“Not now. If you really want to be involved, then you can be. But we need to keep this on the down low until I figure out what I’m going to tell Lauren. Is that okay with you?”
“Are you giving me a choice or is that just how it’s going to be?”
April’s eyes met mine and she let out a small laugh. “It’s how it’s going to be.”
“Then I’ll live with it. As long as you agree to answer my calls and texts when I harass you about how you’re doing.”
She rolled her eyes, but there wasn’t any malice behind them. “I suppose I can accept those terms.”
“Good,” I said as I pulled her back to me and smiled. “Because I’m not giving you a choice on that. Just remember that if you ignore me… I know where you live.”
April laughed loudly, but the sound was cut off when I kissed her again.
This time, I let out some of the aggressive need I’d been harboring for her during the past five weeks and before I even realized it, I was pushing her back to the bed and crawling between her legs.
Which was, of course, when the hotel phone rang.
With a pained groan, I let April up so she could scramble over and lift the receiver. I listened to her quiet ‘yes, thank you’ and instinctively knew what was about to happen.
Not yet. Please, not yet.
“The car is downstairs, I have to go.”
Fuck.
“Let me know when you land, all right?” I asked, backing myself off the bed and moving to give her the tight hug I wanted to do last time we parted. After I felt her nod, I bent down to press a kiss to the top of her head.
“And for fuck’s sake, April. Promise me that if you need anything—whether it’s money or someone to bring you some goddamn doughnuts—that you’ll call me. I’ll be on the next flight out.”
April giggled a little and nodded again. When she craned her neck back to look up at me, her eyes were lit up with happiness and it made my stomach tighten.
“I promise.”
“Good girl.”
She shivered at the words as I let her go. I offered to carry her bag down but she declined, asking me to stay behind for a few minutes so we wouldn’t be spotted leaving together.
So I stood outside the elevator and stared hard at the girl I was in love with as the doors slid shut.
The moment she was out of my sight, all I could think about was when I’d get to see her again.
31
April
A short week later and I was slowly walking out of the hospital, mesmerized by the picture I had been given after my first ultrasound.
It was only a tiny embryo at this point—seven weeks according to the technician—but this picture made it feel all the more real.
I was really pregnant.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and I cursed under my breath.
Yes, I was really pregnant and I was also really annoyed at the father who had been texting me nearly non-stop since I’d delivered the news.
I had to admit that I was grateful he kept it to a minimum when he knew I was working, but today had been an entirely new level of harassment.
If it wasn’t questions to ask the doctor, it was questions for me. After those came sweet words of encouragement, then the threats to make good on his promise once he realized I was ignoring him.
But now that the appointment was over, I planned to go home and take a long shower before curling up and calling him to share everything I learned. During the cab ride back to my apartment, I sent a silent thank-you to Lauren for so easily agreeing to give me the day off for ‘personal reasons’ after I ran myself ragged for her during the first four days of the week.
The luxurious thoughts of what I would do with the rest of my long weekend were abruptly cut short when the cab driver pulled up to my apartment building and I saw a hooded figure sitting on my stoop.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered as I dug into my purse for money to pay the driver with.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, I’m sorry! Not you. Sorry,” I apologized again, telling him to keep the change as I hurriedly exited the cab.
When the hooded figure tilted his head up, my frown deepened as his grin widened. Jared stood up, which was when I noticed the duffel bag behind him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded. “Why aren’t you at practice right now?”
“I begged for the day off so I could be here with you,” he said with a shrug. “Surprise?”
“Yeah, it really is. You couldn’t give me some kind of warning?”
Jared cocked an eyebrow. “Why? You hiding a guy up in your apartment? Maybe another one of your fantasy football dream team?”
My eyes rolled and I stepped forward to slap him on the chest. He chuckled and gripped my hand, interlocking our fingers together.
That’s when I remembered we were standing outside my apartment on a semi-crowded street. Jared was wearing a hoodie in an attempt to be less recognizable, but with the warm weather, it only made him stand out more.
“Let’s go upstairs so I can yell at you in privacy.”
“Oh joy,” he dryly said before he bent down to pick up his bag. “After you.”
The ride up to my floor was silent, but I could feel him glancing at me and shooting me little grins. I was torn between the desire to strangle him for just showing up like this and kissing him for it, but those conflicting feelings disappeared when he closed the door behind us and wrapped me in a tight hug.
“How’d it go? What’d the doctor say?”
“Seven weeks,” I mumbled against his chest as I strained to look up at him. “I have a picture.”
Jared’s excitement was obvious, but he still hesitated to let me go. I plopped my purse down and dug through it, producing the photo with an exaggerated, “Ta-Da!”
Jared frowned and cocked his head. “I don’t know what the hell I’m looking at.”
“That’s because it’s an embryo. The baby will be far more recognizable at sixteen weeks and they said they should be able to tell me the sex then.”
