She mumbled, “Because I just want to see that you’re okay. You just sound confused right now.”
“Okay.”
And with that, I hung up. She was right; I was confused about so many things. On too many levels. I celebrated my birthday with her and a bottle of Chardonnay. I thought that the older I got, the wiser I was supposed to be, not the complete opposite. I felt as if I had my head screwed on more when I was eighteen rather than now. Back then everything was simple from graduating high school to getting my diploma.
I nearly dropped my phone the moment I turned around and saw that Chad was standing next to me.
“Ivy,” he said quietly. He wasn’t the clean shaven guy that I first met. He was wearing a dark-blue suit with a matching light blue shirt and gray tie. He looked hot, even with his beard that was neatly shaven. I didn’t know what to say to him. I found myself speechless, not only because he looked hot even with his hair slightly longer. But because I wasn’t expecting him to be standing by my side.
“Sorry I frightened you.” he said as he picked up my phone. I just stood, frozen in time. Trying to think of all the things that I wanted to say to him.
Nothing.
My mind was a complete blank as I stood next to him and he handed me back my phone.
“They called,” he pointed to the preschool. “They wanted to make the meeting twenty minutes later, and you didn’t pick up your phone, so I drove down here. I figured that you would be on time.”
“Where’s Joshua?”
He nodded, “With Olivia. I thought that we should just focus on getting Hazel in the preschool, if that’s okay with you. Olivia’s leaving. She’s moving to New York.”
“Oh.”
He surprised me with his comment, and I wanted to ask him how he was feeling about that. But I could tell by the way his green eyes turned dark that he wasn’t happy about the words he just spat out.
“Anyway, I came to see if Hazel had a chance. If I could do some good after the mess that I’ve caused then at least I’ll sleep better at night. How’s she doing?”
I looked in the car and saw that she was looking up at Chad and she had a big grin on her face. I knew that they had connected when they spent time together. She had been having a couple of tantrums lately, and Willow and mom had said that it was probably because of the negative energy I’d been having lately. Maybe they were right. Who knew.
He smiled at Hazel and said, “Do you mind if I get her out of the car?”
I shook my head and then watched as he took her out. She was so excited to see him. I realized that she wasn’t feeding off the negative energy that I had as a result of our breakup. She missed him, probably just as much as I did. She was clapping her hands and stroking his face.
“Hey, Hazel. You okay?”
He smiled at her, and she nodded as she put her little fingers around his neck. She did miss him probably just as much as her mom did. Maybe I should give him another chance? Chad had more good qualities than he had bad ones. No one was perfect; I should know because deep down I felt that I was far from it at the best of times.
Chapter Thirteen
Chad
The meeting at the preschool went like a dream. They offered Hazel a place on the spot. There was a bit of an awkward moment when they asked about her brother. I told them the truth that Joshua was my nephew and I was using unorthodox methods just to get him in the preschool. It didn’t go against me, and the principal laughed and said, “Believe me, you wouldn’t be the first. Let alone the last. I could tell you some stories about some of the things parents do to get their kids in this preschool.”
Ivy and I exchanged a little grin. A secret one that only we knew about, and it gave me the comfort of hope. Something that I didn’t even think was possible until now. I didn’t want to come; I thought that after she had been ignoring me for weeks, I had completely blown it and the idea of us being together was nothing but a distant dream. Dan said t I should give Ivy time and at that moment that’s all I had. But then I got busy with my little project which has now grown into a big one. I had little time, but it didn’t mean that I didn’t stop thinking about Ivy.
“Do you want a latte?” I asked as she sat down at a table in Starbucks. She agreed to have a coffee with me, and I ended up suggesting the one coffee store that I hated like the plague.
She nodded, “You haven’t forgotten?”
I sighed, thinking that we had only been together for three months, but to me it felt like a fucking lifetime considering I’d never been in a relationship before Ivy and Hazel came into my life.
