by Stark, Lola
Mace smiled as Scarlet shifted off his lap to curl up beside him. She looked over at me and called me on my shit. “Stop being a bitch. She just needs some time to get her head together. She’s scared,” Scarlett told me looking unsure and a little guilty. This didn’t bode well for me.
“You know something I don’t?” I asked; the expression on her face confirming my suspicions. “Spill it, Scarlett.” My palms began to sweat and my empty stomach rolled in an unpleasant way.
“Well, it’s not my something to tell. You should talk to her soon though. Just, umm…it’s something important you two should talk about,” she told me quietly avoiding my eyes. It was unlike Scarlett to be quiet about something. Usually, she’d be stomping around and ranting like a crazy chick.
My body went rigid at the possibilities of this ‘something’. Jealousy hit me in a rush. The first thought I had was what if Teen had met somebody? No, I was being a dick. It’d been a week since I found out she was knocked up. A week wasn’t long enough to…Fuck!
How many times had I given the business to more than one broad in a week? A week was too long for me not to have talked with her about this clusterfuck. I shook my head in an attempt to dispel my messed-up thoughts. I was a slut at the best of times, but she wasn’t me. She wasn’t a slut; she was pregnant with my kid. My kid. And she was fucking my head up. This shit wasn’t normal. My mind was a constant tornado of thoughts, worries and confused-as-fuck feelings.
I didn’t get jealous; that word shouldn’t even be in my damn vocabulary, and it never had been before. Elbows on my knees and head in my hands, my mind ran a thousand miles an hour giving me whiplash. I figured it was time to sort this crap out. I had no clue what the hell to do, but I had to do something. I knew it wasn’t fair to Teen to go through this alone. It was as much my problem as it was hers. I sure as shit wasn’t ready to be a dad, but it looked like I didn’t have a choice in the matter. And if I had a kid, it wouldn’t grow up not knowing who I was, not being in my life. Every kid needs a dad, right?
I picked up my cell from the coffee table and dialed Teen’s number for what felt like the thousandth time, only to get a recording telling me the voicemail was full. I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared slapping it against my palm, while worrying my lip rings between my teeth. “I’m going over there,” I told nobody in particular as I stood, determined to talk to her one way or another.
“She’s at work tonight,” Scar warned.
My steps faltered. “Fine. I’ll go there then. I have to make sure—“
“You’ll only piss her off more if you show up there and embarrass her. You know that,” she reminded me.
“Well, I can’t let it keep going on, can I? I know she’s mad at how I reacted, but she needs to understand I’m fucking confused,” I answered running my hand through my hair with agitation.
“Sit down, shut the fuck up and wait till tomorrow. You want to win her over? You have to play this her way. Not yours.” Scarlett clearly thought she was onto something, while Mace sat there daring me to wipe the smirk of his face. Cocky asshole.
My feet rooted to the spot, I told her, “I don’t want to or need to win her over. I just need to talk to her,” I finished on a growl.
“Sure thing,” Scar smiled handing me a beer with a satisfied smile and nodding her head to my vacated seat.
With a scowl, I took the cold bottle and slumped down into the cushions flipping my cell around in my hand and completely ignoring the game starting on the TV. Scarlett was probably right. After all, she and Teen had been best friends since they were kids; I’d only known them for about three years. It’d only piss her off if I went storming into the bar where she worked demanding she talk to me. Scar was definitely right. I had to wait.
“Will you two cut that shit out,” I bitched at them during the game. Every time I moved to get another beer, I’d come back to them in various stages of make out. “If I end up seeing your ugly, white ass bobbing around on my sofa, I’ll be scarred for life.”
“Suck it up. It’s not like I haven’t had to endure years of you and your dirty bimbos trying to jump each other’s bones even before you got in the damn door,” Mace smirked. He’d changed in the last few months. He was, well, he was happy. The happiest I’d seen him in a long time. As sickening as they were, I was good with it. Mace deserved it, Scar too. When they fought, it was funny as fuck; those two could give as good as they got. Mace was a bossy prick, and Scar, she didn’t take his shit; he pulled it she called him on it. They both had their fair share of bad hands, but they both came out winning.
