by Lee Heaven
I watched as his fingers tapped against his thumb as he continued to pace and get lost in his own thoughts. I watched as his body tightened every time he looked up and saw Emily staring at us. I watched as he braced himself every time she stood and started to walk towards us and only relax after her lawyer or the older lady would pull her back to the corner they were sitting in.
As I sat in that hallway and watched Emily out of the corner of my eye I somehow knew that no matter what the results of the test and today’s outcome was there was just something there that made me feel like she was never going to go away. Somehow she would continue to torture Tyler for as long as she could. She was going to find a way to continue to be a presence in his life for as long as she could ride his coattails.
Jason and Zane, Decker’s lawyers who Tyler had hired to help with this situation, stood a few feet away from us, each working tirelessly on their phones and iPads trying to figure out if we should continue to wait around or if they should just reschedule for another day. I can tell all the waiting around was getting to Tyler. He long ago abandoned his jacket in my lap. His shirt sleeves had been rolled up and the tie and top button on the shirt loosened. I kicked off my shoes that had been pinching my toes about a half hour ago.
I’ve had to go to the bathroom for about ten minutes and have held it off so I didn’t have to put my shoes on, the only issue is if I wait any longer I was going to pee my pants. I slipped my shoes on and stood. Tyler spun and froze me to my spot with a stare that screamed ‘Please don’t be leaving me.’ I pointed toward the bathroom and he sagged in relief.
As I sat on the toilet I heard the door open and the click of heels. Suddenly the pair of shoes was standing right in front of the stall I was in. I knew it was Emily before she even opened her mouth. Her hand slapped against the door as she hissed, “I will be back in his life. He will want to raise his daughter with her mother. Once he hears the results and knows she’s his, you will be out on that skank ass of yours.”
I started laughing as I pulled up my panties and smoothed my dress down. I was so ready to go off on her ass. I was not going to be part of her psychotic rants and beliefs. The door opened and suddenly a male voice was telling her to knock it off or she was going to get herself in trouble. She made a whiny noise and her feet started to move as if she was being pulled out of the bathroom while she was trying to stay put.
Tyler was suddenly in the bathroom as I opened the door and the look on his face plainly said he was worried about what just happened. I shook my head and laughed as I went to wash my hands, “She picked the wrong time to come in. I was still in the middle of pissing and locked in the stall.” He laughed as he pulled a few paper towels out of the dispenser and handed them to me.
“Come, darlin,” he said as he stuck his hand out for me to take. He wrapped his fingers around mine and pulled me into his body. His coat was back on and the tie was pulled tight. “They called us in.”
I sat right behind Tyler, my leg bounced nervously. I don’t know why I was so nervous. It wasn’t my life that was on the line. It wasn’t me finding out that the child in question was mine or not. A poor helpless twelve week old baby. A baby who had no idea what was going on. How was this going to affect her when she got older? Would she ever know who her father was? What if Tyler was the father? Where would that leave me and him? Would he stay with me? Would he want to go back to Emily like she kept claiming?
The judge finally walked back into the courtroom, sat at his desk and looked through the pile of papers. He finally looked up and I saw Tyler’s back stiffen. “I have the results for the paternity test that was taken a few weeks ago.” He looked over at Emily and then back at Tyler. “Mr. Ellis, the test says with ninety-nine point nine percent certainty, that you are not the child’s father.”
I watched as Emily jumped out of her seat and screamed that the test was rigged. That the test must have been messed with, that Tyler was the father. When her lawyer finally had her seated and quiet after the outburst the judge continued. “Ms. Green, I can assure you another outburst like that will not be tolerated and the next time it happens you will be held in contempt of court. Now the test has proven Mr. Ellis is not the father of your child. To further the test results I had Mr. Peter Chin subpoena for a sample of his DNA. It was with ninety-nine point nine percent that he is the father of your child.” Emily went to stand again and her lawyer forcefully held her down. “I’m sorry Ms. Green but Mr. Chin is the father, not Mr. Ellis. Now on another matter,” he handed the bailiff a piece of paper to give to Emily. “Mr.Chin has signed over all his paternal rights. According to his statement, he was only with you because you were willing to spend your money on him and his bills. Now that your money has stopped coming in,” his eyes darted to Tyler. “He wants nothing to do with you or his child.” The look on the judge’s face said he felt sorry for her. Hell, I felt sorry for her. To just learn that the father of your baby was not who you thought it would be and that the real father wanted nothing to do with you because you’re no longer giving him the cash he wants, that’s a rough thing to deal with.
The judge went on to explain that the restraining order was still in effect and Emily was to have no contact with Tyler. He then went on to explain all her rights and what the state could provide for her with help for her and the baby.
