by London Casey
I honestly had no idea what to expect with Cole.
What his reaction would have been.
As a writer, there was a part of me that was a romantic. That meant I pictured Cole shutting the office door and coming to me. Touching my face. Touching my stomach. Kissing me. Telling me he was going to take care of the baby. And me. That we were going to be together…
“Cockhead Cole?” I asked. “Ew.”
Now, if it was Elevator Guy who did that…
Which then started the argument in my mind.
Who got me pregnant?
Cockhead Cole or Elevator Guy?
I touched my forehead.
What the hell was I doing?
Cole was Cole.
And I was pregnant.
And I had a sinking fear I was going to be pregnant alone.
I sat up in my bed with a hot cup of tea.
I just wanted regular tea but Bev insisted on adding ginger to it to help with my stomach. She still thought it was morning sickness that had me ill.
My phone rested next to me and I wanted to talk to someone.
I wanted to talk to my mother.
That was a rare feeling to have go through me, hence the reason I debated on whether to actually call her or not.
It wasn’t that we didn’t get along, it was just we were very different.
She stayed in that small town and got swallowed up by it. She got pregnant, things didn’t work out, and she was forever a single mom, struggling to survive. Even now she was still struggling because there was no opportunity in that town.
I thought about Connie and Jen.
They were almost the same.
I left the small town trap to chase the big city dream.
And now, I was pregnant.
By my boss.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Thinking that was still hard to comprehend.
I grabbed my phone and called my mother.
My heart started to race.
I had no idea how to guide the conversation with her.
Do I start with small talk? The weather? What it’s like here? A funny story about Bev? Or do I just jump right into it and tell her she’s going to be a grandmother?
Before I could decide, her voicemail picked up.
Of course it did.
She was working.
Working to get by. Struggling to get by.
Killing herself to come home and be unhappy, eat, have a drink, and sleep until it was time to do it again.
My next call was going to be Connie and Jen. If I could get them both on the phone at the same time, I could rip the band-aid off in one shot.
Then again, for them, they’d probably just cheer. To them my pregnancy was going to be some kind of movie story for them. Pregnant by my rich boss. Meaning I had access to his money in some fashion.
I didn’t want that.
I didn’t want Cole’s money.
I didn’t even want Cole’s love.
This wasn’t how everything was supposed to be.
I lowered my head and felt the tears coming.
There was no use in fighting them back now.
I was in my bed, home, and this was the perfect place to cry.
Before a single tear could be shed, Bev opened the door.
“Oh, fuck, Bev, I need a break,” I said.
“Um… sorry to bother you…”
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Well, someone is at the door for you.”
“What? Who?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Want me to tell him to leave?”
“Him?” I asked.
I got out of bed and hurried by Bev.
The door was locked. That was Bev being cautious.
I twisted the deadbolt and opened the door.
Cole stared at me.
I curled my lip. “What the hell do you want?”
Chapter Twenty
Cole
I’m a father? I’m having a kid? There’s no way I can be having a kid. A kid with Maya? Are you fucking serious right now? This is some backwards bullshit in the universe. Or she’s faking it. She’s fucking with me. She’s testing me. I’m not sure why.
But what about that night in the cabin?
What about it?
Maya is on birth control, right?
How the hell am I supposed to know that for sure or not?
And what the hell was I doing just going at her like that, without protection for myself?
With so much at stake…
The thoughts refused to give up.
There was no calming my mind down after seeing that sticky note on the folder and then seeing the look in Maya’s eyes.
She was serious.
Very serious.
There was a baby inside her belly.
All those crazy things you’d see in a video happening… cells colliding and eggs and sperm and a little sac and a little tube looking thing from that sac to her somewhere…
“Well, are you going to answer me or what?”
Maya’s voice broke up my thoughts.
It had been a long day on my end.
For the obvious reasons.
“Hey,” I finally spoke.
“Hey?” Maya asked back. “That’s all you’ve got? After what you did?”
“And what did I do?”
“I told you I was pregnant and you left!” Maya yelled.
I looked around the hallway. “Can I come in?”
“For what?”
“We have to talk, Maya,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“You want to do this the hard way?” I asked. “I’ll get on the phone with the lawyers then…”
Maya tried slamming the door on me.
Which I deserved for that comment.
I put my hand out and stopped the door from closing.
“Fuck, Maya, I didn’t mean that,” I said.
“Yes, you did.”
“I just want to talk to you. Please.”
She stared at me.
I let a few seconds of silence tick away.
I leaned closer to her. “You left me a note that you’re pregnant. I’m trying to process it.”
