by Lia Lee
***
It was hard to focus on anything now that April knew. Her top priority should have been finding a way to tell him, but somehow it had quickly become sorting out her loosest clothing and making sure that her coworkers didn’t suspect anything. Her second priority became finally finding a doctor and setting up an appointment.
Between that flurry of panic and decision-making and work, somehow another week and a half slipped by before April was able to devote time to what she should tell Samson. Truthfully, when she started needing to pin her skirts in the back because they wouldn’t close properly, she thought Samson might figure it out and say something before she could. However, it was still early and she wasn’t showing much yet. Aside from how swollen her breasts had become, Samson remained blissfully ignorant.
In fact, he seemed blissful all around. He had never seemed more content, even when she dozed off on him and they went to bed curled up together without the heat and sweat that had been common for them. Things were so wonderful with him. She didn’t want to ruin it.
“I don’t think I’d ever be interested in any of those things.”
“And anyway, even the most gorgeous model, after popping a baby or two?” He looked to the audience and grimaced. “I’m just not that fond of children anyway.”
April slipped a white and blue sundress over her head and examined her silhouette in the mirror. Samson was a tall man. Even Lana was tall. It stood to reason they would have large babies. She hoped she would be able to handle it. With no family history, no knowledge of what her mother or grandmother had gone through, April didn’t know what to expect. Her fears of losing Samson were beginning to be eclipsed by her worry for things that might be wrong with this baby. Things lurking in her DNA that she could never know about until a test revealed it.
But even if her doctor’s appointment revealed the worst, and her child needed a series of surgeries like April had when she was a baby, she found that she didn’t care. This child, however it had manage to sneak through Samson’s sea of condoms, deserved parents that wanted her, or him.
“Please don’t leave me,” she murmured.
April pinned her hair halfway up, allowing some of her curls to spill down around her face the way that Samson liked. She applied her makeup lightly and avoided her perfume, which was so bothersome now that she might as well go without it. Tonight she would tell Samson that he was going to be a father, and let him opt out if he really wanted to.
***
The intensity of the Texas summer was beginning to abate that evening. April could feel a breeze over her shoulders as she and Samson stepped out onto the rooftop patio of B&B Butchers. The carefully arranged lanterns lit up the empty patio, but the sky was still getting dark enough for April to appreciate the view. She could see the entire skyline of Downtown Houston. This far from the traffic and cracked streets, she could appreciate the towering buildings and multicolored lights. She could even smile at the huge, glowing ferris wheel that rotated from the Downtown Aquarium.
Because, why not have a Ferris wheel at an aquarium? Houston had a lot of flaws, ones she was becoming intimately acquainted with as she took on more design projects, but lack of creativity was not one of them.
“This view is gorgeous.” April let Samson pull her chair out for her and smoothed her dress underneath her as she continued to gaze at the skyline.
“It is. You can thank Garcia for this one. I asked him where he’d take someone special.” Samson leered.
“And those plans fell through? Thanks for thinking of me.”
“Stop joking. Tonight is special.”
“Is it?” What was he planning?
The waiter came to take their orders, and April declined trying out the raw bar, to Samson’s disappointment.
“Oysters look like snot, and you and I have never needed an aphrodisiac.”
Samson suppressed a laugh. “Now I don’t know if I can ever eat them again.”
“Good.”
Ultimately, they settled on crab cakes for an appetizer, and April let Samson do the ordering for their steaks. He also insisted in ordering a couple of lobster tails and a bottle of wine.
“You are a man of excessive tastes,” April informed him.
“I drank a cherry limeade for you. You can eat lobster for me.”
“I win in both of those situations!”
“That’s just fine.” Samson reached for her and gave her a silly smile. “I like it when you win.”
April grinned stupidly as well. She couldn’t help herself. She loved him. She wanted it all. The job, the man, and the baby. She wanted her stable home and family, and creative fulfillment, and a squirming little version of Samson, and lots of orgasms.
Not wanting to ruin their dinner, April carefully kept their topic of discussion on work and travel. Samson seemed content to listen to whatever she had to say, pitching in jokes and compliments as they came up. By the time she made it halfway through her steak and lobster, April was almost too full to breathe. She was going to have to watch that. Samson’s penchant for spoiling her could end up being a bad thing.
“You haven’t had any wine,” Samson pointed out. “That’s not exactly fair.”
“Not really. You pretty much know I’m going to put out, after this kind of dinner.”
Samson kissed her hand. “It’s just as well. I want you to remember this.”
He took a deep breath, knocked back the rest of his wine and dabbed the corners of his mouth. Then, he pulled a small black box out of his jacket pocket.
“Samson…”
“April, you know that I’m the kind of man who makes big gestures, but not big commitments. And I know that you said that things were fine, if we were just having fun...”
April felt her insides turning to ice water. “I know, but I really don’t—”
“I want you to know that I want more than fun with you.” Samson opened the box and slide it over to her.
