Finally, I decided to end the madness and just call her. Taking a break from Matt and being in his negative presence, I walked into the office and sat down. It was mostly ready back there, all the neat stuff kept and organized, junk tossed. I’d asked Tom to get a new desk in there with a new chair, and he went all out, getting a really nice mahogany desk with a state-of-the-art desktop placed on it. It was going to make doing all the paperwork easier, as well as anything else we needed to do.
I opened my phone and hit her contact info. There was a click on the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Hey, you,” I said.
“Hey,” she repeated.
“I got a bit of a break, and I thought I’d call you. How is your day?”
“It’s been fine.” There was something off in her voice, but I didn’t want to push it. If it was important, I was sure she would tell me eventually. She liked to have a little time to work things out.
“Well, good,” I said. “I didn’t have a bunch of time, but I wanted you to know that Matt and I are going to go do some research on the other bars in the area tonight. We might be a little late getting back, but I’ll text you.”
“Okay,” she said. “Have fun. I’ve to go.”
“Okay. Bye.”
“Bye.” The line clicked, and I sat there looking at my phone for a moment in confusion.
“That was weird,” I said to myself. Shrugging, I slid the phone back in my pocket and went back to work.
“The Jail Cell,” I said, reading the sign.
“Yup,” Matt said. “It used to be an old jail. The upper floors are apartments now.”
“Old jail cells?” I asked. “As apartments?”
“No, only the bottom floor were jails. The upper floors were offices,” he said. “Now they’re apartments. Come on, let’s get something to drink.”
We stepped inside, and the darkness consumed us. The bar was one of those newer places that thought that keeping everything so dark you tripped into one another was good for meeting new people. The bar itself was in the back of the room, and we made it there through what I could only assume was sheer dumb luck.
“Two… somethings. I don’t care. Alcohols,” Matt said. The bartender smirked.
“Liquor or beer?” he asked.
“Liquor. Something that tastes good and isn’t mostly water,” he said.
It was an old trick for scouting bars, but it held up. Go in and ask the bartender for something but not specify what. See what the bartender served you, how expensive it was, and how much alcohol it contained. You could learn a lot about a bar by what the motives of the bartender was when they first met you.
A tall martini glass came back with some yellow liquid in it. I assumed it was pineapple juice. Matt immediately downed about half of it.
“Damn, that’s good,” he said. “I’ll have another one of those. Jordan?”
“Sam’s, please,” I said.
“Another one of these and a Sammy for my brother,” Matt said to the bartender. As he ducked behind the bar to get the glass for my beer, two girls sauntered over our way. They were very pretty, but one of them looked like she’d had about twenty drinks too many and was swaying wildly. She was also having a tremendous amount of trouble keeping one of the straps of her dress on, and it kept falling and exposing enough of her breast that I had to look away.
“We don’t recognize you two,” the sober one said. Her voice was nasally and had an accent I couldn’t quite place. I figured it was Canadian.
“That’s because we’re new here,” Matt said, eagerly finishing his first drink before the second arrived.
“You’re hot,” the somewhat coherent one said, then stumbled ever so slightly into the person behind her. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Thank you,” I said. “But I’m taken. Matt, on the other hand, is wildly single.”
Both women descended on Matt like vultures, and I scooted a little out of the way so he could bask in their attention. He ended up ordering two drinks for the ladies, a real one for the sober one and a “special” one for the other. I made eye contact with the bartender, and the shared glance told me he was already on top of it. When he handed her the mostly cranberry-flavored water drink, I pulled out an extra bit of cash for his tip.
Dropping the cash on the bar, I began to walk away, but Matt grabbed me. He was deep in conversation with the sober one, and the drunker one was just hanging on every word the both of them said.
“I was just telling these girls here that we’re opening a new bar,” he said excitedly.
“Is that The Hollow one?” the sober girl asked. “I saw some fliers and got an email about it. I heard you guys do theme nights!”
“We do,” Matt said, matching her enthusiasm and raising the stakes even higher. It was like his entire attitude was shifting. It made me chuckle.
“Yup, and karaoke if we can get the machine installed in time,” I said.
“Oh, I love to sing!” the drunk one said. The short snippet of whatever cursed song she broke into for the next few seconds told me that while she might love to sing, not many people loved to hear it.
Before long, it was time to hit another of the bars, and Matt got both of their numbers. As we were walking out of the bar, he was grinning from ear to ear, and I noticed he had lipstick marks on both cheeks. I shook my head.
“I love this town,” he mumbled.
I decided not to call him on it and instead headed to the truck where I could drive the two of us to the next place. I only drank a quarter of the beer in each of the three bars we had been to already. I figured by the time the night was done, I might have two whole beers in me. Matt, on the other hand, was well on his way to happy town.
All of this was making me miss Hannah even more. By the time we got back to the hotel we were staying at until we found a cheap apartment to rent close by, I decided to give her a call. She was used to late nights anyway, and a text just didn’t seem like enough. I called, but it went right to voicemail.
