LA Shifters: Shifter Romance

by Sky Winters

  After they finished their tea, they went back to the bedroom and went to sleep, nestled warmly in each other’s arms. It felt amazing to be in someone’s arms again, and no matter how much she told herself she deserved it, she couldn’t help feeling like she was also completely blessed. She couldn’t wait to tell Rose and see what her friend would have to say. Rose would probably say something about karma and signs. She loved that this time Rose had been right about her relationship and it hadn’t actually come back to hurt her much. She was going to be okay.

  Her Valentine’s Day had been the best one she’d experienced so far. And the evidence of it would come in the morning, when she rode to her work on the back of Eric’s motorcycle to retrieve her car.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Don’t Fake It, Baby

  For a time, it seemed like everything was finally working out for Summer. She had a sexy, new boyfriend who cared about her. Work was going okay and had stopped annoying her so much now that Eric was in the running for a job there. She’d signed her divorce papers and sent them off to be signed by Tom and processed by their lawyers. She had nothing to worry about anymore.

  She came home from work one evening to find Eric sitting on the couch. This in itself wasn’t so odd. They basically lived together now. But, instead of watching TV or looking for jobs or something like usual, he was just sitting there, watching her.

  As soon as she was fully in the house, he rose up from the couch. “We need to talk,” he said.

  Oh no. Those were never good words. “Okay,” she said hesitantly though trying to keep her voice bright. She set her purse on the kitchen counter and went over to him. She gave him a hug like she always did when seeing him after work or after a few days of time apart.

  He gestured for her to sit on the couch and she did so. He sat beside her and took her hand. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said. “Something I haven’t been forthcoming about, but there’s a good reason why…” He sighed.

  Summer was concerned. She didn’t want their happy little bubble to burst, but something was up and she knew that it was upsetting Eric. Was he secretly married? Her mind was racing, trying to figure out what it was. “Well, if there’s a good reason, then I’m sure it can’t be that bad.”

  “Before I met you, almost right before I met you, I robbed a convenience store.”

  Well, shit. It was that bad.

  Her eyes widened at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I lost my job and I didn’t know what to do. I was running out of money…”

  She moved away from him, staring at him incredulously. “And then you thought it would be a good idea to buy a book from me?”

  Eric looked down. “Originally, I was planning to rob your store, too… I made up an excuse to get you to open the register. But then I met you and I just couldn’t go through with it.”

  Summer stood up and pointed to the door. “You need to leave,” she said.

  “I haven’t stolen anything since.”

  “Get out!”

  Without another word, he got up and went to the door. He grabbed his helmet from where it hung on the coat stand. He put it on with a decisive snap and was gone.

  She put her head in her hands and sank back onto the couch, crying. Why couldn’t she ever have something nice? Why couldn’t she ever get a good guy, instead of a bad guy in disguise?

  At first, she wanted to call Rose but she didn’t want to go crying to her friend again. She felt like the only times she ever called Rose up was when she needed to complain about some injustice that had been done to her.

  The phone rang and, for a moment, Summer thought that maybe Rose had sensed a disturbance in the Force and was calling to check on her, but it was Megan instead.

  “Hi, is Eric around?” His name felt like nails on a chalkboard to Summer.

  “No, he doesn’t live here anymore.”

  Megan let out a sigh. “That’s a shame… Do you have a number where I can reach him?”

  Summer remembered numbly that he had applied to work at her place of work, and she suddenly was overcome with the desire to not let that happen. “I don’t, actually, sorry. If this is about the job, he changed his mind.”

  She hung up, crying again. She knew that she was going to have to answer for that down the road, but she didn’t want to think about it right now. Everything just hurt.

  Megan was understanding when Summer finally went back into work and explained the situation – omitting the part about robbery. She was mad at Eric for deceiving her, but she did not want to get him in trouble. “That was something that was a bit worrisome,” Megan admitted. “Coworkers who are also dating can be a bit messy.”

  Summer looked down at the floor, not wanting to talk about it anymore. Megan patted her back gently, understanding that as well.

  At least Valentine’s Day was over. The storestaurant was decorated for Easter now.

  For two weeks, Summer went through life feeling like a zombie. She’d go to work, she’d come home, eat dinner and go to sleep. On the rare occasions that she just worked an afternoon shift, she’d go to work, come home, stare at the internet for hours before it was acceptable to eat dinner, and go to sleep.

  Rose knew that something bad had happened, but she didn’t pry. “You can tell me anything,” she said. “The good, the bad and the ugly.”

  “The world hates me,” Summer told her sadly over the phone.

  “Aww, no it doesn’t,” Rose said. “It’s just giving you a lot of speed bumps right now. But you’re getting past them.”

  “My period’s late,” Summer intoned.

  Rose struggled to come up with an answer for that. “It’s probably just stress. Your period skips months sometimes.”

  That was something that Summer was well aware of. She was in a rut and she didn’t know how to get out of it. She didn’t feel like doing anything anymore. She didn’t feel. This house that her parents had willed to her was starting to feel as empty as her schedule.

  “Maybe I should get an apartment,” she told herself one morning.

