His Perfect BabyA Miracle Baby Romance

by B. B. Hamel

  I know I can’t. That’d be suicide. The Seller family would hang me somehow. Probably find some new murder to pin on me. I’m desperate to see her, to see him, to learn his name, to hear his voice, hear his laugh. I want to know what nicknames she uses for him, what stories she reads, his favorite shows and movies.

  Banging on my passenger side window yanks me from my thoughts. “Hey, asshole.”

  I look over and freeze. I’d never forget that face, those dark eyes, that square jaw. Avery’s asshole older brother. He’s five years older now, but he’s still the same cocky bastard.

  I roll down the window slowly. “Hey, Thomas.”

  “The fuck you doing here?”

  I sigh. He’s still a fucking dick the way the son of a rich man can be. He’s entitled, and because he thinks he owns the world, he sees everyone as his plaything. He’s not above torturing people, bullying them, drinking too much, getting in fights. And he gets away with it, all because of his father. I hated him when I was with Avery, and he hated me too. I don’t know who disliked me more, him or his father.

  “I’m visiting home,” I say.

  He spits on the ground. “I heard they let you out.”

  “That’s what they do when you’re innocent.”

  He stares at me a second. “Yeah, well. You don’t belong here.”

  I look around. “Don’t see any signs.”

  “Seriously, Luke. We don’t want you around here.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Says who?”

  “Says me.” He stares back at me.

  “Get off my truck, Thomas.”

  “Get away from my house. And don’t come back around here, or you’ll find trouble.”

  “Yeah? What are you gonna do, use your daddy’s money to hire someone to beat me up?”

  He grins a wicked, pug-like grin. “I’d gladly do it myself for free.”

  I can feel the tension and anger in the air. I shouldn’t be giving in to him like this. He wants me to lose it, to freak out and fight him, that way it’d be easy to keep me far away from Avery. I know it’s a mistake to get suckered in like this, but I can’t help myself.

  I turn to open the door. I’m going to stomp this fucking rich cunt into the ground and piss on his bones. I feel all the anger I have built up inside of me, the resentment and the hate for a town that ripped me to pieces, threw me in prison, and left me to rot. I’m so angry for the way people look at me, think about me, all because of something I didn’t do.

  As I climb out of the truck and look up toward the house, all that anger suddenly goes away.

  She gives me a little half smile and a wave. It’s that smile, so familiar it hurts. It breaks me right then and there.

  Avery, the girl I love more than anything. She looks like herself, which means she looks fucking beautiful. She let her hair grow long, which I like. It’s slightly red, a little auburn. She’s got her deep blue eyes, full breasts, perfect hips. She’s wearing a t-shirt and jean shorts, one arm across her chest, holding her opposite elbow.

  “Go back inside,” Thomas says, ruining the moment. He comes around the front of my truck, still looking for a fight.

  But I’m not interested. I step toward Avery. “Hey,” I say, the word so inadequate to express all my anger, resentment, and love.

  “Took you long enough,” she says back, a smile creeping up onto her lips.

  I take another step toward her, but something blindsides me, and I stumble into the street.

  4

  Avery

  “Stop it!” I scream, running out into the road.

  Thomas is on top of Luke after tackling him to the ground out of nowhere. “Stay the fuck away,” he yells, trying to punch Luke in the face, raining down blows.

  “Stop!” I scream again, grabbing Thomas’s shoulder. He shrugs me off, but it’s enough to give Luke enough room to roll to the side and shrug Thomas off. Luke scrambles away as Thomas gets to his feet and the two men face off at each other.

  Luke’s eyes are burning with a hate I’ve never seen before in my life. It actually scares me a little bit, and I think that if I don’t do something, he’s going to kill Thomas.

  “Stop!” I yell again. “Enough, Thomas. You asshole, stop!”

  I get between the two men. The hate in Luke’s eyes softens a little bit, but I can still feel the anger radiating off him.

  “I warned that fucking scumbag,” Thomas shouts. “I told him to stay away.”

  “Enough,” I say to him. “You attacked him like a psycho for no reason.” I walk up to Thomas and push him, hands on his chest. He steps back, eyes still on Luke. “Enough, Thomas, go inside.”

  “Not until he leaves.”

  “Thomas, go the fuck inside, or I’ll scream. You want that? Make the neighbors all come outside?”

  He finally looks at me. I can see the indecision in his eyes and the violent desire to still go over Luke. Finally, he steps back toward the house again.

  “This isn’t over,” he says to Luke before turning and stalking off. He goes inside, slamming the door shut behind him.

  I turn back to Luke, heart hammering. “Are you okay?” I ask him.

  He nods. “Fine,” he says.

  His lip is bleeding a little bit. I walk up to him and go to wipe it off, but he flinches away. That breaks my heart more than anything else. He’s never flinched away from my touch before.

  But I guess he’s not the same guy that left me. I could see the differences on TV, but in person, it’s starker. He’s more muscular, leaner, tougher. His nose is slightly crooked now that I’m close enough to look hard, like it was broken and improperly set. His eyes are harder than I thought they’d be, and there’s no smile on his face, like he used to have every time I saw him.

