by Mia Carson
Before I could turn and make my escape into the kitchen, Neal looked straight at me and froze. Alisha followed his gaze, and her face contorted into a sneer.
I turned and ran into the kitchen as fast as I could without tripping and breaking my neck on the tiled floor. Gem had seen the exchange from the counter and darted in behind me. I stood holding the door to the large freezer, breathing deeply, my eyes watering in spite of myself.
“What’s happening?” she demanded, concern in her eyes. Even though we had only recently met, she was already turning out to be a true friend.
“That guy who just came in with his fiancé,” I blurted, “we went out.”
Gem’s eyes narrowed. “And?”
I don’t know what came over me; I hadn’t even told Ella yet. “I’m pregnant with his baby, and he doesn’t know,” I burst out in one breath.
Gem’s shocked expression only lasted for a split second, like she was used to hearing about her co-workers being pregnant with strange men’s babies. “But he’s the billionaire Callaway guy, isn’t he?” she asked casually.
“Yes,” I replied, my breath hitching. Everyone knew Neal.
“Hmm. I had suspected with you always running to the bathroom.” Gem pursed her lips. “You’re doing good, though.”
“And you said nothing?” I asked.
“No, it’s not my business and you know I make it a point to mind my business,” she began again after a few seconds of reflection. “I don’t want to give unsolicited advice, but I would tell him if I were you.”
“I can’t,” I said. “At least not yet. I just wasn’t expecting him to come into our café.”
“It’s a free world. He can go into any café he wants,” she said.
“I guess so. But why here?” I asked, looking around like he was going to show up behind me any minute.
“Maybe he’s looking for you?”
“I doubt that. Besides, I don’t want to see him right now,” I said.
“Are you ashamed of him seeing you as a waitress?”
I shook my head, but I wasn’t certain. Was I ashamed?
“You have no reason to be ashamed of working hard,” Gem said in a matter-of-fact voice. “If you want to stay in here and get yourself together, I’ll serve them.”
I took another deep breath, making my best effort to pull myself together. “No,” I said finally, standing up straighter. “I’ll take care of it. He’s on my table and I’ll serve the table regardless of who’s sitting there.”
“Good,” Gem said, followed by a close-mouthed smile. This was the first time I had actually seen her smile. “But you'd better start thinking about how you’ll tell him you’re pregnant. Good luck with that.”
I emerged from the kitchen and saw Neal seated alone at a table by the window, the same table Ella and I had sat at months ago, talking about dating. I walked up to him. Although the restaurant was crowded, the only two sounds I seemed to be able to hear as I walked up to his table was the beating of my heart and the clicking of my heels on the floor.
“Good evening, sir,” I began softly, taking out my notepad and looking down at it, “what can I get you this evening?”
After a moment that lasted an eternity, he spoke. “Nothing except a chance to speak with you.”
“And for the lady that’s with you?” I asked, looking stubbornly down at my notepad.
“Nothing. She had to leave, so I’m on my own.” A stern reply. After a moment, he sighed. “I wish you would talk to me, Tia. I wish you would tell me what happened.”
My blood boiled. What happened? I told him I needed some time, and he got engaged to that trash in less than a month. And now he had the nerve to show up at my place of work, with her, and ask me what happened.
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can get you?” I asked, my voice as cold and emotionless as I could possibly make it. He didn’t say anything. “Okay then.” I began to turn around.
He grabbed my wrist. “Tia,” he hissed, “I have a right to know why you won’t speak to me.”
I felt the blood surge hotly all the way to my head. The viciousness with which I looked at him could have burnt a hole through anything. “You have no right. None,” I hissed, trying to keep my voice level and my stance controlled, so as not to attract attention. “If you had any, you lost it the day you got engaged. You are an engaged man. Please leave me alone.”
With a force I did not recognize, I wrenched my wrist free of his grip and turned around. I could feel his gaze on my back all the way back to the kitchen doors.
I knew I meant—or wanted to mean—every word I had said to him. Except it was not the truth. I was carrying his child. He had every right to ask me what had happened. He had a right to know why I was avoiding him.
Neal
I watched her as she walked away from me, back to the doors behind the counter—not turning around, not wavering. I felt a strong sense of déjà vu for a second and realized that so far, all of our encounters had ended this way.
I looked down at the spotless wooden table, my heart beating hard in my chest. One look at her after all these weeks, and I felt like an entirely different person. All those feelings I had been trying to curb rushed back to the surface in a matter of seconds. One look at her, and I was back where I had started.
When Alisha had suggested we get coffee somewhere in town earlier, I had automatically thought of one of the cafes that had been around since I was a kid. I used to love the steak. Naturally, I had not been here in a while. If I had, I might have known Tia worked here. She hadn’t mentioned where she worked on our date, but then again, there was a lot I didn’t know about her.
After seeing her here this evening, I had not counted on having a chance to talk to her, not while Alisha was with me. It was a miracle that she had received a call from my mother, regarding the designer making her dress for our wedding or something like that.
Before, Tia had acted in a manner which suggested she wanted to be left alone for personal reasons. But this time, she had looked at me with downright resentment in her eyes.
