by London Casey
I nodded.
“I’m normally not one to get involved here,” Emily said, “but I hope you get hit by a car, Cole.”
“Shit, Em,” Liam said.
“She’s right,” I said.
“Of course I’m right,” Emily said.
“You made your secretary pretend…” Callie showed her teeth.
I turned my head, giving her my cheek.
Instead of slapping me, she punched me in the stomach.
Right where Lincoln had.
I coughed and leaned forward again.
I looked at Emily. “You next?”
“You’re not worth it, Cole,” she said. “You have no idea what it’s like to be a woman to begin with.”
“What if I tell you how much I love her,” I said. “Huh?”
“Eat shit, Cole,” Callie said.
“Hey, hey,” Jackson said. “Give him a second. He wanted to talk to us.”
“You’re all right to be pissed at me,” I said. “But this was what I wanted to avoid. The scrutiny on her. From the second I met her, I felt something, okay? I didn’t plan to sleep with her and mess up her life. Things just happened. Look at you, Emily. You and Liam. Were you two squeaky clean?”
“I will break your jaw, Cole,” Liam warned.
“It’s the truth,” I said. “Why can’t I have that truth too? I didn’t want Maya to be the secretary pregnant by her boss. She’s more than that. I wanted to finish this deal, cash out, and then spoil her and the baby.”
“Except you punched the cucumber guy,” Lincoln said.
“What?” Jackson asked. “You punched him?”
“I knocked him flat on his ass,” I said. “He told me I should have had Maya take care of the pregnancy when it first happened.”
I pushed from the brick wall.
Callie blocked my path. “You’re still an asshole.”
“She’d probably be better off without you,” Emily threw in.
I looked around at them all. “I guess I can always count on you to tell me the truth.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Lincoln said. “I don’t mind kicking your ass either.”
“I let you hit me,” I said.
“So what’s next, Cole?” Liam asked.
“I love her,” I said. “I want her. I want the baby. I want the family thing.”
“Then go get it,” Jackson said. “No matter what it takes.”
“Will you still hate me, Callie?” I asked.
“Probably,” she said.
I looked at Emily. “You?”
“I’ll tell Maya to leave you every chance I get,” she said.
I respected their hatred for me.
Before I could think of my next step, my phone started to ring.
It was some random number.
My gut told me to answer it.
My worst fear was something happening to Maya and the baby.
My second worst fear?
The call that came through.
It was about my brother.
Chapter Forty-Three
Maya
I zipped up the last bag and frowned.
There were no more tears allowed.
I had spent too much time crying.
It wasn’t worth it. And it wasn’t good for the baby.
I read online that your emotions could transfer into the baby’s emotions and that could set them up for life.
Happiness. Sadness. Everything in between.
I took a deep breath and looked around the bedroom.
“You don’t have to do this, Maya,” Bev said from behind me.
“Yes, I do.”
“No. I’ll move all my stuff out of the apartment.”
I looked back at her and smiled. “No.”
“I know the ink smells bad. And I know it’s annoying.”
“Bev, it’s fine. I have to get out of here. I have to regroup. Start over. Do something different.”
“I’m going to miss you.”
“You can visit any time,” I said. “And I’ll be back here soon enough too. I love this city.”
“I made us shirts…”
“Of course you did.”
I grabbed my two bags and basically dragged them across the floor through the apartment.
There was an SUV waiting outside for me.
Already full of my stuff.
Bev tossed me a shirt.
Then she held one up to show me what it read.
Roommate.
I looked down at my shirt and I started to laugh.
Mine read Knocked Up Roommate.
Tears filled my eyes as I laughed.
I hugged Bev and felt my heart aching.
For a lot of reasons.
Bev grabbed my other two bags for me, and I carried the shirt down to the SUV.
I wiped the corners of my eyes and smiled as I got into the SUV.
It was all fake.
This was my worst fear.
The worst thing that could ever happen to me…
I had to move back to my old hometown.
The closer I got to my mother’s house, the sicker I felt.
I just pictured the town sucking people in and keeping them there.
There was never an escape plan.
At least not until I made one.
I woke up one day and left.
I moved to the city and figured it out day by day.
That had been the plan, and it worked.
Until I met Cole.
The SUV stopped outside my mother’s house.
The front door opened, then my mother stepped outside.
I let out a deep breath and got out of the SUV.
The driver opened the back and started to unload my bags for me.
I ran up the sidewalk, then up the old porch steps and hugged my mother.
“Hey, baby,” she whispered to me.
I fought the urge to cry.
It also helped that the baby kicked, making my mother shriek with happiness.
She broke the hug and put her hands to my stomach.
“She kicked,” Mom said.
“She?” I asked.
“Or he. You still don’t know?”