“No,” I said under my breath as I smiled at Hazel. The realization that I didn’t just miss Ivy but Hazel, too hit home the moment I saw her smiling up at me in the car.
I went to the cashier and ordered a muffin for all of us, and I wanted a sandwich, too. It was getting to lunch time and I hadn’t eaten all day. I’d skipped breakfast because I was so nervous about meeting Ivy today. I thought that she would scream at me and tell me that she didn’t want to see me again. The same thing that she’d done when I called and she picked up the phone. She did it again when I turned up at her house. She had pushed me away and it allowed me to focus on more important things. Such as Joshua moving away and the idea that I wouldn’t be looking after him nearly every day. That cut like a knife. I could see that Brent wanted to make it work and the reality that I wasn’t Joshua’s dad became my reality. I thought about re-decorating his room. Making it the study that it was before I came up with this whole charade.
I grabbed the drinks and muffin and headed to her table. She smiled up at me. It wasn’t a smile that said that she’d forgiven me. But it was a start.
“Thanks. I didn’t eat this morning,” she beamed as she took the muffin and Hazel was sitting up in her high-chair stretching out for the muffin. I knew not only did Hazel have an obsession with chocolate, but Ivy did, too.
“I didn’t know whether to. I know that you used to say that chocolate is the devil in disguise.”
She stopped eating and said, “You remember that?”
I nodded as I left the table and she put down the muffin as I went to the rest of the coffees. I needed one to keep me up. I was exhausted, I’d hardly slept the last couple of weeks.
“Chad, do you have an interview?” she asked as I sat back down.
I laughed, “No. I just wanted to make an impression today. So, I went out and bought a suit.”
“You’re kidding?”
I shook my head, “Nope.”
Then we were back to the awkward silence, but then Hazel broke it as she kept repeating the words, “Choco,” as she continued to dig into her muffin.
“Well, I know where she gets that from,” Ivy smiled as her eyes darted from Hazel to mine. I couldn’t help but stare at Ivy. The hunger that I felt as I came in surpassed as I looked at her. The face that I used to see most mornings was still the same, but there was a sadness about her. I didn’t know if I was the cause of it, or if something else was going on in her life. I hated the idea that I had made her feel sad, then again there was nothing good that would come out of what I did. Like an idiot, I thought that I would tell her the truth and the one time that I did decide to do it, she had found out before I’d even had a chance to explain myself.
“I cooked dinner for you that night. I thought that you would be so impressed by my culinary skills that you would forgive me,” I shrugged before I picked up my coffee.
“So, you wanted to tell me?”
I nodded, “I did, but then I never got the chance to do it. Olivia and mom got there before I did.”
She sighed, “Maybe I should have given you a chance to explain back then, but I was hurting so badly that I couldn’t see the woods for the trees. I hated my job. Being back in town and everything. You came along, and things just seemed to fit nicely. But the moment I found out I went back to hating my job and being back in town.”
We both laughed as she’d gone from one ext
reme to the other and back to where she started and I knew exactly how she felt.
“When Olivia told me that Joshua was leaving and that she was giving Brent another try, I hated myself so much. It was as if I’d allowed myself to do nothing with my life and everything and everyone were in control of my happiness. I was like a surfer constantly waiting on a killer wave to catch the wave of a lifetime. Once I did that, I was back to ground zero.”
“Selling the app got to you, didn’t it?”
I shrugged, “Not really. It was an app. I had no real connection with it. I’d set out to do what I wanted with it. But technology is completely different. When it went life, I never felt the excitement the same way that I did when Joshua started to crawl or when Hazel was attempting to take her first step. Now, that had me on a fucking high.”
I sat back and then Hazel’s vocabulary changed from choco to “Fuk!”
Shit!
I need to keep my potty mouth under control, especially because Hazel’s older now. Ivy laughed as she said it and I covered my mouth as I started passing some of my muffin to Hazel hoping that she would go back to saying choco, which is exactly what she did.
“Phew!”
“What are we going to do with you Chad?”
