Off the Hook: Faking it #3

by Chloe Walsh

  Blubbering like a baby and ignoring everything else around me, I darted through the school hallway.

  Relief, gratefulness, and sheer adoration flushed through my veins as I darted past several other students and threw myself at a pale looking Nathan.

  "You're back." My whole body shook as I wrapped my arms around him and welded my body to his. "Thank god!"

  I didn’t care what anyone thought anymore.

  I only cared about him and the fact that he was here and he was safe.

  "I can't believe you're back," I sobbed uncontrollably. "You're really here."

  "It's gonna take more than a cell to keep me away from you," Nate growled as he scooped me up in his arms and held my body to his.

  Burying my face in Nate's neck, I wrapped my arms and legs around his body, clinging onto him for dear life. "I was so scared."

  "I know, Andi baby," he whispered. "It's okay. I'm here now."

  ****

  Nate

  "I thought you were gone for good." She cried and shook in my arms. "I thought it was over…oh god…"

  "Hey… Hey!" Placing her down on her feet, I took her face in my hands, and forced her to look at me.

  "Andi, look at me, baby." My voice shook almost as much as my nerves but I'd be fucked if I walked away from her now. "I'm right here." Dipping my head, I pressed a kiss to her brow and exhaled a ragged sigh. "I'm not going anywhere."

  "I was so scared," she whispered, her big blue eyes blinding me with innocence. "So scared, Nate."

  I knew how she felt.

  The whole time I'd been in jail, I had been terrified for her.

  "Your face," she gasped then, clearly horrified. "Did Jackson do this to you?"

  "I'm fine." It was just some bruising. "It'll fade." I didn’t bother to add that her brother looked a helluva lot worse than me. It wasn’t the time or the place for that kind of chat. Besides, we had bigger things to deal with…

  "How are you even here?" she choked out.

  "Your father came and got us," I explained gently. "Hey. Shh. It's okay." I brushed the tears from her cheeks with my thumb. "Stop crying, baby."

  "I don’t understand." She shook her head. "Why would my father do that?"

  Because he wants to save face.

  "It's…complicated," I squeezed out. It was worse than complicated. It was fucking twisted.

  "I stole your truck, Nate," she blurted out guiltily, biting down on her bottom lip. "She looked up at my face with her big blue eyes. "I broke the law." She hiccupped. "I'm so sorry."

  Well shit...

  "It's okay." Tucking her hair behind her ear, I smiled down at her. "I'm not mad, baby."

  "Where's Jackson?" Ivy asked then, making me aware of her presence. I'd been so wrapped up in Andi that I hadn't even noticed she was here.

  "At his house," I told her before focusing on my girlfriend once again. "It's me he's mad at, not you." I had this burning need inside of me to reassure her. To make her feel at ease.

  "But it's not your fault." She looked up at me and frowned. "I pursued you."

  So sweet.

  It was so my fault.

  I was older than her, more experienced. I should have protected her. I would now. Whatever came, I would stand right beside her and be there for her. I had no other choice. The girl as good as owned me.

  And I needed her.

  It made me weak and foolish but I didn’t care.

  I needed her like I needed air in my lungs and blood in my veins.

  "I need to talk to you about something," I announced before taking her hand and pulling her towards the school entrance. "Come on. We need to do this in private."

  "And cut class?"

  So fucking innocent.

  I cocked a brow. "I think cutting class is the least of our worries right now."

  "What do you mean?"

  I cringed inside. "You're about to find out."

  ****

  Chapter Eight

  Andi

  "MY BOY GOT HER WHAT?" Becky Cole sat on the couch opposite us. She was drunk and the smell of alcohol coming from her was stifling.

  Intoxicated or not, the anger in her eyes was both obvious and evident as she glowered at her son, who was sitting beside me; a beacon of strength, as he held my hand in his.