Scarlett was my boss. I worked as an artist and body piercer in her tattoo parlor Needle’s Kiss. We had been good friends until the day my big brother Mace walked into the shop after he finished his last tour in the Special Ops. Ever since then, we’d become a family. Or rather, as close to family as you can get. Scar and Mace were due to get married and this was another example of the L word changing people. Mace was now doing private investigation work for his buddy, and Scarlett, shit, she was talking about dresses and flowers and crap; something I never thought she’d do, but that’s the proof: love made you forget who you were. Mace smiled often, which made me and everyone else around him happy, I hadn’t seen a smile on his face since the day he lost his little girl, my niece, that is, until he met Scar.
The game wrapped up and Mace called out as they headed to the door, “Get your head sorted before you see her or you’ll say something assy.”
Scarlett slapped his ass and laughed, “You’d know all about assery of the mouth, wouldn’t you?” When Mace picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, she screamed, “Put me down, asshat!” He nodded his head to me and left with a goofy smile on his face.
Bored out of my mind, I just sat around for a while, played a game on my cell and tried to draw some new art for a client. Nothing was distracting me; I was twitchy and thinking too much again. I’d normally find entertainment in the form of a bottle of bourbon and a willing female body, but I had been in somewhat of a rut since this entire fiasco with Teeny had started. Maybe I was coming down with the flu…that made perfect sense; it was the flu I decided ignoring the fact that I hadn’t been sick since I was a kid. I tapped out a tune on my knees for a while, and then played with my eyebrow ring. I mindlessly flicked through the pages of the new Harley Davidson Magazine.
Screw it
Looking at the time on my cell, I realized what felt like forever had only been two very long hours. I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t sleep. I needed to talk to her. Throwing on a fresh set of black jeans, a grey cotton shirt, beanie and my boots, I grabbed my cell, wallet and keys and shoved all my crap in my pockets. I jumped on my Harley to take the short ride to Teeny’s place. The beautiful matt-black metal of my girl, the rumble of her between my legs, the power under my hands did nothing to settle my nerves. A ride on my Fatboy Lo always calmed me down. On the way to Teen’s though, my nerves were shot to shit. Why the fuck am I even nervous?
I pulled up along the side of her building and cut the engine. The bike went silent, the metal still warm under my thighs. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself, walked quietly up the stairs to Teeny’s second-story apartment and knocked on the poorly painted front door. It was in darkness. Her beat-up Honda wasn’t out front either. I was tired of this game of ‘hide the baby momma’, so I figured I’d just wait for her to get home. I kinda looked like a creeper standing outside her door, so I made my way down to sit on my bike; it was out of the way hidden in the shadows. Yeah, cause that wasn’t creepy either.
I didn’t have to wait long. Less than half an hour later, I heard her piece-of-crap car long before I saw her pull into the parking lot out front. I threw my leg over my bike and headed toward the complex. The street light out front was busted causing the place to be darker than normal; there was just enough light, that as I walked behind her, I could see her sexy little ass encased in those prissy jeans she always wore. I caught up to her at the bottom of the st
airs and I reached out to touch her arm before she could make it any further.
Next thing I knew, Teen spun, her fist flying right into my nose. At the same time, she drove her knee up into my groin dropping me like a sack of shit to the ground.
“Fuckkkkkkkk,” I groaned cupping my junk as I rolled up onto my knees trying to get my breath back. Pain shot up into my stomach with each attempt. No go. I dropped down onto all fours. My sack had to be in my throat; I could feel it choking me.
“Oh, it’s just you,” Teeny breathed hard.
I looked up at her through narrowed eyes. “Oh, it’s just…fuck. Princess, what the hell you do that for?”