“No,” I said.
“You know, that made things tough here,” Mom said.
“What do you mean?”
The front door opened again and both Connie and Jen came rushing out, waving their hands, calling my name.
“Whoa,” Connie said. “You got huge.”
“Don’t tell a pregnant woman that,” Jen snapped.
“You said it to me,” Connie said.
“Well, you were huge,” Jen said. “Maya is pleasantly plump.”
“Pleasantly plump?” Connie asked. “That’s more offensive than huge. Right, Maya?”
“You’re both bitches for pointing out the obvious,” I said.
“You look beautiful,” Mom said. “Stunning. Pregnant and gorgeous.”
“I feel like a whale,” I said.
“Just wait until the very end of it all,” Jen said. “You’re not even close yet.”
“Well that’s comforting,” I said.
“Why don’t you two go get her bags and I’ll get her some hot tea,” Mom said.
I loved my mother’s tone too.
It wasn’t so much a suggestion but an order.
Connie and Jen listened too.
I followed Mom into the house and when I looked around, I fought back all those sad feelings about the house and the town.
Yeah, things were far from perfect.
But at least things were real.
I pointed to the cabinet I had fixed the last time I was there.
“Still works?” I asked.
“Smooth like butter,” Mom said. “Honey? Milk? Sugar?”
“I don’t need hot tea, Mom,” I said. “I need a drink.”
She gasped. “Don’t you dare joke about that. Alcohol and pregnancy do not mix.”
“I
know,” I said. “Sorry.”
Mom looked at me and her mouth started to open when Connie and Jen came through the front door.
“How many bags do you have?” Connie yelled.
“A lot,” I said.
“Spoiled bitch,” Jen said.
“Take them up to the spare bedroom,” Mom said.
“Spare bedroom?” I asked. “I’m banished from my own room?”
“Kind of,” Mom said. “I want to show you something.”
She hurried toward me and grabbed my hand.
At the front door she looked outside. “How many bags do you have?”
“A few…”
She smiled. “I’ll be right back then.”
I stood there and watched as she, Connie, and Jen brought the rest of my stuff inside.
Once everything was upstairs, Mom took my hand again and told me to follow her.
All of us crammed up the narrow steps of her house.
The smell of the house would forever be with me.
Dust. Old wood. A very faint hint of cheap cleaning products.
But it was home.
At the top landing, Mom pointed to my old bedroom.
“For you,” Connie said. “We’re so excited.”
“Excited?” I asked.
Jen opened the door.
I looked into my old room and I quickly covered my mouth.
They had turned it into a small nursery.
An old, wooden crib against the wall.
A rocking chair in one corner.
A dresser in the other.
There was a yellow blanket draped over the crib.
And an elephant lamp on the dresser.
Above the crib, there were letters hanging.
BABY
“Since you don’t know what you’re having, we stuck with yellow for now,” Connie said.
“You did this for me?” I asked.
“Of course,” Jen said. “The baby needs a room.”
I looked at my mother.
She smiled with glossy eyes.
I hated this house and this town so much… but it was where I ran to when I needed somewhere to be the most.
I took a breath and fanned my cheeks.
“I don’t want to cry here,” I said.
“I do,” Connie said. “I wish I was pregnant again.”
I coughed. “What?”
“Bitch, if you get pregnant again, I will tie your tubes with my bare hands,” Jen said.
Of all people, Mom was the one who laughed first.
Then we all started to laugh.
As we all cried too.
I got as settled as I possibly could, letting day turn into night.
Mom ordered pizza before leaving for a late-night shift at the diner.
It had the eerie feeling of high school since Connie and Jen were still hanging around.
Just that I was the one pregnant now.
I sat on the back steps to the old house and kept looking around, wondering what I was supposed to do next. I couldn’t just live with and mooch off my mother. Not at my age. I could not end up even more of a cliché than I already was.
But what was I going to do?
I was pregnant.
Who was going to hire a pregnant woman?
And in this town… I would have to explain to everyone I saw about the baby. They’d recognize me. They’d be shocked. They’d wonder who in town got me pregnant.
It honestly would have been easier to just let everyone talk about what really happened.
Or…
Cole is rich.
I shut my eyes and hated myself.
I didn’t need him or his money.
Connie and Jen joined me on the steps.
“Just like old times,” Connie said.
“Except we need vodka and cigarettes,” Jen said.
“I can arrange for both,” Connie said, raising her hand.
“And I can sit here and do nothing fun,” I said.
“You’re a mess, Maya,” Jen said.
“What gives it away? The bags in the spare bedroom? Or the baby belly?”
“You’re thinking too much into it,” Connie said.
“What?”
“This town. This house. Your mother. Your life.”