Jared gently pried the picture from my hand and traced a fingertip over the photo, his eyebrows still tightly drawn together as he continued to try to figure out what he was seeing.
“What do you want?”
“I’m sorry?”
“A boy or a girl?”
When I looked up from his fingers, I realized he had given up on the picture in order to search my face. A quiet moment passed between us before I finally shrugged.
“Honestly? I hadn’t even thought about it. I guess I’d be fine with either.”
He gave me a half-nod, his eyes moving down to the picture again.
“Same here.”
“Really?” I asked, a hint of disbelief tinting my words. “So you aren’t one of those men who is just desperate for a boy to carry on the family name or whatever?”
Jared looked up and the familiar cocky smirk appeared on his face.
“I didn’t say that I don’t want a boy. But if this one is a girl, we could always try again.”
My jaw dropped in horror.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I practically shrieked.
Jared laughed at my reaction, shaking his head as he tried and failed to hold it together. I was beginning to shake from my anger, but something softened in me when he managed to get himself mostly under control and looked up at me with his eyes alight with happiness.
“Only time will tell, princess.”
A light bulb went off in my head.
“You know, if this is a little girl, she would be the princess here. I remember my dad calling me that when I was a kid.”
“Then I guess I’d have to start calling you my queen,” he said with a sigh of fake annoyance. “You feel free to call me Your Majesty.”
“Oh, I’ll call you something,” I muttered, shaking my head as I moved to plop on the couch and take the shoes off my aching feet.
Jared watched me with f
ocused eyes, immediately moving to my side after I stifled a yawn and he asked, “You tired?”
“Long morning. Long week.”
“Let’s get you to bed.”
I tried to resist as he pulled me to my feet, but I really didn’t have the energy. Once in my bedroom, he began to strip off my clothes and I thought to ask, “Are you even tired?”
“No, but I’ll lie down with you until you fall asleep and I’ll wake you up in an hour or so. Sound good?”
“Sounds great,” I agreed with a sigh, rolling some of the tension out of my shoulders once I was free from my bra.
When I opened my eyes, Jared was staring down at my tits with a dark look of lust, but he quickly shook himself out of it. My body had already begun to respond to his closeness and look of desire, which made it extremely disappointing when he abruptly turned away and reached for a blanket to cover me with.
When he saw the way my face fell, he grinned and whispered, “Don’t worry. We’ll get to that later.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. Now get your ass in bed.”
“Yes, sir,” I barked back, giggling at the sound of his groan as I crawled into bed on my hands and knees.
Tired or not, teasing Jared was rapidly becoming a favorite hobby of mine.
32
Jared
“It’s not nice to tease,” I pointed out as I slid into bed beside her and pulled her to my chest. “I’ll remember that later.”
“I look forward to it,” April said, the words trailing off into a long yawn. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just get some rest for now. We have plenty of time for me to fuck you all over this apartment.”
“Mmm,” she hummed, her eyes drooping shut as she pressed her face closer to my chest. When she spoke again, her words were slowly drawled and husky from her tiredness. “And without condoms.”
Between her tone and the words themselves, it was like a bolt of lightning went rippling through my entire body before centering on my cock. I huffed and twisted to face her, ignoring her groan of protest in favor of grinding my lower body against hers.
“Why’d you have to say that? Fucking hell.”
April cracked an eye open and snorted. “What? Like you hadn’t thought about it.”
In all honesty, I hadn’t. I had no idea why the thought didn’t cross my mind on the flight here, but I imagined it was because I had been solely focusing on the fact that I was missing April’s first doctor’s appointment while carrying my baby.
I knew I couldn’t go with her without the risk of being seen, but it still was something I had wanted to do. So I settled for being here afterward.
“You’re tired,” I choked out as I forced myself to ignore the needs of my cock. “If you promise to make it up to me later, I’ll let you off the hook this one time.”
“My hero,” she mockingly said, making me chuckle.
But she didn’t argue and pretty soon, I felt her beginning to relax again. Before she fell asleep, I quietly said, “April?”
“Hmm?”
“I know I said we’d keep this on the down low, but I’d really like to tell my mom.”
She was quiet for a long while and I feared she had fallen asleep, but she finally asked, “Why?”
“She’ll be excited. She always gives me crap about giving her a grandchild and I can assure you that she’ll keep it to herself once I explain why.”
“I… I guess that’ll be fine.”
“Have you told your parents yet?” I asked, frowning when she hid her face from me.
“No. They were so excited about my job becoming paid and not having to support me anymore that I’m terrified about how they’re going to react.”
I didn’t know what, if anything, I could say in response to that, so I settled for soothingly stroking her hair. Once her breathing evened out and a light snore started, I eased my way out of bed and into the hallway. I quietly pulled the door shut behind me before going back into the living room and sitting down on the couch to further inspect the baby picture.
With my free hand, I pulled the cell phone out of my pocket and snapped a picture of the picture. I sighed heavily as I toyed with the million different ways I could think of to do this, but I ultimately went with my gut instinct and opened up a new text box.