  I drop my hand. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know he’d do that.”

  “I’m the sorry one.” He spits blood onto the ground. “I shouldn’t have come.”

  I bite my lip and watch as he walks back to his truck. It’s the same truck he obsessed about five years ago, the truck that was his alibi. The truck that we used to spend so much time in together, where he’d fuck me deep and slow, whisper how much he wanted me in my ear, make me come like I’ve never come before or since. Memories spill out of me when I watch him walking toward that truck.

  “Wait,” I say. “Hold on.”

  He pauses at the driver’s side door. “Yeah?”

  “Do you want to, uh, go for a walk?”

  He watches me for a second and I think he’s going to leave. Instead, he shrugs. “Sure, whatever.”

  “Come on.”

  We start down the sidewalk together, and the weight of everything that’s happened is heavy between us. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye and I hate this, I hate how weird it is. Because even though he’s different in a lot of ways, he’s still Luke. I’ve been picturing this moment for so long, five long years, picturing how things would be if he came back home.

  It’s nothing like I imagined.

  “How are things?” he finally asks, breaking the icy silence.

  “Okay, I guess,” I say.

  “Good.” He looks away, at the houses. “Feels weird, being back here.”

  “Yeah?” I smile a little. “We used to do this a lot, remember?”

  “I remember,” he says softly.

  We cut down a little dirt path between two houses, through a little group of trees, and come up to the creek. We walked this path a hundred times together back then. It feels so familiar, though the icy discomfort is still there. We’re moving on autopilot, and I see a little smile crack along his lips when we step up to the bank of the creek.

  “Not much changes,” he says, picking up a rock. “Thought maybe this would be gone.”

  “Why?” I ask him, smiling.

  He shrugs, tossing the rock into the water. “Global warming or whatever.” He grins at me and I laugh at his joke.

  “A lot hasn’t changed since you left.”


  “Yeah, I know.” He looks back at the water. “Like you.”

  My heart starts beating faster. “I’ve changed.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but not really.” He looks back at me with those eyes, and it strikes me all over again how different he seems, and yet the same. I must look that exact way to him.

  “You haven’t changed either,” I say.

  “Yes, I have. Got a little bigger. Seen some things.” He shrugs. “That’s what happens.”

  I pause, not sure how to answer. “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Your brother isn’t.”

  I smile. “Yeah, well, he never liked you.”

  “Dad too, I bet he’s pissed.”

  “Told me not to see you,” I say. We start walking again along the path that snakes around the creek. “Threatened to kick me out.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Thomas is gonna tell him, but whatever. I’ll deal with it.”

  “I don’t want to cause you trouble,” he says. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Why are you here?” I ask him softly.

  He doesn’t answer right away. I can see him working something out in his mind. Finally, he just shrugs a little. “Not sure, honestly. I told myself I wouldn’t…” He trails off.

  “Wouldn’t what?”

  “See you.” He stops walking and turns toward me.

  I face him, heart hammering, both afraid and excited. I want him so badly it hurts, want to kiss him and touch him, but he’s so far away. Five years is sitting between us, and everything that’s happened inside of it.

  “Why didn’t you write to me?” he asks, his face hard. “Why haven’t you sent me a picture of my son?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say to him. “I just couldn’t.”

  “What’s his name?”

  I hesitate. “Max,” I say.

  He nods a little. “Good name.”

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  He stares at me and I can see all the hurt and pain I’ve caused him. I wish I could tell him everything, but I’m afraid of how he’ll react, what he’ll do.

  “Never answered my calls. Never wrote,” he says softly. “Just disappeared. Left me there.”

  “Luke,” I say, but my phone starts ringing. “Shit.” I pull it out of my pocket and my father’s name shows up on the screen.

  He looks down at it. “Better answer,” he says. “Can’t ignore Daddy when he calls.”

  “Luke,” I say again, but he’s already walking away.

  I stand there watching him, my phone ringing insistently in my hand. I want to go after him, ignore the call, explain everything. But right now, I can’t afford to get kicked out of my house. I have to think about Max above all else, and Max needs this.

  “Fuck,” I say softly to myself, and I answer the phone. Luke keeps walking, disappearing up ahead, around the bend.

  “Hello?”

  “Come home,” my father says. “Right now.”

  “Dad, wait—“

  “Come home,” he says again. “Thomas called. I’ll be there soon.”

  “Dad, he just—“

  “Come home right now.” He hangs up.

  I stare at my phone, shake my head, and slip it into my pocket. Dad’s going to be angry, but I think he’ll forgive me. Thomas attacking Luke is going to take a lot of the pressure off.

  I stare up ahead at where Luke just disappeared. I want to run after him but I know I can’t. I have to go back.

  But this isn’t over. I can’t leave things hanging like this. The man I love is still in there, buried under all that anger and hate, and I have to find him again. I’m going to keep trying, because I’ve never given up, not after all these years.

  I turn away and head home, more determined than ever.

  5

  Luke

  The radio blares some generic rock song but I’m not listening to anything around me.