I raised an eyebrow and stretched out my hand, “Give me another chance?”
She sighed, “But if we do go down that road then maybe we need to take it a lot slower this time.”
“Maybe?”
She took my hand and said, “Chad, just don’t lie to me again. I think that you did it because you wanted us to be together, but it wasn’t the best way to do it.”
I sighed, “I know. I learned my lesson, and I wouldn’t do anything to lose you again. Especially when I have a solution that will help both of us in the long run.”
“Oh?”
I nodded, “But as you said, one step at a time.”
“Yes. One step at a time,” she repeated, but I didn’t know if she was doing it for my benefit or her own. I leaned across the table and sealed her lips with my own. I had to kiss those lips. I missed them so much and every part of her. She was willing to give me another chance, something that I didn’t think was possible, but I knew one thing for sure. I wouldn’t fuck up again; I didn’t want to lose the two women that were special in my life. I wouldn’t be repeating that mistake ever again.
Epilogue
Ivy
Our lives had completely changed in more ways than one. It seemed that as careful as I thought I was with the pill, I’d missed out a few days. I wasn’t just pregnant, but I was unemployed, too.
Smith & Jones managed to find more than one contract that I’d been working on, and they were full of mistakes. I could say that it was planned and that there was a conspiracy theory about my dismissal, but it was clear that I spent most of the time daydreaming than I’d done working. I hated my job from the moment I started it, and I didn’t think outside the box.
It was as if I’d decided that being a mother meant that I had to give up my aspirations and my dreams. That everything I believed in had to be pushed to the side. But it was all in my mind. Chad had made me realize that as he talked about his new project and I didn’t hesitate in joining him on it. It was as if our relationship took a completely new turn as I learned that I was pregnant and we were no longer to take it slow.
Slow meant having a couple of picnics and meeting in Starbucks for lunch twice in one week. Kylie told me that it didn’t exist when you met the one, and she knew it from the moment that she admitted how she felt about Noah. Also, she was happy that someone had allowed Chad to grow up. She felt that the guys treated him like a kid. One that they never wanted to upset, but I’d allowed him to grow, and that was admirable. We’ve become close. Something that I didn’t think was possible after Chad had told me on more than one occasion that she hated him.
“Everyone’s coming,” Chad said as he ran up and down the stairs about twenty times. He was nervous. Nervous about the opening day. I couldn’t believe that he had gone from not knowing what he wanted to do with his life to a year of getting planning permission and trying to open a school. Not just any ordinary school, but the plan was to make it from a nursery to a preschool to a high school in time.
Those were the plans for the project, and I was happy to be a part of it. After all, I was knocked up and unemployed. I didn’t approach it gently at first, I dived into it. Especially the legal aspects of it and Chad even suggested that I open up my own practice. Something that I’d toyed with doing in the past, but I didn’t anymore because I was exactly where I wanted to be. I never thought that I would be the type of woman that would settle with just being at home with the kids. Partying and winning cases used to be my life. Now it was being invited to mother groups and talking about babies and the rest of the time, when I’m with Kylie and her friends, men. And I fucking love it. I never thought that it was possible, but being at home isn’t so bad after all. It just turned out to be a different challenge.
“Mommy’s wet herself!” Hazel shouted out and then I thought about it. As I managed to stand up from the wooden chair that I was sitting on, I was lost in my thoughts and smiling at my achievements and my new life that I didn’t think about my water breaking. I had another three weeks and five days to go before my delivery date, but yet this baby wanted to come out now.
“Now?” Chad asked as he ran down the stairs. He was running so fast that I was sure he was going to come down flying on top of me.
I shrugged, “Now.”
In my confusion, my eyes darted towards Chad, mom, Hazel, and Noah. No one moved, they were all looking at me with their mouths open.
I shouted at them to get them out of their trance, “We need to get to the hospital now!”
Chad started muttering, “But the baby’s not due.”
I nodded my head, and mom said, “The due date is just a guideline. Come on peeps; we need to get her to the hospital.”