  When Nathan first told me he was taking me back to my parents' house, I'd thrown a fit and begged him not to leave me. After promising me he wouldn’t at least a dozen times, I'd finally agreed to come with him. Now that we were here though, I was starting to panic. And Becky Cole's presence was doing nothing to calm my frazzled nerves. After a few minutes of conversation, it had become pretty obvious what was happening. Our parents were staging an intervention...

  "Pregnant," my father confirmed grimly. "That's right. Your eighteen-year-old high schooler is having a baby with my seventeen-year-old child."

  Becky's mouth hung open. She blinked several times, clearly sobering quickly at the news of becoming a grandmother for the second time.

  "You dumbass!" she finally hissed, gaze locked on Nathan. "How many times have I told you to wrap it up? How many goddamn times have I told you, Nathan?" Tears were in her eyes as she hollered at him. "You were the good one," she whispered then, voice breaking. "You were gonna go places." She sniffled and dropped her head in her hands. "College. Football. Someplace real good."

  "I'm still going places, Momma," Nate shot back quietly.

  "No, you aint!" Becky wailed. "Only place you're going now, boy, is the goddamn workforce, living off minimum wage paychecks and food stamps."

  "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mom," Nate shot back, acting as if her words hadn't affected him. I knew deep down they had.

  "Nathan is going places," I mustered the courage to say. "He has always been going places." Forcing myself not to back down from the heated stares I was receiving, I added, "I'm not going to hold him back from succeeding. In fact, I'm going to be right there in his corner, cheering him on the entire time."

  "Don’t be so naïve, Adriana," my mother sniped with a tsk. "The only corner you'll be in is the one with a rocking chair with a baby attached to your breast. Because as soon as that baby arrives, it's on you, my dear. Not Nathan or your brother, and certainly not us. You can forget school and prom and football games. Your life will be over."

  "Damn straight your life will be over," Becky chimed in, adding her two cents worth. "Do yourselves both a favor and take a trip to the clinic and fast."

  "Why don't ya'll quit fucking acting like you give two shits about either of us?" Nathan's voice was heated and furious. I jumped with fright. He wrapped his hand around mine. "And quit tryna talk my girlfriend into getting rid of my baby." He sneered at all of our parents in disgust. "If Andi wants to terminate, then we will talk about it. Us. As in me and her. But my kid aint got a goddamn thing to do with either one of you."

  "I'm not terminating," I choked out. I wasn’t against the option for other women, I fully supported a woman's right to choose for herself, but it wasn’t something I could bear to think about. For me, it just wasn’t an option.

  Looking up at Nate, I shook my head. "I can't." I hoped he wouldn’t be mad. I prayed he wouldn’t feel I trapped him. "I have to keep it." Everything inside of me was screaming at me to keep it. I had to follow my heart.

  "Then we'll have the baby," he shot back in a voice thick with emotion. "Together."

  "Jesus, Nate!" Becky wailed. "You can't just throw away your life like this."

  "It's my life to throw," he shot back angrily.

  "If you two want to shack up and play happy families then, by all means, be my guest," my father stated calmly as he glanced across the coffee table at us. "Personally, I agree with your choice to keep the child."

  Nathan stiffened beside me.

  I frowned in confusion.

  "Where's all this coming from?" I strived to contain my emotions as I gaped at my father. "This morning you were hell bent on sending me away to St. Bernadet
te's."

  "This morning I didn’t know you were pregnant," Dad shot back. "Did I?"

  I shook my head in shame.

  "Keeping you apart isn’t going to work," he continued to say. "Not now there's a baby on the way. Therefore, I think I'll take the opposite tactic."

  "And throw us together?" I gaped in surprise.

  "Exactly," my father shot back with a smirk.

  "I…" Shaking my head in confusion, I managed to say, "I don’t understand."

  "It's quite simple really," my father announced. Standing up swiftly, he walked around the couch. "If you're old enough to make a baby with a boy, then you're old enough to raise one with him." He cast a glance at Nathan, who was sitting beside me looking pained. "Aint that right, quarterback?"

