by R. J. Lewis
“She wouldn’t be a ghetto mother,” I fired back, balling my fists. “Fuck, Ryker, have some compassion. You know Mom was pressured to abort us? The fuckheads in her life didn’t want us, but she went on through and she had us. I want the same for this kid.”
“But it ain’t your kid!” he howled back, causing some heads to turn our way. “And look how we ended up anyway! Fucking broke as hell all our lives. No daddy around, just a bunch of violent fuck-ups that ruined her life. So don’t be preaching that keeping a fucking kid means it’s giving it a good life –”
“It means it’s giving it a shot!”
“Look, I understand where you’re coming from, bro. I admire that. I know you’re against it, and hell, maybe one day you’ll face the same decision with a chick you dig. But this is my business, my woman, my mistake. You don’t have a say.”
I shouldn’t have said it, but fuck I was angry when I retorted with, “Yeah, well I’m on this side of the table, aren’t I? A free man has more of a say than one who isn’t. And judging by her indifference to you, I’d say she isn’t your woman.”
In just a second his anger broke, and his eyes watered.
“Fuck you, Heath,” he hissed, pained by my words. “That’s low.”
I didn’t reply for a moment. I sighed as the guilt built inside of me. That was low.
“Shit, Ryker,” I whispered regretfully, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Fuck, I just got angry.”
He shrugged, looking down at the table without a word.
“Now you’re right, it’s your mistake, but you need to be a man and accept that this pregnancy is happening. Allie’s going through with it. Whether you’re in it or not, she’s going to do this, with or without your support.”
Still no word from him, but his body was tense. This wasn’t how I intended for this to go. I’d hoped to speak some sense into him, not have an argument that left him feeling like shit. I should have chosen my words more carefully. Fuck, maybe he was right about everything and it wasn’t my business. I had just inserted myself in their issues, didn’t I? I’d had no right to, either.
“Is she done with me?” he asked, a hollow look on his face.
“It’s not my place to answer that,” I said, hating myself for letting that out.
“Just give me one, man. I’m begging you.”
Fuck. “I… I don’t know, Ryker. That’s the honest truth, okay?”
His eyes were red with unshed tears. In that moment I realized just how much he really loved her. This was a goddamn mess. His heart was on the table. I could see it bleeding out hope.
“Man,” I let out, with a shake of my head, “why did you do it, Ry? Why? Everything was going well. You had her. You had work. You had friends. You had me. Why did you do it?”
He licked his bottom dry lip and blinked hard to keep the tears back. “You don’t want to fucking know, bro.”
“What don’t I want to know?”
“You don’t want to know the shit I stirred out there. It’s not something I’ll be able to get out of here and walk away from.”
I stared at him hard, trying to understand. “What did you get yourself into?”
He didn’t answer. He looked around again, those lips shut, his expression pained. I wanted to shake him and demand what the fuck he was talking about!
“Ryker,” I pressed.
“Doesn’t matter,” he whispered. “It doesn’t involve you.”
“You’re my brother. You’re my friend. You’re my blood. Whatever happens to you involves me. I love you, man. You know that.”
He nodded.
Minutes went by. The silence was killing me. I wanted inside that damn head of his. I wanted to understand everything. But that opportunity passed on by. I knew it by the look in his eyes. He was going to end the conversation and retreat back into the secretive shell of his.
“Whatever happens,” came his quiet, defeated voice as he locked his brown eyes to mine, “just look out for her, bro. You’re the only one I trust out there. The only one, Heath. And if you think she can do this, then that’s fine. I’ll… learn to accept it somehow. All I ask is you keep her safe and looked after, and I know that’s a lot to ask, but I swear to fucking God I’ll come out of here and kiss the fucking ground you walk on because she’s all I have. She’s all I need. She’s everything to me, Heath. So please…”
My throat locked up tight. My eyes felt raw with the need to cry, but I managed to hold myself together. It wasn’t right. This whole situation was fucked up. I shouldn’t be coming to a prison to see my brother. Despite the secretive bullshit he’d gotten involved in, he didn’t deserve this. How the fuck could I have thought otherwise? This was punishment enough. I wished I could throw him a key, set him free and watch him change. Because I truly believed he would. He would grab that second chance with everything inside of him and turn his life around.
“You don’t even need to ask,” I choked out with a firm nod. “It’s done, brother.”
*
Allie was sitting on the couch eating a bowl of ice cream when I walked into the apartment. She turned away from the trash show she was watching and immediately straightened her back at the sight of me. She was wearing one of Ryker’s huge motorcycle tops and his sweats. Her hair was up in a messy bun, her blue eyes wide as they met mine.
My chest stirred. I’d never walked into my place to find a woman who’d made herself at home like this. Whenever she had been around, she’d either have been in Ryker’s room with him, or ignoring me with a passion.
We never meshed.
I used to think she hated me. But now I knew she was just shy.
She set the bowl down and clasped her hands together. I could see the anxiety in her. She’d been waiting around for me. For this.