“Join the club, Cole,” she said with her teeth gritted. “I’ve been fucking sick every morning. How do you think that feels?”
“Shit,” I said. “That’s why you missed work? It wasn’t a stomach bug?”
“Oh, there’s a bug in my stomach,” she said. “That bug is growing into a person. Your child, Cole.”
I took a deep breath.
I felt like I was going to pass out.
“Maya…”
She opened the door all the way again.
“Come on in, Cole.”
“What the hell is that smell?” I asked.
“That’s what everyone wants to hear when someone enters their home.”
“Sorry,” I said. “But… seriously…”
On my left, it looked like a normal apartment. A small apartment. A couch and love seat. A coffee table. A TV on the opposite wall. There was a sliding glass door that went out to a balcony.
But to my right…
There was a large desk, computer, some kind of big printer. And that’s where the smell was coming from.
Next to that was what I assumed was once the dining room table.
It was covered with t-shirts.
Some thrown randomly, along with some neatly stacked t-shirts that looked to be twenty high.
“What is this?” I asked.
“This is what my roommate does,” Maya said. “She makes shirts. She-”
“Well, look who it is.”
A woman jumped from the kitchen holding a coffee mug that read This Tastes Like Shit.
Her hair was up in a gigantic bun on the top of her head.
She stared at me like she hated me.
Which she probably did if Maya told her stories about me.
“It’
s the Cockhead himself,” she said.
I looked at Maya.
Her cheeks turned red as she shrugged her shoulders.
“It’s pronounced Cole,” I said.
“This is Bev,” Maya said.
“Beverly Bush to you,” Bev said to me. “And I’m not shaking your hand.”
“That’s fair,” I said.
“You know what you’ve done to my roommate?” Bev asked.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Maya said.
She grabbed my hand and pulled me down the hallway toward a bedroom.
It was quite a strange situation to be in.
My secretary pulling me into her bedroom.
My mind flashed with thoughts of Maya back at the cabin.
That was only supposed to be one night. She and I caught up in some drinking and a moment to break the tension between us.
I couldn’t help but look at her bed and picture her on the bed, naked, legs spread wide open, giving me another taste of that sweet honey…
“Shut the door,” she said to me. “And lock it.”
“This is fucking crazy, Maya,” I said.
“Do you really want to get into crazy?”
She faced me.
I looked at her stomach.
I pointed. “The smell in this place. Is that good for…”
She touched her stomach. “I don’t know. You care now?”
“Who said I didn’t care?”
“Your actions.”
I sucked in a breath. “What would you have done if you were me?”
“Did you really just ask that?” she asked. “Because you know what? I can’t walk away from it. And I have to stop saying it. This is not an it. This is a baby. Our baby, Cole. We made a baby.”
“How is that possible?”
“Again… did you really just ask that? Do you not remember the night you put your dick in me?”
I took another deep breath. “Look at this attitude. I’ve only seen this a few times, Maya.”
“This is not a joke to me.”
“Do you think it is to me? Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t on birth control or something?”
“It’s my job to do that?” Maya asked. “What am I supposed to do? Wear a fucking sign? Why didn’t you put on a condom?”
“Why didn’t you tell me to?”
“What…” Maya pointed to the door. “Just go. Leave. I don’t want to talk to you anymore, Cole.”
“You don’t get to do that.”
“Yes, I do,” Maya said. “I told you I was pregnant with your baby and you took off for hours. I had no idea what you were thinking or doing. Or what I was supposed to do. You know what I needed right then? A hug. You walked out. So now I’m kicking you out. I get the win here, Cole. So get the hell out of here.”
I wasn’t leaving.
I moved toward Maya and touched her arms.
She was holding herself together really well.
She was tougher than I ever gave her credit for.
But her eyes told the whole truth.
I hugged her.
She grabbed the back of my shirt.
“Maya… are you hungry?”
She looked up at me. “Actually, I’m starving.”
I opened the squeaky door to the pizza place and Maya laughed.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said.
I had ordered ahead.
Little Maria’s wasn’t the flashiest place in the city. It actually looked like a dump. The tables, the floors, the walls, the lighting… none of it had been updated in thirty years. It had that old pizzeria smell. Warm dough mixed with a hint of garlic and sweet sauce.
The sodas came in plastic cups that were meant to look like glass cups.
Again, they had to have been decades old.
Maya sat across from me in a booth that was once a bright, neon orange color, but was now a dull orange. There were drawings and writing on the booth and the table. Young couples carving their love for each other into the table. And plenty of those names scratched out and replaced with new lovers.
Not that I saw myself writing Maya loves Cole anytime soon here.
The pizza was served right away too, complete with paper plates.