  "If you think I won't go through with it then you're wrong," Nate shot back, eyes locked on my dad. "And if you think it won't last then you'll be wrong again."

  "Fine." Throwing his hands up in the air, my father laughed humorlessly. "Then prove me wrong, boy."

  Nathan stiffened beside me. "I will."

  "But here's the thing." Dad held up his index finger and smirked. "If you're taking her, you're taking all of her."

  "Fine by me," Nate shot back, glaring daggers across the room at my father.

  "I mean it, boy," Dad said then, tone serious. "She walks out that door with you and she's all yours to be dealing with. I wash my hands of her."

  I wanted to scream you washed your hands years ago, but I held it in.

  The truth was I wanted to go.

  I was dying to be free.

  I trusted in Nathan.

  I believed in the future we could have together.

  "It's on you, Cole. The decision is yours." Walking back to the seat he had just vacated, Dad sank down once again and crossed one leg at the knee. "If you're serious about being with my daughter then you know what needs to be done. Otherwise get the hell out of my house, walk away from my daughter, and let me fix the mess you've made." Leaning back in his seat, he smirked "What's it gonna be, quarterback?"

  ****

  Seven

  Months

  Later

  Chapter Nine

  Andi

  EXACTLY ONE MONTH AFTER my father's ultimatum, on the twenty-fourth day of November, Nathan Cole and I exchanged wedding vows in St. Peter's Cathedral in Springhill.

  To the outside world, it looked like exactly what it was; a shotgun wedding.

  Two teenagers forced into a lifelong commitment because of a father's religious pride and a teenage boy's infallible sense of duty.

  My parents even had to sign special documents consenting to the marriage because I was under eighteen.

  Even though I had been dreaming about marrying Nathan Cole from as young as the age of five or six, our wedding day was nothing like I thought it would be.

  It should have been perfect.

  Except it wasn’t perfect.

  Because it was forced.

  Because he was forced.

  I knew it, and even though he denied it, Nathan knew it, too.

  There was no big, fancy wedding reception in a glamorous hotel, or a six-tier cake for us to cut together. There were no smiles or tears of happiness from our guests when Father Crowley pronounced us man and wife. We didn’t have anyone to cry for us. Except Jackson and Ivy, who looked on in misery as we joined together in holy matrimony. Our parents were there, too; my father watching over the ceremony like he was sealing a contract with a tricky client.

  I wore a simple, full length white dress given to me by Ivy, and Nate wore a black suit. Our clothes were the only thing about the day that resembled a wedding.

  When the mass was over, and the ink was dry, Nathan and I walked out of the church hand in hand, though I never felt further away from him.

  When we got outside, my parents presented us with two suitcases full of my stuff and a handshake goodbye. And then they turned around and walked away, leaving me alone with the boy who was now my husband.

  With our bags in each of his hands, Nate held the trailer door for me before letting it slam shut when I was inside. "I'll fix that," he muttered, frowning at the way the door didn’t close properly. "It's not much." He sounded embarrassed as he gestured around the trailer. "But it's ours."

  "It's perfect," I reassured him, tone soft and sincere. I meant it. Any place with Nathan was better than where I'd come from. I felt awkward as I stood in the middle of the tiny sitting area, clad in a wedding dress. "This feels so surreal," I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself.

  "Yeah. Some wedding night," Nate shot back dryly. Setting our bags down on the built-in sofa, he stretched out and loosened the collar of his shirt before clearing his throat. "I know it's not much to look at right now, but I get paid on Saturday and we can get some…" he looked around in dismay. "I don’t know, maybe some blankets or a throw or something."

  "It's okay, Nate." I stepped towards him. "We're going to be okay."

  "Yeah," he choked out, not meeting my gaze. "We are."

  "Do…do you think it would be okay if I took a shower?" I asked, hating the uncertainty in my voice, but knowing he needed some space right now.

  "Sure," he shot back, not looking at me. "I'll bring the rest of the stuff in from the truck."