“We know how you are,” Jen said. “You dreamed of leaving here. You hated it here.”
“Don’t you?” I asked.
“This is where we live,” Connie said. “Who cares? Are you really obsessed with being rich? Or famous? Is it really worth your sanity?”
I lowered my head.
Jen put her arm around me. “There’s plenty here. It’s a good little town. But you have to be happy. That comes down to you.”
“I know,” I said.
“What are you afraid of here?” Connie asked.
Becoming you two.
I shook my head.
“She thinks we’re miserable, Connie,” Jen said.
“Of course we are,” Connie said. “Who isn’t?” She smiled and slapped my leg.
“It’s not that,” I said. “I just wanted to do something. I wanted to come back and save everyone.”
“Your mother?” Connie asked.
“Of course.”
“She didn’t ask for that,” Jen said. “And we don’t need to be saved either. This is life, Maya. There’s good and bad mixed together. When I call and vent, it’s not asking for help. It’s talking to my best friends.”
“Same here,” Connie said. “And you did something amazing. You made a life. Is the timing right? No. It’s a mess. Of course it is.”
“I miss him,” I said. “And I love him.”
“Then let it work itself out,” Jen said. “You’re here now. Just be here.”
“Plus, Cole is going to be in your life no matter what,” Connie said. “And what’s the worst that happens? He turns into an asshole? Then you attack. We can show you how.”
“I can make any man cry,” Jen said. “And in your case, your man has money. I’ll make him cry and take his money.”
Jen rubbed her hands together and laughed like an evil person in a movie.
That made me laugh.
“Come on,” Connie said, hitting my leg again. “We can skip the vodka and cigarettes tonight. Let’s make hot chocolate and look up people we graduated with online and make fun of them.”
“Oh, I’m in!” Jen yelled.
Connie helped me to my feet and I went inside the house.
I took a deep, shaky breath.
This was home.
But I still missed Cole.
Chapter Forty-Four
Cole
I found Cody through a cop friend.
He was strung out, sleeping on a park bench.
When I saw him, it was heartbreaking and cliché.
My brother had newspapers on him as a blanket.
I made sure everything was okay with him legally before I scooped him up and carried him to the SUV I had arrived in.
I sat in the backseat of the SUV and told the driver to take me to my apartment first.
With all the things I couldn’t do for Cody, the one thing I could do was get him back to my place and get him cleaned up.
When I dropped his ass into the shower and turned on the water, he started to perk up.
He sat on the floor of the shower and stared at me.
“How bad?” I asked him.
“Bad.”
“Do you regret anything you did?”
“All of it,” Cody said.
“Did you get any money from it?”
“No. They fucked me. They said they would pay me but never did.”
“Yeah, you never want to talk before getting the cash. Lesson learned. Next time you want to blow up my life, you’ll be better prepared.”
“Cole…”
I grabbed a bottle of body wash and tossed it at Cody. “You have five minutes. I’ll put some clothes out. Then you’re going to get help.”
&nbs
p; I shut the shower door and exited the bedroom.
About an hour after that, I walked Cody into a nice rehab center that was outside the city. There were a few people waiting for us. Two women and one man.
Cody looked and smelled clean.
He had nothing else with him.
Nothing to show for his life.
I told him I would make arrangements to send him anything he needed. Clothes and whatnot. And I made it clear that if he tried to leave the center before he was allowed, I’d have him taken right to a hospital. Or jail.
This was the end of the line for Cody.
And myself in a sense.
I pictured Cody as a little kid.
Sitting on the sidewalk, waiting to get picked up by our father. Those painful memories acting as the foundation for who he was now.
Maya had been right.
I had been enabling it for years.
Cody knew no matter what happened, he could call me and I would bail him out.
This was my last bailout for him.
I grabbed my brother by the back of his neck and pulled his forehead to mine.
We didn’t speak a word to each other.
I nodded.
He nodded back.
And then he walked away.
He was off to fight some really bad demons.
Not that I was much better.
I had plenty of my own to face too.
The deal with Mr. Pickle completely fell through.
It rippled through the business world, with the both of us having two different sides to the story. I kept my side of the story simple. The company I was running was worth too much to be dicked around with. Mr. Pickle was trying to look good and when it came time to sign, he decided personal differences were worth more than the potential of the company itself.
I was in hot water though.
An envelope sat on my desk and I needed to open it.
Today.
Instead of opening it, I paced between my office and what used to be Maya’s.
Some IT guy was at her desk, going through her computer and files, making sure everything was secure before erasing everything to make way for a new secretary.
Each time the guy looked at me, he raised his eyebrows and asked if everything was okay.
Nothing was okay.
I missed Maya.
I missed her pregnant stomach.
I missed her body before she was pregnant.
I missed the high-neck shirts.