It was a key.
“I love you, April,” he said.
“Samson, I’m pregnant,” she blurted out at the same time.
“What?” Samson dropped his hand from the table. “What did you say?”
“I said… I’m pregnant. At first I wasn’t sure… But I am.”
The knot in her throat grew with every second of silence that followed. His expression was as forbidding as it had been the day she’d interviewed with him.
“You can’t be pregnant,” he managed.
“I am. I went to the doctor. I have an ultrasound picture.”
“Show it to me.”
April rolled her eyes. “I don’t have it in my purse. It’s at my apartment. We can go get it after dinner, if you want proof. Do you really not believe me?”
“We’ve always used condoms!”
“They aren’t a hundred percent effective. Maybe one had a tear. Maybe we just bucked the odds with the sheer amount of times we fucked in that first week. I don’t know what happened. I’m not lying to you!” April turned her face away and covered her eyes. This was not her best-case scenario. She prayed that she wouldn’t start to cry.
“Hey.” Samson came over to her side and took her hand from her eyes. “I know you wouldn’t lie. I just don’t understand how it happened.”
April felt her head beginning to spin, and she closed her eyes tightly. “I guess we can try to figure out what happened. Take a closer look at that box of condoms. Maybe your swimmers are particularly aggressive lately. I don’t know.”
She felt his hands rubbing her shoulders and thought for a moment that it would be okay.
“Let’s go home. I meant to invite you to live with me anyway. Stay the night, and we’ll think about it more tomorrow.”
April felt a stab of panic and looked back at him. “Think about what more tomorrow?”
“What we’re going to do.”
“Aside from getting a registry going and buying some maternity clothes, I don’t know what you think we’re going to d
o about it,” April snapped.
“That is not what I meant. I just meant that we need to talk, and you are clearly upset.”
April pulled away from him and stepped closer to the railing. “Of course, I’m upset! I’m pregnant out of the blue, with a man I love, who doesn’t want to have children, ever!”
Samson held his hands up. “It’s true that I have no desire to have a baby at this point in my life.”
“Do you want to have one at all?”
“April, I need time. I need to process this.”
“Just say it. You don’t want this. You don’t want to be a father.” April crossed her arms over herself. “You want to keep merrily taking over the world with your huge company.”
“I love you!”
“You can love me, but if you don’t love our baby, too, it’s no good to me. I can’t get rid of this child. I can’t throw her away like I was thrown away!” April heard her voice break and covered her mouth, trying to catch her breath.
“Oh, that’s it? You’ve already made all the decisions?” Samson boomed. “You’re going to have the child whether I want it or not? What comes next? You’ll tell me where we’ll live? When we get married? I guess whether we do is up to you as well.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” April shook her head. “You can’t compromise on a baby! Either I have it or I don’t. It’s not that you don’t get any input on the situation; it’s that I can’t do anything else. Don’t you see that? I can’t do it!”
She grabbed her jacket and made for the stairs. Samson grabbed her shoulder.
“April, just calm down!”
“No! Your choice here isn’t whether or not you can get me to get rid of a baby. Your choice is whether or not you want to be part of his or her life.” April started down the stairs. “Keep the key. I’m calling an Uber.”
As she descended, she could hear the crashing off patio furniture, and she winced.
Chapter Twelve
Samson stayed out of the office for the rest of the week. He was still too angry with April to deal with what had happened. Moreover, he was too angry with himself. It was true that he’d been getting impatient for their relationship to progress, but taking out that impatience on her, for a situation that was out of her control, had been so far beyond how he ever imagined treating her that he felt he didn’t really deserve the comfort of her warm embrace or her fond teasing.
Still, he missed her. It was only a matter of days, but he ached without her near. He did his work from his apartment, sent messages to the office, and kept to himself. He went through more bottles of wine that week than he cared to admit.
The next Monday, Samson steeled himself to return to the office. It was time to be a man. It was time to see April and work this thing out. During his time away, he had done some thinking. Of course, he couldn’t possibly have her get an abortion. He would never do that to her, given how she felt about the baby already, and knowing how she grew up, it would be cruel to force something like that on her. Not too long after that, Samson realized that he wouldn’t want to get rid of his own child.
His main difficulty with the whole situation was that after everything, he would have to actually be a father. He wasn’t sure their child deserved that.
Regardless, his insecurities were no reason to punish them both. Nothing would be worked out by simply sitting around and feeling sorry for himself. He picked up a triple espresso latte and headed into the office determined to put things right between them.
When Samson reached their floor, however, nothing felt right. Many of the staff were staring at him. Quite a few of them were shooting daggers. He approached Babette’s desk, and she jumped as though she’d been stuck with a pin.
“Sir,” she muttered.
“Could you collect my messages, Babette? I have quite a bit to catch up on.”