And she looked even more beautiful than I remembered. Even in the cream and mustard-yellow waitress uniform, she looked breathtaking. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck, and her skin had a dewy glow, which seemed new. She had little or no makeup on, yet her skin shone. It was hard to look at her and keep my thoughts together. I was lucky I managed to get out the couple of phrases I had uttered coherently.
A minute after the kitchen doors had closed behind her, they opened again and another waitress appeared. She was in her late teens, her hair cropped short; she had a look I could only describe as enthusiastically emo. She charged to my table, maintaining eye contact as she moved. Before I could dismiss her with a wave of my hand, she stood in front of me, looking into my eyes.
“What’s the matter?” she said, before I could say something along the same lines.
“Excuse me?” I asked, bewildered.
“What’s the matter—what do you want with Tia?” she asked, her question a little more clear.
I took a steady breath. “It’s hard to explain,” I said finally.
“Try me,” she said smiling. “I have all day to listen to you.”
“I take it you know about Tia and I?”
“Enough to know that you’re upsetting her,” she said, looking sternly at me.
I debated whether to talk to her or not, but seeing that Tia wasn’t going to talk to me, I figured anyone close to her would do. “Sit down then, please.”
***
Gem had listened to my part of the story with patience, and when I was done, she gave me her number and told me to call her around ten the next morning. I left the restaurant without another glimpse of Tia. The rest of the evening went so slow and the next morning, I did as Gem asked. She promised to help me talk to Tia and half an hour after I talked to her on the phone, I stood outside the Hotel La Roux, where I sometimes went to escape my pare
nts, waiting for Gem to arrive. She pulled up in an old Ford about five minutes later.
“I’ve got a plan,” she said, dispensing with any formal greeting. She took out her phone and dialed a number I presumed to be Tia’s. “Hey, Tia! I need some help, girl. I have gotten myself into some trouble,” she said into the phone. She paused, pursing her lips, while Tia responded. “I can’t explain right now. Can you come…quickly, please? I am at the Hotel La Roux on Commerce Road. You can find it, right?”
She hung up after a moment and looked up at me. “She’s on her way right now. I believe we can tell them at the reception to take her wherever you want when she asks about me? Then you can have a word with her.”
“I believe so, yes,” I replied. “Thank you so much, Gem.”
“I still don’t trust you,” she said suddenly.
I paused to look at her, my eyes asking what my mouth didn’t—why didn’t she trust me?
“I don’t trust you because you are engaged to another woman. But I saw the expression on Tia’s face yesterday when she saw you, and I saw the same one on yours. You two need to talk about a lot of things. But I swear, sir, if you hurt her or upset her in any way, you’ll pay for it.”
I smiled at the young girl who was super-protective of Tia. If only she knew that hurting her was the last thing on my mind.
***
About an hour later, Tia stood in the middle of the room, not moving, not looking my way. My hand trembled around the glass of water I felt like throwing at the wall and shattering into a thousand glass pieces, just like she was shattering my fucking heart.
“Tia,” I said. My voice was soft and did not betray a hint of what was going on inside me.
“I can’t stay, Neal. I don’t know what you want from me or why you lured me here, but I have to go.”
For weeks I had pined for this girl. I had spent nights unable to sleep and mornings sitting drowsily in my seat, staring into the large mug of coffee in front of me and thinking of her, only of her. Everywhere I looked, I could see only her small, pretty face framed by her thick, straight hair. Any pair of eyes that was not hers was insignificant.
I needed answers.
“Why?” I asked. She looked bewildered.
Tears rose in her eyes, and she looked down. It drove me insane when she looked down. Why couldn’t she fucking look me in the eye and speak her mind? Or did she think I wasn’t worth that?
“Because we don’t belong together. Because you tricked me into coming here as if you have the right to control someone else’s life,” she told me.
Her voice was quiet, restrained, but the anger was there. How could I make her see? I didn’t want to be without her, but I couldn’t just tell her. I felt a sudden urge to protect her and I walked towards her until I was standing very close to her.
“Tia, please talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to say,” she said, looking at me, and before she could say whatever else was forming in her head, I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. I had never wanted another woman the way I wanted her. Not even Alisha. My thoughts went to Alisha. The marriage was never going to work, not when my heart belonged to Tia. I knew I had to break it off with her. It was Tia or nothing. Alisha had to be history.
When my lips found hers, at first she didn’t respond in the slightest. I sucked at her bottom lip, begging for a response from her, teasing her. I felt her stiffen, then relax, and soon her lips were moving over mine, her tongue teasing me.
Before I knew it, my hands were at her back, undoing her bra. Instead of resisting, Tia leaned into me, opening her mouth and deepening the kiss. I felt the whole room melt around us as my need for her grew stronger, until my cock felt as hard as a rock in my pants. Leaning into me, I knew she could feel it. She put her hand down the front of my pants and traced the hard outline of my erection with her finger. I had to get her out of her clothes now.
As I freed her breasts from the bra, I noticed they seemed bigger than I remembered. Her nipples were tenderer, and as my fingers moved towards them, a groan rose from her throat. Something was different. I put my lips on her nipple, and she moaned loudly.