  It took me almost fifteen minutes to get the temperature of the water right in the shower, and even then, it kept switching from boiling to freezing. By the time I was finished washing my hair, my teeth were chattering and my lips were blue.

  I finished drying off my hair and dressing for bed, and walked back into the tiny bedroom at the back of the trailer. The bed was the only piece of furniture in the room and if I was being honest, there was little room for anything else.

  When I reached the doorway, my eyes landed on Nate who was sitting on the far side of the double bed with his back to me.

  "I think there's something wrong with the shower," I whispered, climbing onto the bed. "I couldn’t get the water to stay warm."

  "I'll fix it," was all he replied.

  Pulling back the duvet, I curled up in a small ball facing his back. "Nate, are you okay?"

  His shoulders were slumped.

  He didn’t look okay.

  He didn’t sound it either when he whispered, "I'm so goddamn sorry, Andi."

  "For what?"

  Nate turned and looked at me then. "For this." He gestured around and shook his head in disgust. "For bringing you here."

  "Nathan…" I began to say but he interrupted me.

  "This isn’t the life you signed up for. Living from paycheck to paycheck? Slumming it in this shitty trailer park?" His brown eyes burned through me as he spoke. "You deserve better."

  "I want you," I shot back without an ounce of hesitation.

  "I know what I am, okay," he whispered, tone gruff and thick with emotion. "I know I have nothing to offer you. But I can promise you one thing, and that's that no one will love you as much as I do. I will work my ass off for you, Andi. I'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe. To make you happy."

  "I know that, Nate. You don't need to prove yourself to me."

  "I mean it," he urged. "This… it's temporary." Leaning over my body, he pressed a kiss to my lips. "I will give you the life you deserve." He clenched his eyes shut, clearly in pain. "And it won't be in a shitty fucking trailer with no hot water either." He kissed me again, harder this time. "I love you. Fuck, I love you. Don't give up on me."

  "I don't care, Nate. I don’t." Wrapping my arms around his neck, I drew him closer to me. "I only want you." Reaching forward, I pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "And I have no intentions of giving up on you, Nathan Cole…"

  More than six months had passed by since that night, and in the entire time, I hadn't once seen or spoken to my parents.

  They never called me to check in or see how I was doing. It was as if I had never existed to them in the first place. I suppose, deep down, I never truly had.

  "You
look exhausted," Ivy declared, stirring me from my reverie. We were sprawled out on the grass by the bleachers, eating lunch. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

  Turning to face her, I forced a smile. "Not much." None at all. Twisting onto my side, I exhaled a sigh and wiped a bead of sweat from my brow. "This heat is killing me." It was early May and already, we were in the high seventies. I dreaded to think what the rest of summer had in store for us.

  "I'm not surprised," Ivy shot back with a sympathetic smile. "With that beach ball belly of yours." Reaching over, she pressed her hand against my stomach and shuddered. "I have no idea how you manage to get comfortable."

  "With great difficulty," I squeezed out, flinching when the baby decided to play the drums on my womb. "He's so active today," I mused, stroking the swell of my stomach. I didn’t know what I was having, but every time I spoke about the baby, I always found myself referring to a boy. Wishful thinking, I supposed…

  "I can't believe it's three weeks until your due date."

  Neither could I.

  Turned out, I was a lot further along than Nate and I had originally thought. When we went back through our dates with our doctor, we discovered I conceived that very first time back in September.

  "I'll be glad to get this little guy out of me," I told her as I stroked my belly absentmindedly. "As much as I love him," and I did love him. Unconditionally, "I'm so done with being pregnant."

  "Do you need a ride home today?" she asked. "Or is Nate taking you home after practice?" She inclined her face to where the boys were running through drills on the field. Ivy was obviously waiting for Jackson to finish up. I, on the other hand, had no idea why I was still lingering around here after school.

  "A ride would be great, thanks." I sighed heavily. "Nathan has to go to work straight after practice." Like always…