“Well, you deserved it. You don’t sneak up behind a chick and expect not to get hit. Now, get up, dipshit. You’re making a scene,” she hissed looking around the complex.
“You put me on my ass. How am I the one making a scene?” I growled as I stumbled to my feet, the pain slowing to a deep throb. “Damn it, Teen. You near on broke my nose and I’m pretty fuckin’ certain my balls are permanently damaged.” The urge to vomit was coming in waves.
“What are you doing here?” she asked making for the stairs.
I took tiny shuffling steps after her. “We gotta talk. This isn’t goin’ away and you need to talk to me,” I told her as I took the stairs tentatively.
“Listen, captain obvious, I told you it wasn’t your problem.” I shuffled through the door once she opened it and eased down on the sofa.
"Look, I helped get us into this mess, and I…well…I just wanted to apologize for the way I handled it when I first found out. I was taken by surprise, but it still wasn't cool. I never expected anything like this to happen. I mean, we used protection and I just assumed that you'd be using something too. Something chicks use. The pill or some shit. Birth control. Weren’t you on the pill?" Great. I was rambling.
Teeny ignored my verbal diarrhea coming back out of the small kitchen where she’d wandered while I’d been speaking.
“Oomph, shit,” I swore when she threw a bag of frozen peas that landed a bit too heavily on my crotch. “I didn’t know you could do that,” I grumbled adjusting the makeshift icepack.
“What?” she sighed slipping her black stiletto boots off and leaning against the wall across the room from me.
“Hurt a dude like that. I didn’t know you could.” I nodded down to my lap for emphasis.
“I had to learn. Look, Trip, I know you want to do the right thing here, but I told you it’s not your problem. I’ll take care of it myself, so you should just go,” Teeny rushed her words out looking down at the floor.
“I’m not leavin’ till we talk, Princess.” The cold seeping through my pants was helping to numb the pain still lingering in my favorite place.
“I just want a hot shower and to fall into bed. I’ve had a long day. My feet hurt and there isn’t anything to say to each other. We had a thing; it was one night, and I knew that; you knew that. We were drunk. It was stupid so forget it ever happened.” She closed her eyes tightly and wrapped her arms around herself. She sounded exhausted.
“Few things wrong with that little speech. First of all, I won’t forget about it. Second, if I have my way, it won’t be a ‘one night’ thing, and lastly, we’re havin’ a kid together. I’m gonna be around a lot. In fact, I think we should try this,” I indicated between the two of us, “us thing. I don’t know how it’s done, but it’d be best for the kid,” I blurted, not even thinking before the words left my mouth.
Apparently, I had said something stupid because her tired face went hard. Her eyes flared and she pushed off the wall taking a few steps toward me before opening her mouth, “First of all, you don’t get to walk into my damn life and tell me how it’s going to go. We are never going to be in the same room together unless it is for a death, a wedding or hell freezing over.” She ticked each one off on her fingers. “Even then, I might push you out in the storm. Second of all, don’t be a cocky prick, and lastly, I’m not even sure I’m keeping it!” she yelled the last right in my face. My stomach dropped and blood roared in my ears. I balled my fists up at my sides and stared.
“Say again?” I asked in a deathly calm voice that was anything but how I was feeling.
I knew I’d pushed too far the moment he went solid as a statue. I took a step back as his face went from confused to furious in the space of a breath. He stood up from the couch, his eyes boring into me.
“Say that again,” he spat out. “Do not fuck with me, Teeny.”
Oh, he was mad, really mad. Just before I went to speak up and apologize, I gave myself a mental slap around the head. This was not up to him. He did not get to be mad at me. Screw him.
“I don’t know the first thing about kids. Look around; you think a kid should live in a tiny apartment like this? With somebody like me?” I pointed to my chest emphasizing my rant. “I never planned on having any, and especially not with somebody like you,” I explained.