I set the keys down and took a seat next to her. She smelled like Ryker and I didn’t like the smell on her. I shook my head at the stupid knotted feeling inside of me and turned to her nervous face. God, she was pretty, wasn’t she? All doe eyed and frightened. It was a subtle attractiveness that grew until it was in your bones and you couldn’t look at her without feeling it. The less obvious kind of beautiful was the most dangerous, I realized. Because it made you want to keep looking, keep seeing that beauty, until every inch of that face was burned in you.
“He’s okay with it, Allie,” I said quietly, ignoring the way my pulse was weirdly picking up around her.
Her eyes immediately watered. “Really?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“He didn’t try for an abortion?”
I shook my head immediately, knowing this lie was needed. “No, he was shocked. I mean, he was asking me all kinds of questions.”
“Like what?”
“Like how far along you are.”
“And you told him?
“Yeah.”
“What did he say?”
“He wants you to go through with it.”
She wiped her eyes and smiled brightly at me. It was a beautiful smile. Made her look less like the miserable person she’d been the last week. “That’s amazing,” she said. “I was thinking about it all day. I’ve already grown so attached to this pregnancy, I decided I didn’t care what he’d say. Because it’s my choice, you know?”
I nodded, feeling relieved by her conviction. “It is your choice, Al. If I pushed you in the start –”
“You didn’t. You were right. I was reacting impulsively. Now I’m not. Now I’m looking at the bigger picture, and I know I’ll be okay. I don’t care if I have to postpone College and work at a shit job. I want to do this because I want to prove that I can be responsible for whatever unexpected things come my way. Because life never goes according to plan, right? It’s just a bunch of rollercoaster bullshit, and you never learn anything by picking the easiest way out.”
God, how the fuck could someone so young pull herself together like this? I’d never given her this mindset. She’d developed it on her own. Grabbed a shit situat
ion and turned it around. It was hard – very fucking hard – not to admire Allison Wallace in that moment. It was hard not to feel jealous at Ryker for having someone whose head was screwed on so right. Yeah, they made a mistake, but so did everyone else. Making a mistake isn’t the issue. It’s how you handle it that defines you. She was handling it beautifully, and in a calm manner that helped me feel grounded.
“None of that is going to happen,” I told her softly, unable to turn away from those enthralling eyes. “Wanna know why?”
She scanned my face and whispered, “Why?”
“Because you got me.”
She surprised me with a hug, leaning over to wrap her arms around me. I was stiff at first. She’d never gotten very close to me before. This was out of her element. After a tense moment, I relaxed and hugged her back, bringing one arm around her little frame. My face was against the side of her head, my nose breathing in the scent of shampoo.
My shampoo.
My heart did that weird fucking thing again, thumping a little faster, giving me a strange feeling like I was doing something that was out of my comfort zone. When was the last time someone gave me a genuine hug? I wondered.
Since Mom.
When she broke free from the hug first, I immediately hid the conflicted look on my face and smiled warmly at her. I then leaned my back against the couch, pretending that contact was normal for me.
Yeah, fucking right. That was not normal. That was weird as hell.
She seemed comfortable, though; smiling to herself as she also leaned back, relaxing before turning her attention back to the television. I stared at her for a while. Watching, she brought her knees up to her chest and ran a hand through her long hair. She might have even forgotten I was there, a foot away from her. But that was okay. I liked watching her. She carried her emotions on her sleeve, and I could read every single one of them as she lost herself in some trashy reality show.
Eventually I looked away and watched too, sucking my soul dry with this ridiculous fucking drama that people found entertaining. I nearly got up to leave from the absurdity of it all when Allie laughed and said something regarding a character, and suddenly I was never more invested in a show than now.
Spending time with a girl and not touching her explicitly was different...
But I was beginning to like different.
Seven
Allie
Ten weeks pregnant and I was talking to my stomach a dozen times a day. Whether it was natural to talk to your unborn baby or not was irrelevant to me. Point was it made me feel better.
“Your father supposedly wants you,” I whispered while resting a hand over my belly. The sun was just starting to come up, lighting up the room through the cracks in the blinds. This was morning number four waking up with that sick, nauseous feeling. I’d paced the hallway quietly for an hour, waiting for last night’s spaghetti to come up. All to no avail.
“If he feels for you the way he does for me, I’m sure he’s going to love you,” I continued, stroking the bottom of my stomach where I could just barely feel a bump. “At least… I hope he will.”
It was hard for me to believe that Ryker had accepted the pregnancy and hadn’t pushed for an abortion. I wasn’t stupid. A big part of me had suspected Heath had made that up to make me feel better. I was surprised that it wouldn’t bother me either way. If he’d told me a white lie then that showed he at least cared about my feelings and wanted me to concentrate on what really mattered. That was this baby and starting my first year at college.
It was hard without Ryker, but every passing day I relived the moment he was arrested. The lies he’d told me – that he was clean and hadn’t broken the law – only to learn otherwise. I was cut deep, and I knew at some point soon I needed to confront him about it and let him know how much he hurt me. I’d never gotten the chance to. From the time he was arrested to his sentencing, it’d been a swift open and shut case.