I shrugged. Maybe she had an early night. Bidding my brother farewell and sending him into his room, I went into mine and tucked in for a few hours’ rest.
30
Hannah
Morning wasn’t particularly my favorite time of day, but that morning took it to another level. I didn’t just wake up feeling like I wished I could sleep longer. Even before my eyes opened, my stomach was turning. It was that kind of nausea that simultaneously made me afraid to move because I never did make it worse, and also afraid I wasn’t going to make it to the bathroom in time.
I was feeling a little odd the night before, but nothing too serious. Now, I felt like my stomach was right on the verge of revolt.
I tried to talk myself out of it. Throwing up was definitely on my list of most hated things.
Within a few moments of waking up, I was scrambling out of bed and rushing for the bathroom. I made it, but not by much of a margin. When the waves of nausea finally ended and I was able to pull myself up from the floor, I leaned over the sink and rinsed my mouth with handful after handful of water from the faucet.
I was feeling less shaky, and I drew in a long breath to further settle my stomach. My body was shaking as I brushed my teeth and tried to figure out what the hell was going on. Nobody I knew was sick. I took an extra couple of seconds to go through all the brothers and their respective wives, then the rest of the staff again just to be sure.
None of them had been sick as far as I knew.
Maybe it was something I ate. I thought back on everything I had eaten the day before but couldn’t think of anything that would cause food poisoning. But it had to be something.
Even though I’d brushed my teeth, my mouth still tasted sour. I got the mouthwash out of the medicine cabinet and swished it around. As I opened the cabinet to put the bottle away, I saw something that stopped me still mid-swish. The mouthwash burst out of my mouth into the sink, and I snatched the box of tampons out of the cabinet.
The unopened box of tampons. Unopened because I didn’t use them when I should have gotten my period… a month ago.
Holy shit.
I rushed back into my bedroom and grabbed my phone, pulling up the calendar.
I scrolled back through the last few months and found the little star I’d scribbled with my stylus in the corner of the target date. And beside it, a little check mark.
And there they were for the four months I scrolled through. Star and check. Star and check. Star and check. Star and check. But then I got to last month. Star. No check.
I couldn’t believe it. I had been so preoccupied by Ethan sneaking around I stopped paying attention. I hadn’t even noticed my period didn’t come.
Maybe it was stress. That could be it. I was definitely experiencing more than my fair share of stress because of the whole situation with Ethan. I could have stressed myself into not having a period for the month.
That thought brought a little bit of comfort, but there was only one way to know for sure. I got dressed as quickly as I could and ran out to the nearest drugstore. The array of pregnancy tests available was nothing short of mind-boggling, and I grabbed several different ones just to cover my bases. When I got home, I took a few of them and waited in the bathroom for the results while I guzzled a few bottles of water.
Twenty minutes after my first round of tests, I took a few more. They all told me the exact same thing, but that didn’t stop me from going for one more round to use up the selection I bought. By the time I was done, the entire bathroom counter was lined with tests, and they all had the same result glaring back at me.
I was pregnant.
It took me a while to leave the bathroom. It felt like stepping over that threshold was the moment my life changed. As soon as I stepped out of the bathroom and back into my bedroom, I was really going into a whole new chapter of my existence. I walked into that bathroom with a question mark over my head. I walked out of it with a big plus sign.
“I’m pregnant.”
The silence on the other end of the line didn’t really surprise me. By this point Samantha was probably getting used to getting phone calls from me that seemed to forego the beginning of the conversation in favor of dropping right down into the middle. But up until this point, most of those conversations had been about Ethan and the anxiety he was bringing into my life.
This conversation was admittedly a curveball.
“I’m sorry, you’re what now?” she finally asked.
“Pregnant. I’m pregnant.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said.” She let out a breath. “Wow. That’s… that’s a lot.”
“I know,” I said. “I woke up this morning thinking I had food poisoning, but it turns out it was morning sickness. So, I was hoping maybe you could give me a couple of pointers for how I can handle that.”
Maybe it wasn’t really the main issue I should have been thinking about right at that moment, but it was keeping my mind adequately distracted so I didn’t have to think about anything else. Samantha obliged, rattling off tips for how to deal with morning sickness and other symptoms I was going to start having.
“Thanks,” I said after almost an hour. “I feel more prepared now.”
“That’s good,” she said. “But tell me something, Hannah. Why did you call me first and not Jordan?”
“Because you’re my best friend,” I said.
“And?”
I let out a sigh. She knew me too well.
“And I’m terrified to tell him. He has so much going on with the new bar and everything. I’m afraid it’s all going to be too much for him,” I said. “When I tell him, I don’t want it to be more stressful.”
“So you’re thinking about his well-being before your own,” she said.
“I guess so.”
“You’re in love with him,” she stated plainly.
There was no point in trying to deny it. “I think I am.”
When I got off the phone with Samantha, I briefly considered calling Jordan. Maybe I shouldn’t delay it. But I stopped myself. He needed to get through the grand opening first. Then I could tell him. It would also give me time to process it for myself.