When did mom use cool words like that?
The contractions started and I couldn’t think about their confusion any longer. Only mom seemed to be the one that was walking with me. The rest were just staring, and Chad was just pacing up and down chanting, “But the baby’s not due yet!
I squeezed Mom’s hand as the contractions started to get faster and faster. Maybe that was why I felt the need to go to the bathroom around three times when we got here. I kept going and sitting on the toilet and wondering why I didn’t seem to pee. But I was an emotional wreck after last week when we did go to the hospital, and I was convinced that I was in labor. The doctor said I had something called Braxton Hicks. False labor. So, this time I didn’t think that it was happening again. That was when Hazel just wet herself as she was coming down the stairs. I could see it dripping from her desk.
“Hazel, did you just wet yourself?”
She nodded, “Mommy did it!”
God! Now, my two year old who is going through the worst troublesome two’s that I’d ever heard of has now decided that she didn’t need to go to the bathroom. I could correct her. Explain what was happening, but I was in pain, and with Chad being completely useless I knew that I had to get out of here, with or without him. And judging by the trail of events it was going to be without him.
I didn’t know if Chad was in the car, nor did I care as I started to scream uncontrollably as the contractions started to get worse. We were supposed to be at the nursery and preschool to make sure that everything was in place for the grand opening tomorrow. I felt guilty at the idea that someone had to go back and clean up not only my water breaking but Hazel peeing in the school, too. Great!
I was thinking crazy things, I was about to have a baby, and I had cleaning on my mind. I remember reading about it was good to focus on something else, apart from giving birth which is great in text, but in reality, it was a fucking nightmare.
I squeezed mom’s hand so damn tight as Noah was telling me to take deep breaths and if Hazel wasn’t in the car I wou
ld have told him to shut the fuck up.
I knew all about the pair of them and their parenting and birthing plan when they had Natalia, their little daughter. I even said that I would do the same thing when I found out that I was pregnant, but fuck all that shit. I needed drugs.
God! Why is Hazel in the car?
After living with Chad and listening to his potty mouth all the time, I could have caught the potty mouth disease, and the only words that are on my mind are curse words all the fucking time.
As Noah parked up and said, “Good girl Ivy, you didn’t lose your cool. You kept up…”
I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Shut the fuck up. And park the car!”
He went quiet and followed my instructions as the door opened and I couldn’t remember how to walk or anything. My eyes darted to Hazel who just sat in fright. I think that if she did want to pee herself again, she would have second thoughts about it.
Good!
All of a sudden I felt the need to have Chad by my side. I had visions of him still being at the school pacing up and down and repeating that the baby was early. As the contraction tore through my body; a tear escaped my eye until I felt a hand and it wasn’t Noah or even mom’s. It was Chad.
I smiled at him even as I was trying to grit my teeth at the same time as a contraction tore through me. I cupped his face, “You came?”
He nodded as I moved to the wheelchair and he carted me into the hospital. And I felt as if we were moving so fast, but then it could have been slow, but I was feeling light-headed. I remembered not eating this morning, and I never timed how long we were at the school, but we had been there a little while. I’d been feeling all sorts of emotions this morning, and now I knew the real reason behind it.
“I wouldn’t think of being anywhere else!”
Chad shouted as he pushed me through the hospital. It was as if seeing him made the contractions less painful or something. I was no longer cussing in my mind or even out loud. Mom took the chart to fill in our medical details while Noah was by our side and he was talking to the doctor and giving him a rundown on my contractions. I hated the way that I spoke to him earlier and wanted to tell him sorry. I turned into a mad woman in the space of minutes. The next few minutes didn’t feel so easy. If anything I started to go in and out of consciousness. I could hear different voices. And I felt movement. As if someone was taking off my dress. One minute I would open my eyes, and it would be mom by my side and the next time it would be Chad. People were coming in and out, but I felt weak. Nothing made sense anymore.
Fake Daddy ( Single Brothers #2) Page 6