  As soon as she got out of bed, she felt sick to her stomach. She rushed into the bathroom and threw up into the toilet, making it just in time. Her head was throbbing and now she was sick to her stomach over nothing.

  Suddenly, she wondered something.

  She called in sick to work and went to a convenience store to buy a pregnancy test. As she waited in line, she briefly thought about Eric and wondered if this was the store he’d robbed. It didn’t seem like a guy could make a whole lot of money working there, let alone breaking into its register.

  Once she was home, she peed on the stick and left it on the sink’s edge. She didn’t wait around to see what it said but instead went back out into the living room to see what was on TV. She didn’t want to think about the implications of what the stick might tell her.

  Summer couldn’t be pregnant. She had a condition. Several doctors at several different clinics had told her that her chances of conceiving were very low. It was why her asshole of an ex-husband had cheated on her and left her. She couldn’t be pregnant. No.

  But the stick on the sink said otherwise.

  Stunned and in a flurry of rushing excitement, she called Rose.

  “Yeeello,” her friend said, friendly as ever.

  “RoseI’mpregnant.”

  “Summer? What?”

  She took a deep breath. “Rose. I’m pregnant.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I just took a test! It says I’m pregnant!”

  Rose let out a little, excited shriek. “Um, do me a favor. I’m in the car right now on my way home from work. Get another test and take it, and wait for me before you see the results. I’ll be over soon!”

  Summer did as she was told. She went into the convenience store, shaking this time instead of feeling so grumpy and upset. She felt more scared and confused than anything else at the moment. She bought a differ
ent brand of pregnancy test.

  As soon as she was home, she peed on it and left it on the coffee table, not looking at it. She read articles on her phone about pregnancy, false positives and polycystic ovary syndrome. This was not supposed to have happened. She was supposed to need hormone therapy and stuff!

  There was a knock at the door and she ran over to answer it, feeling too jittery to sit still. She wanted to have a baby, but she’d spent so long telling herself that there was no way… Now that she had apparently proven herself wrong, she wanted to laugh and cry and celebrate.

  Rose, her tall friend who looked like Barbie would if Barbie was a hippy, stood there and grinned at her on the threshold. Summer gave her friend a hug and welcomed her inside. “Did you do a test?” Rose asked.

  Summer nodded and gestured to the little plastic stick that was waiting for them on the coffee table. It had been long enough to confirm or deny things. “Ugh, I don’t want to look.”

  Rose took her hand as they walked over to the living room and sat down on the couch. “There are false positives sometimes,” she said, trying to prepare Summer for bad news, just in case. “Would you like me to look?”

  Summer nodded, feeling tears well up in her eyes. She didn’t want to let herself get too excited. As it was, she was still going to be in a pretty awful situation. No one knew why she’d broken up with Eric, but he was a thief. An outlaw! She couldn’t actually be with him, even if…

  “It’s a plus,” Rose said with a grin in Summer’s direction. “Girl, you’re going to have a baby.”

  Holding each other’s hands, they screamed happily together and hugged.

  “Oh my god, this is so WEIRD!” Summer said, laughing and crying at the same time.

  “Congratulations,” Rose said, laughing and clearly so happy for her best friend. “You should schedule an appointment at your gynecologist pronto. In the meantime…” She suddenly looked at Summer with a more serious expression. “You need to tell Eric. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to know that it’s Eric’s baby.”

  Summer sighed and nodded a little. “I know. The problem is I don’t know where he is. It’s been nearly three weeks since I last saw him. Nearly a month. Who knows what he’s up to now or if he’d even have any interest in me or our baby.”

  Rose looked like she wanted to say something but was holding back.

  “What?” Summer asked her, prodding her a little with her shoulder. She had a feeling that she knew what her friend was going to say. Or, rather, ask.

  “If it’s okay for me to ask now, why did you two break up?” Rose asked, predictably. “You seemed so happy together. You were always telling me about how sweet he was. What happened?”

  Summer felt so conflicted about him now, about everything. She had kicked him out of the house without really listening to him. She had flown off the handle. True, he had stolen. He had committed a crime. He was probably a wanted, at large person. And that was troubling, to say the least. But he promised that he’d never do it again, and she’d sent him away.

  What if he’d fallen into a life of crime because she had kicked him out and broken things off with him?

  “He… stole some things,” she said hesitantly. “Not from me. It was in the past. But something boiled up inside of me when he confessed that. I didn’t want to be dating a criminal. I’ve had enough of assholes.”

  Rose’s eyebrows went up. “Well… Did he kill anyone?”

  Summer chuckled bitterly. “Not that I know of.”

  “I think if he confessed, there’s nothing for you to worry about,” Rose said. “As long as it wasn’t his job or main hobby or anything.”

  “Oh no, he seemed pretty remorseful. And that’s kind of how I’m feeling now,” Summer said sadly. “He told me that he was planning to rob Cabbages and Kings, until he met me there and I changed his mind.”

  Rose nodded decisively. “You need to call him.”