Hey mom.
If she wasn’t at her phone and wound up checking it later on to see this picture randomly—I’d probably be in for quite an ass-kicking next time I saw her. So I placed the photo back into April’s purse while I waited for a response.
After twenty minutes of staring off into space, my phone finally vibrated.
Hi, sweetheart!
Where have you been? I fired back, traces of nervousness starting to make themselves known in my stomach now that this was finally going to happen.
Just visiting your grandfather. What’s up?
I need to tell you something. But first I need you to promise not to say anything to anyone about it.
There was a delay in response before the new message bubble appeared.
I promise.
Now or never, I thought as I attached the image to the message and hit send before I gave myself a chance to back out.
The wait was a killer. I watched the minutes tick by on the clock on my phone—three, four, five—before the clock disappeared and a photo of my mom showed up on screen. I swiped to answer the call and held it to my ear.
“You—Is that—”
“A picture of your first grandchild? Yes,” I interrupted.
Mom was quiet for a moment before she tearfully asked, “Is it really yours?”
Mom had been pretty pissed when I told her the scandal surrounding Brittany, but I knew a small part of her had been a little bit excited. I imagined that she wished it was under better circumstances, but the idea that she had a grandchild had made her happy for a brief period of time.
When I admitted that I knew it wasn’t mine even before the DNA test and gave her a vague explanation of how I knew, the disappointment was real. I could hear it in her voice over the phone and I was truly surprised that she hadn’t followed my confession with questions about when I was planning to give her one.
So it made me incredibly happy to get the chance to tell her that—
“Yeah, mom. It’s mine. I’m sure of it.”
She burst into tears and I closed my eyes, wishing that I had done this face-to-face. I gave her all the time she needed to pull herself together, glancing at the clock in April’s kitchen at least twice before she finally took a deep, shuddering breath.
“Oh, I-I’m so… Who’s the mother? I didn’t even know you had a girlfriend.”
I scratched the back of my neck, wondering how I could explain this without sounding like a jackass. “Well, she’s not… Her name is April, but she’s not my girlfriend.”
A tense pause followed by a quiet, “Oh.”
“Yeah. But—”
“So is it another cheerleader?” she asked, the tone of her voice making it incredibly easy to picture her pursed lips and narrowed eyes.
“No, she’s not a cheerleader. She’s… it’s complicated.”
“A complicated accident?”
“Pretty much,” I admitted. “Condom broke.”
“I didn’t need to hear that, Jared,” she scolded. “And this girl is keeping the baby and letting you have rights, too? She’s—She’s not going to just collect a paycheck and try to keep you out of his or her life?”
“It’s not like that,” I said quickly, my eyes flickering behind me to the hallway. I prayed that these words wouldn’t bite me in the ass, but I had to do something to help calm my mother’s fears. “April isn’t my girlfriend, no… but she wasn’t just a one night stand. I’m with her right now. She—”
“Oh my god, can she hear me? Am I on speakerphone?”
I actually laughed a little at my mother’s interruption and how horrified she seemed to be by the thought of April hearin
g her ask about her in a less-than-pleasant manner.
“No, she’s taking a nap. She just had her first doctor’s appointment and I flew out to be here with her for the weekend.”
“And where exactly is here?”
“New York,” I hesitantly said, knowing full well what would eventually come from this line of questioning. “Brooklyn, to be more specific.”
“And what were you saying before? She wasn’t just a one night thing?”
“Right. And yeah—the pregnancy was an accident and April isn’t technically my girlfriend… but this is far different than the shit that went down with Brittany.”
“Because you know this baby is yours?”
“Because I’m in love with her.”
My mom went dead silent and I glanced down at the phone to make sure one of us hadn’t dropped the call. I waited for a full minute before I opened my mouth to ask if she was still there, but she beat me to it.
“Brooklyn, you said?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
“For the whole weekend?”
“Mom, I don’t know if—”
“Bring her here, Jared. Please—just for one day. I really want to meet her.”
I could already picture my mom grinning at April with bright, sparkly eyes as she mentally began planning both the baby shower and our wedding. I could also imagine how completely pissed April was going to be if I agreed to it without even talking to her about it first, but I highly doubted she would be willing to go if I asked.
So I could break my mom’s heart, again, to keep April happy… or make my mom happy and have to deal with a pissed-off April.
Considering I already had a shitload of experience in dealing with the latter, I let out a long sigh and said, “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll text you in a couple of hours.”
“Okay, I’ll start getting the house cleaned up just in case. I love you, sweetie.”
“I love you, too, mom.”
After I ended the call, I leaned back and folded my hands together in my lap. I knew this wasn’t going to end well, but I hoped that April would forgive me before the weekend was over. I took another glance at the clock and decided to give her another half hour to sleep and opened the browser on my phone to start my search. Once I found the local number of a reputable company, I made the call.
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