“Oh, Neal!”
“Tia,” I whispered, my throat hoarse, my focus now solely on what she was doing to me.
She pushed me away from her, but made no effort to put her clothes back on. I stood there as she kneeled down in front of me. With her thin, delicate fingers, she began undoing my zipper. I was too stunned to help her. Once she had it undone, she did not stop. She unhooked my belt and pulled my pants down. My cock stood erect, and leaning forward, Tia took its tip between her lips. The room spun around me, and I put my hands in her hair to steady myself. With her tongue, she licked at the bead of pre-cum.
With both hands, I gave her head a little tug, and she took my cock deeper in her throat. I was a grown man, but I was helpless and humble in front of this girl.
As she drew me deeper into her throat, she moved her mouth to and fro around my cock. My hand found her hair, and soon I was controlling her movement on my cock by pushing down on her head. As she moved her head forward and backwards, her breasts touched my thighs repeatedly, and I could feel her nipples erect against them. This small girl with a cherub face was unlike anything I had ever experienced before.
Her movement became swifter, and the moans and growls I heard were coming from me. I wanted to come in her mouth; I wanted her to swallow it. I wanted to mark her as mine in every way.
The pressure that had built up inside me was close to breaking, and I felt my cock touch the back of Tia’s throat. I lost all control. At exactly the last moment, as if she could sense what was going to happen, Tia took my cock out of her mouth and held it at her chest. I came all over her breasts. I knelt on the floor beside her. I had ejaculated loads, and it was all over her breasts.
She looked up at me through her long lashes. “You wanted me to swallow, didn’t you?”
I nodded. Tia ran her finger over her left breast, draping it in my cum and sucking it off.
I picked her shirt up off the floor and wiped her chest with it. Then I pushed her back on the floor and kissed her. Her legs parted for me. Her nipples were as hard as small rocks against my chest. I kept my movements deliberately slow, pulling back before I was completely inside her. She cried out, tangling her fingers in my hair and pulling me close. I knew she wanted me, and I wanted her to say it. When I did not thrust again for a few seconds, she broke our kiss.
“Neal, please,” she moaned.
“What, Tia?” I said.
“Please.” She squirmed.
“Say it,” I said.
“I want you,” she whispered.
I positioned my cock at the entrance of her pussy and thrust inside her, but still not completely.
“I want you, Neal.” She squirmed again. “Please,” she muttered, “please, let me have you.”
I slammed inside her, unable to control myself any longer. She spread her legs wider. I moved in and out of her, slowly at her first, until I felt her back arch from the pressure building up inside her. I quickened my pace. I thrust harder, more mercilessly. She raised her legs and increased the pace of her movements to match mine. My lips found her neck and her breast and her nipple, and as I thrust as hard as I could one last time, I felt her shatter all around me.
My teeth grazed her nipple, and I bit it hard as she screamed “Neal!”
I looked up and smiled. “Baby, you’re mine.”
I regretted saying those words as soon as they came out of my mouth because Tia said nothing after that. We lay on the floor, naked and sweaty, my body on top of hers, not quite holding each other. After a few minutes, Tia moved to stand. I rolled off of her and lay on my back as she put on her clothes.
Her shirt was soaked with my cum. She looked through my suitcase, found a t-shirt, and pulled it on. I watched silently, my thoughts the same as they had been on the morning I had driven her home from the stadium—knowing that I wanted to say s
omething but uncertain what and how.
“This will not happen again,” Tia told me, her shame clear in her eyes and her voice. She walked out the door without a glance back.
Tia
In the week that followed, I picked up my phone a hundred times to call or text her, but an invisible force stopped me every single time. I did not know what I was going to say to her, or what I even wanted to say to her. I wished desperately to hear her voice and to look at her pretty face. I caught myself absentmindedly thinking about making love to her more times than I would like to admit. But the issue of Alisha lingered on for me, daring me to cut it off. But Alisha was so excited about the wedding plans that I didn’t know how to let her down without destroying her. She and my mom spent most of their time preparing for the wedding together, and since Alisha liked to keep me involved in every tiny little detail, I was spending so much time in Richmond. I had yet to find the heart to break up with her, and I truly despised myself for that. I hated the feeling of being weak! I often wondered why I had even bothered proposing to her, and it boiled down to the fact that she had been available when Tia had refused to see me. I had overlooked her past indiscretions and had gone ahead with trying to make her my wife. But now I was guilty. Having slept with Tia again, I knew I had to end the relationship. Tia was the one I wanted to be with, and I knew that my reasons for proposing to Alisha were all wrong. Exactly about a week after I saw Tia, I found myself lying in bed late at night with Alisha by my side. She flipped through a pile of fashion magazines while I mindlessly browsed the television.
Suddenly, she put a magazine right under my nose. “What do you think of this dress?” she asked.
“What about it?” I asked absentmindedly.
“Should I get it for our honeymoon?”
“Um…” I glanced down, but to my eye, it looked like the many other dresses she owned. “Sure.”