I had to do something. I couldn’t just stay there in my house by myself thinking about it. It was still a couple of hours before I needed to be at work, but I got dressed and headed for the bar anyway. Just as I walked in, I felt like I was interfering with a family moment. Tyler and Mason were gathered at the bar with Becca and Ava. The guys were cheering, and Becca threw her arms around Ava in a close hug.
“Congratulations,” Tyler said happily.
“Congratulations,” Becca echoed. “This is really amazing.”
I stepped in cautiously. “I’m sorry. Am I interrupting?”
Ava looked over at me and shook her head, grinning widely.
“No, no. Not at all. Come in,” she said.
I went over to the bar and looked at each of the faces there. They were all smiling.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I’m pregnant,” Ava said.
My mouth fell open slightly. “You are?”
She nodded. “I found out a few weeks ago.”
I gathered myself and forced a smile past the shock. “Congratulations. That’s wonderful.”
I hugged Ava as she thanked me. Fortunately, the little gathering broke up after that, and we all went our separate ways to get the bar ready for the night. I didn’t think I’d be able to keep it together if we were all standing there for much longer.
I threw myself into work that night, trying to keep busy so I didn’t drive myself crazy. It was almost closing time when I went into the storeroom for napkins and ran into Ava. She smiled at me and started out of the room, and I knew I had to tell her.
“Ava, can I talk to you for a second?” I asked.
She paused and looked at me with a bit of concern in her eyes. “Sure. Is everything okay? You didn’t see Ethan again, did you?”
“I am really looking forward to the days when that isn’t a question anymore,” I said. “But no. It’s not about him.”
“Good. Then what’s going on?”
“I wasn’t planning on saying anything quite yet, but after your announcement today, I feel like I have to. I don’t want it to look like I was trying to steal your thunder or anything,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m pregnant,” I said.
At some point saying it would feel more natural, but I was still getting used to it. Ava’s eyes widened.
“You’re…” she started, and I nodded. “And it’s…”
“Jordan’s,” I said to finish her thought.
She squealed and threw her arms around me in a tight hug just as Becca came into the room. She gave us a playfully quizzical look.
“There sure is a lot of hugging happening around here tonight. What, Hannah, are you pregnant, too?”
She asked it as a joke, but I nodded, and her eyes went round as she gasped. Hers was my next hug, and she was still holding my hands when I looked at both of them seriously.
“I haven’t told Jordan yet,” I said.
“Why not?” Ava asked.
“I’m scared to,” I said. They exchanged glances, and I looked back and forth between them questioningly. “What was that?”
“Both of us have some experience with what you’re going through,” Ava said.
I listened to both women tell the stories of finding out they were pregnant and being hesitant to tell their partners. It made me feel better to hear that I wasn’t alone, and they had gotten through to the other side even better than before.
“So, you’re going to tell him?” Becca asked.
“Yes. I promise I will tell him tomorrow. Well, maybe not. I’ll tell him Sunday. I don’t want to ruin the grand opening,” I said.
“It’s not going to ruin anything,” Becca said.
“If I know Jordan like I think I do, this will
make everything better,” Ava said, causing a sense of relief to wash over me.
31
Jordan
The soft opening had been incredibly packed and gone off well. That should have been a good indication that the grand opening was going to be insane. I should have prepared for a night of pure unadulterated craziness, but I didn’t. I only saw ahead enough to get a bouncer, just in case, but I had done that for the soft opening too. Very quickly, on the night of the grand opening, I realized we were going to need more than one of them and asked the guy we hired for the night to see if his company had anyone they could send as backup.
The two extra bouncers that arrived were two more new faces in a crowd of people I didn’t recognize. Matt was running the kitchen with the new cook and two expo staff who could also cook in a pinch. The floor was being run by a girl we hired who had just returned to town and had been employed in top restaurants in LA, where she had been at school. As floor manager, she was holding down the fort effortlessly, and no matter how busy it got, she seemed unflappable and kept the other waitstaff in line.
I had two other bartenders with me, and by the middle of the night found myself completely outclassed by them. Slowly, I sunk behind them and watched them take over, keeping the crowd entertained and always with a drink in their hand. It was incredible to watch how the seasoned bartenders took to the opening like it was just another day, and it afforded me a chance to leave the bar to go check out the other elements of the place. One of the bartenders was a guy named Lamont, but the more experienced and authoritative one was Cris, a short-haired firebrand of a bartender who had an adorable smile to go along with her sassy conversational tone.
“I’m going to head out to the floor,” I told her. “Let Lamont know.”
“You’re good,” she said in the midst of making a cocktail for one of her customers. “If we shit the bed, I’ll let you know. But we won’t. Will we, Lamont?”
“Hell no, sis,” Lamont said between pours from the tap.
“Go on,” Cris said, shooing me away from the bar. I grinned as I walked down the steps to the floor.
Boss Daddy: A Secret Baby Romance Page 17