Maya and I stared at each other as the pizza steam danced between us.
“Say it,” I said.
“You’re loaded,” she said. “And you offer to take me out for something to eat. And it’s a pizza place.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Did you expect a fancy dinner?”
“Maybe. You got me pregnant, Cole. The least you could do is spring for a lobster tail.”
I reached for the pizza and moved a slice to a plate for her. “This is soul food here, love. This will cure any bad thoughts and vibes. And I really don’t feel like dealing with pretentious douchebags at some fancy place.”
“Correction,” Maya said. “You don’t want anyone you know to see you with your secretary. Because then everyone will start to whisper, wondering if you’re fucking me.”
“Well, the evidence speaks for itself, right?” I asked.
Maya laughed. “Wow. So now it’s just a joke?”
“You’re laughing,” I said.
“Out of sadness,” she said.
“Maya… I’m sorry for what I did. What that reaction did to you. I just had a lot going through my head at once. I knew some of the stuff that I could have said would have only made things hurtful between us.”
“Like what? Blaming me? Yelling at me?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Trust me, I get it. What we did. And we did it… together…”
“Right,” she said. “I don’t even know what happened that night. I just…”
“We can’t go back to that night, can we?” I asked. “We can only move forward.”
I moved my right hand across the table and touched Maya’s hand.
We looked at each other.
She seemed calm. Finally.
We were out together, eating pizza, just two people… who made a baby.
That was maybe the easy part.
The hard part was that I was her boss.
She was my secretary.
I waited until Maya finished eating her pizza before I cleared my throat and folded my hands.
I had more to lose than Maya could ever understand.
“Maya,” I said. “There’s another reason I brought you here.”
“Great,” she said. “What’s the reason, Cole?”
“In simple terms… I have a list of demands.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Maya
My heart sank into my stomach and floated along the top of the warm and delicious pizza I just ate. Of course, I felt like throwing up the pizza. I wished I could have thrown up right on Cole. On his expensive shirt and pants.
The look in his eyes was far different than the look just a minute ago.
He knew how to change his tone when needed.
Hence the whole Elevator Guy versus Cockhead Cole.
With his hands folded and that asshole look on his face, I didn’t need to say out loud which version of Cole this was now.
I sipped what was left of my soda. It had mixed with the melting ice, so it didn’t taste very good.
Figures.
I put my cup on the table and sat back against the stiff booth.
“I need to know everything,” Cole said. “We have to figure this out beginning to end.”
“What do you want to know from me?” I asked. “We were at the cabin and you wanted to go fight Mr. Pickle. Remember that? You looked dead serious on that too, Cole. I chased you down to stop you. Next thing I knew…”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“I get that part,” he said. “I was there.”
“Yeah, you were,” I said. “I’m not sure what’s so confusing here. You put your dick in me and it went squirt-squirt-squirt and now I’m pregnant.”
“But… why?” Co
le asked.
“Why, what?”
Cole gritted his teeth for a second. “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t on birth control?”
“You already asked me that,” I said. “We both messed up, Cole. I should have told you to put a condom on and you should have asked me if I was on birth control. We messed up. Together. Last time I thought about it, we were caught up in a moment. I believe it was your tongue between my legs, Cole. Right or wrong?”
“This isn’t on me,” he said.
“So, we need to blame someone? Why? Wait a second…” I shook my head. I grabbed the edge of the booth and pulled myself out.
“Where are you going?” Cole asked.
“I’m leaving,” I said. “I know what this is.”
Cole shot out of the booth before I could get out and blocked my way.
“What do you think this is?” he asked, looking down at me with smoldering eyes.
“You think I did it on purpose,” I said. “You think I opened my legs and prayed for you to get me pregnant, right? You think I secretly hung upside down after we were done so your cum would linger around my eggs longer, right?”
Cole shook his head. “No. I didn’t think that at all.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
“Then don’t. But you’re not leaving until we’re done talking about this.”
“We’re not talking, Cole. You’re making demands of me.”
“That’s because I want to figure this all out. You’re… far along, right?”
“I don’t know what you consider far along to be,” I said.
“Have you gone to the doctor yet?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m in shock,” I said. “And I’m scared.”
Cole sat back down and I should have gotten up and walked away.
But I didn’t.
I needed him.
“We’re going to the doctor together,” he said. “I’ll make the appointment. Don’t worry about anything. It’ll be discreet.”
“Discreet?” I asked. “What the hell is this? Am I some kind of cheap whore to you?”
The young man behind the counter making pizza stopped and looked at us.
“He’s my boss and he got me pregnant!” I called out. “Want to know anything else?”