  Summer sighed again and gingerly touched her tummy, wondering what her tiny, unexpected baby looked like at that moment. “I would if I could, but he doesn’t have a cell phone.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I’m Happy, Hope You’re Happy Too

  Not wanting to take another day off from work so soon, Summer went to visit her gynecologist after work the following day. “What seems to be the trouble?” Dr. Paulsen asked pleasantly.

  “I realized I was late, so I took two pregnancy tests,” Summer explained. “And they both came out positive… I was under the impression that I couldn’t conceive and have a child of my own.”

  The doctor smiled at her. “Oh, that’s great news! There’s really never a never when it comes to pregnancy, unless you’ve had your uterus or ovaries removed. Polycystic lowers your chances by a lot, but it doesn’t make it completely impossible. Let’s see.” She took out a cup and a pregnancy test. “Please take this into the bathroom and fill up to this line. Then bring it back.”

  Summer took the cup into the bathroom. The problem was she didn’t have to pee. She had a hard time making herself pee on command in these situations. Images of Niagara Falls came to mind, but she struggled to get anything to happen. Closing her eyes and through sheer force of will, she managed to get just enough urine out of her and into the cup, just reaching the line of red marker.

  She carried the cup back to the doctor, feeling proud of herself and silly because of the reason. Dr. Paulsen took the cup from her, carefully, and placed it on the moveable table that contained an array of medical instruments that Summer hoped the doctor wouldn’t be using on her. Ripping open the pregnancy test package as if it was nothing, Dr. Paulsen plopped it into the cup.

  “How many partners have you been with?” she asked as Summer lay down on the uncomfortable table with stirrups. “Any risks of STDs?”

  Summer thought it over carefully. She hadn’t used a condom with Eric. That had been the only time… “I’ve been with four partners in my life. I’ve only been without a condom once. And… Tada.” She laughed a little. “I’ve been tested before and everything was fine.”

  “Do you want me to test you again?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll talk to my… I’ll talk to my most recent partner about it. I am going to have a lot to say to him.”

  The doctor smiled and wrote something down. Then she lifted up the pregnancy test to look at the results. “You definitely need to tell him that he’s going to be a father.”

  How does one find someone when one doesn’t have their phone number, email address, or anything? Summer suddenly realized that she barely knew the young man that she had fallen for. They’d had a great night, a hot night of passion, and had started to form a sweet life together and she never asked him for a way to contact him. It had satisfied her to know that he’d be waiting for her at home and, if he did leave for a while, he’d come back like a loyal pet, ready to be fed and sheltered again.

  God, I’m so stupid.

  Then, suddenly, she remembered one piece of info that she did have. His motorcycle club. “What was it called again?” she asked aloud, with no one around to answer her or even offer up a suggestion.

  It was something about stars. The Celestial something… The Celestial Sentinels!

  A quick Google search led her to their website. She chuckled. It was wild to her that a group of guys with motorcycles had a website. They took donations and had membership fees and everything. “Wow,” she said under her breath, shaking her head.

  She spotted Eric in one of the group shots. He was smiling at the camera, his cherubic face so familiar and handsome. He was a great deal younger than several of the others, but that just made him stand out more. Vice President Eric Daniels.

  The only phone number listed on the page was for the club as a whole. It looked to be a membership information number. Summer plugged it into her cell phone and pressed ‘call.’

  After fifteen minutes of listening to a garbled Eagles song that served as hold music, someone finally came on the line. “Celestial
Sentinels,” a gruff, older male voice said.

  “Hi,” Summer said, suddenly feeling nervous and doubting that this would even work. “I was wondering if you’d be able to help me. I know a member of your motorcycle club and I need to get into contact with him. Do you know how I could reach Eric Daniels?”

  The man suddenly became more friendly-sounding. “Oh, Eric? He’s just started in some new band, last I heard. The Pink Hearts.” He rattled off an email address and Summer quickly wrote it down.

  She wrote an email, hoping that this would be the right course of action.

  To: pinkheartsnyc@gmail.com

  From: wildabandon88@gmail.com

  Hello, this is strange but I’m hoping you can help me out. I’m trying to get in touch with Eric Daniels. I was told he’s in your band. This is Summer.

  She couldn’t believe she had let him get away. Especially now that she was pregnant. And now it might be too late to get him back.

  There was no response to her email.

  The next day, she went to work. It was another concert night. It was also the last time she’d have to see the Easter decorations that she’d slowly but surely gotten sick of. A music venue slash bookstore was no place for the cheesy decorations that looked more like something a person would see in Hallmark.

  This time, she had to start out as a waitress, working the floor as the open mic night bands set up. Joy. She was just giving a table their welcome and specials spiel when she looked up and saw the name on the drum kit.

  The Pink Hearts.

  Her jaw dropped nearly to the floor. A shiver went through her.

  “Miss?” one of her diners asked, looking at her like she’d perhaps gone psycho.

  She shook her head, trying her best to remain calm. “And, finally, my favorite, the lamb burger. I’ll give you guys a few moments to look over your menus. Can I start you off with any drinks?”

  When she brought her table back their drinks, she took her time, hoping that by lingering she’d be able to see this open mic band take the stage. How long had Eric been in a band? Had he quickly cobbled it together in the weeks that followed their breakup?