Tyler and I walked into the apartment a little while later. He disappeared down to the bedroom. He was quiet on the drive back and I wanted to give him some time. I knew his heart was breaking again. Sarah told me he all but fell apart when the baby was born and he realized it wasn’t his child. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what that feeling feels like. I set off for the kitchen and made us some sandwiches and coffee. When I had everything set out on the table and Tyler still hadn’t come out of the bedroom, I went in search of him.
I opened the bedroom door to an empty room. I walked into the bathroom and it was empty. I walked all around the apartment and I couldn’t find him anywhere. Where could he have gone? I didn’t hear the front door open and close. I pulled my phone out and hit send.
“What up?” She answered.
“Is Tyler down there? I can’t find him anywhere.”
Sarah yelled for Decker and asked him if Tyler was there. When I heard Decker respond no, I was starting to worry. Where could he have gone?
“Sarah, court didn’t go good. I mean we knew the baby wasn’t his, but I think hearing it finally, with actual proof, it really hurt him. He hasn’t said a word since we left the courthouse. And now…now I can’t find him.”
She ran through all the rooms with me again as I made my way around the apartment. As I got back to the master bedroom she told me to check the master closet. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before, they were like rooms all on their own. I opened the door to the first walk-in closet, the one that I have been using to hang my clothes when I stay here and found it empty. Walking to the second closet, the one Tyler uses, I slowly opened the door. I could hear Sarah calling my name as the phone slid from my hand onto the floor. The sight before me just broke me.
Tyler was in the closet. His back was to me as he sat on his knees. His shoulders and head slumped forward. He was broken. I walked up to him and kneeled down behind him. Wrapping my arms around his body I felt him shake. Holy fuck the man was crying.
“I knew she wasn’t mine the second I saw her,” he whispered barely loud enough for me to hear. “But hearing the results, that just made everything, her cheating, the lies, the betrayal, it just made it all real. Made it look like I was stupid and a sucker.”
I slid around his body until I was kneeling in front of him. I lifted his face with my hands. I waited until his electric eyes were looking at me. I wanted to cry just for the dullness that I saw in them. I wanted to cry for the ache in his heart that I could feel. I wiped my thumb along the tear tracks that were on his cheeks. “Stupid happens when you have feelings for someone. Stupid happens when you love. I was stupid when I choose t
o stay with Jeremy all those years. I was stupid for taking him back all those times. But I was stupid because I loved him. I wanted to see the good side that I knew he once had.” I smiled softly at him, “Nobody’s perfect. And each time we learn from our stupid mistakes. We learn how to love better, how to love stronger. We learn to be stronger. We learn how to trust someone all over again because we aren’t sure if we know how. We learn to find the one next time, the one that won’t treat us the way we were just being treated.”
This man that I knew for barely two months had become more to me than anything else. I trusted him. I wanted to make him happy. I wanted him to make me happy. I didn’t want perfect with him. I wanted good times, I wanted bad times. I wanted to fight and make up. I wanted to lean on him and have him lean on me. I wanted to be the one for him and him the one for me.
“I trust you,” he whispered. “I want you in my life. I want to see you smile. I want to make you smile.”
My brain jumped straight to the one thing I couldn’t give him. The one thing that was killing him right now. I couldn’t give him that kid. I couldn’t give him a baby of his own. So I smiled at him instead. I smiled and slid my fingers across his cheeks. I smiled as I kissed him sweetly. I smiled as I stood and held my hand out to him to help him off the floor. I smiled as I led him from that closet and into the kitchen where our food sat waiting for us.
I smiled so I didn’t cry. I smiled to keep myself from thinking of thoughts of him walking away from me and breaking my heart.
Chapter 9
The twinkling Christmas lights shone like stars in the night sky. I had never seen a Christmas tree so big. With the twenty foot ceiling in Tyler’s apartment it was easy to get a huge tree. He said the tree was twelve feet tall. I could believe it because Tyler was way over six feet himself and the tree towered over him. I loved Christmas time in the city. I loved watching all the twinkling lights outside. I loved walking up and down the street looking at store windows. I loved watching the snowflakes as it flurried.
I loved looking at all the presents Tyler and I just stacked under the tree. More presents than I think I’ve ever seen. More presents than I had ever bought. More presents than I knew I could afford. But as Tyler opened the closets in his office and pulled wrapped present after wrapped present out, all I could do was wipe the tears away. I asked him to take some of the presents back, that it was too much. That we didn’t deserve all this. That I didn’t even have the room at my parent’s house. He stood and looked down at me and told me to move in with him. That he hated when I wasn’t there at night. That it was pointless to keep going back to my parents since I was spending more and more time in the city and leaving my kids at home with my parents more and more. He walked over to his desk and pulled a file from his top drawer and handed it to me. It was an approved application for Kris and Felicity at the same school Sarah was sending Josie to. Both applications were paid for in full. How could I say no? How could I turn him down? I dropped the file on the floor and wrapped myself around him.