I needed to decide what was best for the baby, and suddenly all this relationship bullshit of whether I was going to wait for him or not seemed so unimportant. I never expected pregnancy to put so much in perspective. At this point, I never wanted to see him again. His bedroom no longer stirred me on the inside, it just made me sad I had no one to talk to because I used to tell him everything in these four walls. Maybe I’d missed him so much in the beginning because I was lonely. And then it occurred to me…
You never once told him you loved him.
I had always had an issue with the word love. While he’d expressed he’d fallen in love with me last year, I had tried and convinced myself I’d felt the same way. But I could never bring myself to say it. Now I was really glad for it.
Cutting my thoughts short, I heard Heath’s door open and his heavy footsteps down the hallway. It was Saturday and he was still getting up at six in the morning. He never slept in. I heard him clear his throat and rummage around in the kitchen, probably starting up the coffee maker.
I wasn’t usually a morning person. I’d been sleeping in until noon some days because the pregnancy had exhausted me. But this morning in particular I felt pretty good. I jumped out of bed and joined him in the kitchen. I was taken aback at first when I saw him in nothing but his boxers. He was shirtless, his upper body indented with lines from his bed sheets. I admired his body for a moment, taking in the broad shoulders and narrow hips. He worked out at home a lot. I’d noticed some weights stacked to the side of his room once when I was waiting for him to get ready to take me to the shops. Almost every night, even when he came home sore and tired beyond belief, I’d hear him grunting up a storm next door, lifting and counting the reps as he went. He was a machine.
And he looked absolutely divine.
“Morning,” I said with a timid smile.
He turned around, surprised by my company. “What’re you doing up, sleepyhead?”
“I’ve been up for a while.”
“Morning sickness again?”
“Yeah.”
He frowned. “Shit. Nothing we can do about that?”
I’d practically stolen his laptop the last week or so, looking up everything that had to do with pregnancy. I even had an update emailed to me every week to show my peanut’s progression.
“They say crackers help,” I said.
“We don’t have crackers?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you put that on the shopping list?”
“Forgot, I guess?”
He shook his head as if I’d committed an atrocious crime and turned to the fridge. On it he’d stuck a piece of paper and pen up a while back, telling me that it was the shopping list and to write down anything I needed. He took the pen off and wrote down crackers in big bold letters before shooting me another glare, muttering, “I’m going to get you a big fat fucking bag of crackers and you’re going to sit your fat ass down on that couch and eat a pound a day. Got it?”
I laughed at his stern words and pulled out a bowl from the cupboard. “Yes, master, but you can’t be telling me I’m fat.”
“Why?”
Pouring cereal into my bowl, I responded, “Because you just don’t go around telling pregnant people they’re fat! You have to be a gentleman, or endure a well-deserved kick in the balls.”
Living with Heath alone had done well to our friendship. Just two weeks in and we were joking it up. The weird awkward tension from before had lessened, although I did find myself still feeling it at times.
“I think if anyone calls you fat they’re going to need a head examination,” he replied, chuckling.
I scowled at him over my shoulder. “I’ll have you know I’m getting a bump!”
“On the head maybe?”
I gasped and he laughed. “No, I swear I am. I was feeling it in bed earlier.”
“You were feeling yourself earlier? That’s pretty explicit info, Allie. If you’re so comfortable telling me that, maybe invite me in next time?”
I laughed, not realizing for a moment how fl
irtatious that really was. “That’s not what I meant!”
“Oh, right. You were feeling a non-existent bump. Now I would rather the explicit stuff.”
“It’s there. I’m not delusional.”
He raised a brow and looked down at my stomach. I was wearing another one of Ryker’s large shirts and probably looked like I was swimming in it.
“I don’t see shit,” he said.
“Well, it’s kind of hard to when I have this huge thing on.”
He smiled, those dimples like little craters in his face. I couldn’t handle looking at him when he smiled. It made me flush. So I kept my eyes drawn to the ground and playfully put a hand to my lower belly. “I swear, Heath, I’m getting a bump. It’s really hard and solid.”
When I felt his presence nearing me, I went to step back but realized I was already against the counter.
“Show me,” he said with interest.
Show him? Bloody hell. Why did that feel weird to do? It technically wasn’t, though. I mean, I’d seen pregnant women showing people their bumps all the time. In fact, some people took it upon themselves to touch them without even asking for permission.
This was nothing, I told myself. Absolutely nothing.
Still unable to look up at his tall frame, I lifted my shirt up and showed him my lower stomach. I had to pull down my pyjama bottoms a tad. I waited for him to react. To say something. But he was quiet, and it made me suddenly conscious.
“See it?” I asked, trying to sound playful.
“No,” he answered, disappointed. “I really think that bump is on your head, Al.”
Al.
Ugh. I wanted to set that nickname on fire.
Annoyed, I grabbed his hand – surprised for a second by how ridiculously hot it was – and placed it on my lower stomach. I hadn’t realized what I’d done until his palm was flat against my skin. If I thought the silence before was heavy, I had another thing coming. This one dragged on for an excruciating time. I finally willed myself to peek up at him and met his intense gaze. Now that we were locking eyes, I couldn’t just look away. I felt drawn to him.