassment and a lie, telling everyone she had no idea who the father of her baby was.”
The emotion collapsed my throat. I couldn’t breathe and my only relief was crying. For how hard I spent fighting back tears, for some reason, with Noah, the tears just came.
Noah put my feet on the floor. His grip lessened. His hands were barely touching me.
“The ba
by,” he whispered. “Jude?”
“Yes.”
“That baby is mine?”
“No, Noah. He’s ours.”
“I’m… the father?”
“Yes,” I said. I blinked, tears streaming down my cheeks. “I had no idea how to find you.”
“I’m that baby’s father,” Noah said. He looked away. “So he’s about four months old?”
“About that,” I said.
Noah’s hands slid down some more. He grabbed the bottom of my shirt. He inched it up, bringing back a lust filled, yet haunting memory of that night with Noah. His bare hands touched my belly. My bare skin. My stomach fluttered. I felt so self conscious, my face burned. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the way it had been the first time he touched me.
Noah then dropped to one knee before me.
“Pick your shirt up,” he said.
“What?”
“You fucking heard me, Ashlynn. Pick your shirt up.”
No!
But my heart said something different. My hands were shaking as I lifted my shirt up, just enough to show my stomach to him. Yeah, I still had a little extra skin, some of the remaining baby weight that was a pain to lose. Yeah, I had some stretch marks and chances were they’d never go away.
Noah touched my belly again. From my waist, he trailed around. His fingertips found the narrow ridges of the marks on my stomach from carrying Jude. He traced them down to the top of my pants. I bit my lip and felt the reaction my body had to Noah’s touch. Good hell, I was freaking wet. Between my thighs, I was becoming a mess.
From a man who got me pregnant, never helped, left me alone, and then showed up a year later… with a gun.
What’s wrong with me?
“Oh, fuck,” Noah said. His big hands spread across my entire stomach. “You carried my son…”
“Yeah,” I said. “I did.”
Noah looked up at me. He looked damn surprised. I tried to keep my face bitchy, but I was burning everywhere. My knees were ready to give way. I wanted to collapse into his arms, into his touch, and just let go.
He moved his thumb left to right, touching me. Then he came forward and gently kissed just below my belly button.
I was aching with desire for him. I couldn’t fight it away.
Noah grabbed my shirt and tugged at it, covering me. He rose up, towered over me, and put both hands to my face.