  I’m losing myself in my hands. In my work, specifically. I’ve always been able to do this with cars, for some reason they’ve always made sense to me. I can fix just about anything, mostly because I’ve spent so much time trying to. I’m lucky that I have this job where I can clock in and lose myself for a few hours.

  But of course it’s not that easy. The real world always seeps in through the cracks, and I can’t stop myself from looking at it.

  Avery is there in everything I do. I keep seeing her face, her beautiful fucking face. It’s exactly the same, except it’s also different. Her hair’s changed, a little longer than I remember. But she’s also grown up, somehow gotten more gorgeous, more mature. There are more layers there, more defenses, although I know I have plenty of those, too.

  My lip aches a little from where her brother fucking sucker punched me when I was on the ground. I wanted to kill him. I think I would have too if Avery weren’t there. I would have gone after that bastard and ripped him apart, because he represents everything I hate about this place.

  All the fucking prejudice. They let me hang for a crime I didn’t commit, rushed me through a trial. A jury of my peers, what a fucking joke. Those people all saw my last name and they knew what they were going to do. The trial lasted barely two days, and the conviction came back within an hour of them deliberating. They sent my ass to jail all because my family is supposedly trash.

  But they didn’t know me. All they see are names and their assumptions and prejudices do the rest.

  That’s how Thomas and his fucking friends work too. They hate anyone that doesn’t have money like he does. Thomas loves lording that shit around town, a place where most folks don’t have much. Thomas has a lot, and he’s not ashamed to show it off, though he’s never worked a day in his life to get it. He’s a spoiled rich man’s son, stupid and ugly, and I wish I could have snapped his little neck.

  But I can’t let myself give in to that. I hand-tighten a lug nut on a tire, tensing and relaxing, taking a deep breath.

  I have to be better than them. I can’t go around fighting everyone, hating them, trying to kill my past. What’s done is done, although the real murderer is still out there. I’m going to find him and I’m going to figure out who set me up, and nobody’s going to stop me.

  I finish up this car and lower it down. When the tires hit the floor of the garage, I finish lightening it up. When I’m done, I hear a noise and look up.

  Thomas Seller is standing in the open door. Sunlight spills down around him. I squint a bit and step toward him, wrench in my fist.

  “What do you want?” I ask him.

  He holds up his hands. “I’m not here for that.”

  I glance down, following his gaze. I relax my grip on the wrench and put it down on a tool bench. “What do you want?” I ask him again.

  “My father sent me here.” He crosses his arms. “Told me to come apologize.”

  “Fine,” I say. “Apologize.”

  He grins at me. “Sorry.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  That just makes him smile more. “He told me to tell you another thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t come near us again. He says he’ll make sure you go to prison again and you fucking stay there this time.”

  I narrow my eyes and start walking toward him. “You threatening me?” I ask.

  “Just telling you what I came here to say.”

  “Get the fuck out of here. If you come around here again, I won’t put the wrench down.”

  “Fine,” he says. “Same goes for you. Come around Avery again and there’ll be problems.”

  Thomas grins and walks off. I follow him a bit and watch as he gets into his fancy foreign car, driving off way too fast.

  I shake my head and sigh. I glance to my right and Uncle Nick’s standing in the doorway of the office, frowning.

  “What’d he want?” he asks me.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  He stares at me for a second and shakes his head. “Stay out of troubl
e.”

  “Always do.”

  He sighs and walks back inside. I turn and go back into the garage, and as I pick up the wrench, two thoughts hit me simultaneously.

  First, I can’t help but notice what Thomas said. He told me his father will make sure I go to prison and I stay there this time, as if he has the ability to do something like that. Robert Seller has been on the top of my list of suspects since the beginning, but that comment just solidified my suspicion.

  And the second thought is stupid and dangerous, but I can’t help it. I go grab my phone from my locker and I pull up my contacts. I type up a text and pray that she hasn’t changed her number.

  “Meet me tonight at the League.” I hit send and wait.

  She answers almost right away. “What time?”

  I smile to myself. Of course Avery hasn’t changed her number after all these years. “Ten if you can.”

  “Max goes to bed early, so I’ll be there.”

  I put my phone back into my locker and turn toward the garage.

  I shouldn’t be trying to see her like this. I know I’m just doing it out of anger and spite. I want to piss Thomas off, make her father angry, fuck with all the bastards that fucked with me.

  But really, I know that’s just an excuse. I came back to Coldwyn for two real reasons and nothing else: to see Avery again, and to get my son. Finding out who framed me, who set me up, that’s all just an excuse. I could do that from a town over if I wanted.

  I’m here for Avery and my child. Always been the case. And after seeing her, I know I have to do it. I don’t have any other choice, like it’s a magnet pulling me toward her. I can’t turn away. Fuck, I don’t want to turn away.

  I’m back to claim what’s mine and I’m not stopping for anything.

  6

  Avery

  I sit in my car with the engine still running, staring at the cheap stucco façade of the League. Part of me wants to turn the car around and head back home, back to where it’s safe and easy, but I know that’s just an illusion.

  There’s nothing safe about that house.