“Absolutely, sir.” Babette fumbled through her organizer.
Samson furrowed his brow at her. “What’s going on? Why is everyone acting so strangely? Is it because of my absence?”
“Well, probably the reason for your absence.”
Samson blinked. “What would you know about that?”
Babette stared at him for so long that he snapped, “Spit it out!”
“April left. I-I don’t know.” Babette rubbed her lips and then looked up at him with a strange expression. “I have no idea why. You should talk to her team.”
“Fine. Get those messages together.”
Samson swept through the office like a dark cloud. What had she meant that April left? April wouldn’t leave a job like this. She was pragmatic. There was no way that she would leave a job like this. Especially since she now had a child to think of.
“Garcia.” Samson appeared in the office where Garcia was sitting on the edge of his desk and talking to Jessie and Katy, the new hire who had been added to their team. “I need an update. What is this about April leaving?”
Garcia leveled an incredulous look at him. “You ought to know.”
Samson tilted his head to the side. Jessie was staring him down, too, while Katy looked between everyone curiously.
“What do you think happened?” he asked.
“We figured out you two were dating a few weeks ago,” Katy offered.
“You asked me for where to take her on dates,” Garcia said.
“You dumped her, and now she’s gone,” Jessie said.
“That is not what happened,” Samson said peevishly. “Don’t go spreading rumors.”
“She came in here a week ago, very upset, and told us that she couldn’t work here anymore,” Garcia said. “I tried to argue with her, but she said it would be impossible for her because of how things were with you. I told her she could just wait you out. You’d be out of our hair in a few months, but she wasn’t having it, and I gave her some contacts for a new job.”
“She’s probably heading back to New York by now,” Jessie said.
Samson almost dropped his coffee and actually stumbled backwards. “Why would she go back to New York?!”
“She has contacts there. She’s always talking about how she likes it better up north,” Jessie said.
Samson stepped up to Garcia’s desk, causing the man to hop off and step back. He slapped the desk hard. “You are going to give me the leads you gave her. And I’m going to go get her back.”
***
Samson spent the next hour on the phone. Although he called April first, he kept getting her voicemail. After three messages, he gave up and began following up on the contacts to figure out where she might be headed.
One answer seemed obvious. He should simply go over to his sister’s apartment and demand to know where April was. He wanted some kind of hint that he had April’s consent to talk to her first. He simply didn’t know what to do after that kind of fight. Clearly, she didn’t either, if it had caused her to separate completely from the elements in her life that touched his. How would that even be possible now that she carried a part of him with her?
And how had that even happened? Samson opened up his desk and started sifting through his condoms, looking carefully. It probably wouldn’t help. This box was a new one. He would have to examine the old ones, and those were long gone. Maybe Babette would know where they’d come from, or have a few extras squirreled away. She was the one buying them, after all, along with a number of his other daily supplies.
He went back out to her desk, and she jumped again when she saw him.
“Sir! Are you ready for those messages?”
“No. I have some fires to put out here, first. Do you happen to know where you bought the last batch of condoms? The Trojan ones with multicolored wrappers?”
“W-were they not what you wanted?” Babette peeped.
“The brand and type was fine. I just need to find out if they had a recall, or if something happened. I might call the company.”
“I can get you on the phone!” Babette said eagerly. Very eagerly. Why was she sweating?<
br />
Samson sat on her desk and looked at her square in the eye. “Babette? Do you know if something happened with my condoms? Did you get a notice?”
“No.”
“No, you don’t know? Or no, you didn’t get a notice?”
“I, um…” Babette looked down.
Samson leaned over and tilted her head back with two fingers. “Babette. What happened to them?”
She blinked rapidly.
His voice grew deeper and slower: “What. Did. You. Do?”
“I didn’t mean to do any harm. I was just angry because you brought me here, and then you were with all of these other women.” She jumped again as he began to lean forward. “I may have put a needle through some of your condoms.”
“You what?” Samson boomed.
“Maybe a whole box?”
For a moment, Samson couldn’t feel anything. Not a damn thing from head to toe. It was possible there for a moment that he would lift Babette up by the neck and slam her into the wall. Only his barely functioning higher brain structures kept him from launching himself at her. She would never understand the damage she might have done.
“Get out, and don’t come back,” was all he said before he flew out of the building.
***
The week since he had found out that he was to be a father had been one of the most stressful of Samson’s life. This day was competing for the worst. He tried to call his sister and was still sent to voicemail. He got a speeding ticket on the way over to the apartment. He still didn’t know if April was okay or even in the state.
If only he’d pulled himself together sooner.
Samson was a bit out of breath when he reached the door, which opened to reveal his sister holding a kitchen knife.
“Would you stop that? This isn’t funny,” he snapped.
“No, it isn’t. Unbuckle those pants, mister.”
“Get out of my way. I need to talk to April. Is she here?” His voice grew quiet. “Is she all right?”