He took a big step forward right into my personal space and hissed, “That’s my kid too. I didn’t really get that before, but that’s my kid too. I get a say in this. I might not be a stand-up role model, but for the right reason, I can fucking change that.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Shaking his head, his tone softened, “Princess, there ain’t a God damn thing wrong with you, never has been. Anyone would be lucky to have you in their life, despite your temper and smart mouth.”
Yeah right, all I’d ever been was a one-night stand. He could sprout his bullshit elsewhere. “Can you just leave? I’m too tired for this shit. I haven’t decided anything. I’ll let you know when I make my mind up.”
“No.” His eyes flared again, his gorgeous face hard with anger. “I’m as much a part of this as you. When do you go to the doctor or whatever it is you gotta do?”
“I’ll let you know. Just let me be, Trip. I didn’t ask for you to be here for me. I don’t need your help and I don’t want it,” I breathed out exasperated.
“Don’t be like that, Teeny. I just wanna do what’s right,” he said, his body still radiating waves of ‘pissed way the hell off’.
Fuck him. I was no charity case. “You know where the door is. I’ll let you know one way or the other,” I dismissed him as I started for the bathroom. My feet hurt from the twelve-hour shift I’d just finished. I was hungry, tired and just flat out fed up.
I didn’t bother to look back at him, and by the time I made it to my bedroom to get my pajamas, I heard the front door slam shut rattling the pictures on the walls. Sliding down the wall to sit on my ass, I waited until I heard the roar of his bike taking off before I pulled my knees up to my chest and broke down into big ugly-girl sobs. If this was what hormones did, I didn’t want a part of it. I cried at the drop of a hat; I was tired all the freaking time and I was being a grade-A bitch. But Trip, he couldn’t come round demanding rights and all that bullshit. He didn’t want me; he wanted something for a kid that didn’t even really exist yet. He was doing the ‘noble thing’ and sacrificing his happiness and mine, for what? A lie. That’s all we would ever be, a lie. I didn’t think I would be able to live a life where I was the chick he knocked up and stayed with because it was the right thing to do. Besides, Trip was the least of my worries. I had a big decision to make.
I never planned to have children. Depression ran in my family. My mother overdosed when I was eight-years-old. She’d somehow managed to survive the overdose. However, as an eight-year-old child walking into their parents’ room to ask for breakfast only to find mommy on the floor choking on her own vomit, was enough to damage anybody for life. She was diagnosed with postpartum depression right after I was born. My father decided it was too hard to deal with so he turned tail and ran, right into the beds of half-the-states’ female population. He was a slut, no other way to put it. I had at last count nine brothers and sisters, all of whom I had nothing to do with. So as a whole, I came from a screwed-up family that I no longer saw, spoke to or acknowledged. As far as I was
concerned, they were dead to me. My family now was Scarlett, just Scarlett. I worked long, late hours at a bar; I lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment with peeling paint and shitty worn-out carpet. I drove a death trap of a car. I spent a stupid amount of money on designer clothes I found at bargain prices hoping to feel special or something like it, and I was left with the hard choice of whether I could bring a child into this kind of life; a life I didn’t even like. A life where I might be a mother like mine was.
Deep breath in, deep breath out, in and out, I repeated my mantra calming my shaking body as I wiped away the tears streaming down my face. Standing on trembling legs, I made it into the bathroom and ran a hot shower. Pushing down the urge to puke again, I thought about how much longer I would have to deal with this. Am I going to be one of those women who upchucks every day for forty freaking weeks, or is there some sort of cutoff date? Whoever the moron was who said pregnancy was beautiful, lied through his ass, because all I’d done was vomit, sleep and cry. None of which resembled anything close to fun.
After a short and mostly warm shower, my nightly routine of vomit, teeth brushing, rinse and repeat, I choked down a few dry crackers and half a glass of ginger ale. I crawled into bed tossing and turning before falling into a fitful sleep full of dreams about the perfect American life that I convinced myself I didn’t want or need.