Now I sit on the couch wrapped in a blanket. I can hear Tyler doing something in the kitchen, and honestly I could care less what he was doing. I was comfortable and content. I was happy. I was over the moon happy. I was going to move in with Tyler. The kids were gonna be happy. Hell, I even think my step-father would be happy. Not only for the fact that I was going to be out of his house again, but because he actually approved of Tyler. He liked Tyler like he liked Sarah. Liked him more than me, I suspected. He liked that Tyler could take care of the kids and me. He liked that Tyler showed him respect that none of the men in my life before him had ever shown.
All the lights were out in the apartment except for the lights twinkling from the tree. With the tree standing next to the big floor to ceiling windows and the snowflakes coming down, you can actually picture it as if you were sitting outside. The only thing missing was a crackling fire. Yeah there was a fireplace, yeah it was on, but it was a stupid gas fire. It didn’t give off that burning wood smell, and you can’t hear the popping of the flames as the wood burned. Sarah was right, these fireplaces suck.
Tyler finally walked out of the kitchen and strolled over to the couch. He handed me a giant cup of hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows and whipped cream. He climbed onto the couch and slid his body against mine, wrapping his free arm around my shoulders. We didn’t need to talk, we didn’t need to fill the silence with mindless babble. We were just two people who were comfortable being around each other. For someone who was five years younger than me he was more mature than any other man I had ever had in my life.
We sat for about twenty minutes without a word being said. Long after our hot chocolate was gone, cups abandoned on the coffee table we just sat cuddling on the couch. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small present. It was wrapped in silver wrapping paper with glittered snowflakes all over it. It was obvious by the size and the shape it was going to be some piece of jewelry. I ripped off the wrapping paper to find the tackiest box I had ever seen. I laughed as I looked at the little box that was covered in fake leopard animal print suede. It was just something that he would do. Something that would show his relaxed and funny side, something that not everyone got to see. I kissed him. I couldn’t help kissing him before I even saw what was in the box.
The box fell to the ground as I let go of it to wrap my arms around his neck and bury my fingers in his hair. He opened his mouth and our tongues wound together in a game of tug-o-war. His hands were sliding up the back of my shirt, where he unhooked my bra. Pulling both over the top of my head we broke our kiss for a second. His hands then made their way back down and slipped under the waistband of my yoga pants. His fingers skittered across my wet skin and his thumb found my throbbing clit. Two of his fingers slid into me sending my eyes rolling into the back of my head. My hips bucked forward as I reached for his shirt pulling it up and over his head, only to leave it dangling on the arm that had his fingers buried in me. He pushed against my g-spot and I bucked harder on his hand. His free hand let go of my waist and pulled his pants down to free his erection.
Slipping his fingers from me we stripped out of our pants and he slammed into me. I closed my mouth and swallowed my scream not wanting to wake the kids. His grunt was just as held back as mine was. He powered up into me, hitting all the right places. Grabbing his shoulders I steady myself and found my rhythm, slamming up and down on him, slow then fast. His fingers worked my nipples into hard buds, tugging and pulling, adding that extra zip as my orgasm started to build. When he touched my clit, magic spread throughout my body. My fingers and toes tingled as I exploded around him, drenching his cock in a burst of my orgasm. His fingers slipped from my nipples to grab my hips as my body locked in orgasmic pleasure. He kept up the pace, holding me in a locked pleasure as he reached higher for his own release. I saw his release come across his face, his head fell back and eyes clenched tightly right before those electric blue eyes sprang open and he slammed into me one final time.
Lying on the couch covered in the blanket still naked, I snuggled into Tyler’s arms. Covered with a blanket and the tree lights glistening in the dark, I couldn’t have wanted a better way to spend Christmas Eve.
Tyler chuckled as he planted a kiss on my forehead, “You haven’t even seen what was in the box and that’s the reaction I get. I can’t wait to see what you do once you open the thing.” He reached down and picked the box up off the floor where it landed and held it out to me.
I smiled as I took the box from him. “It’s just the box itself. Whatever you bought I’m sure it wasn’t cheap. But yet you took it out of the box that it came in and stuck it in this box. This cheap, gaudy and completely you box. It shows the fun side of you. The side that you don’t let anyone but the group of us see, the side of you that is snuggled up naked under a blanket with me.”
“Open it,” he whispered as he placed a kiss on my neck.
I flipped the box in my hand a few times. I knew it was a piece of jewel
ry. It was just obvious. Was it the pair of earrings he had me try on the other day? Was it the necklace I was admiring when Sarah and I were out shopping? Bracelets usually come in a long box, so I doubt it was a bracelet. There’s no way he would buy me…My eyes snapped up to meet his electric blue sparkling eyes.
“I knew I was in love with you the day Sarah showed me a picture of you weeks before you got here. It was a picture of the two of you at a baseball game a few years ago. Both of you had blue hair. You can even see Decker and me standing out on the field. To think we were that close and we didn’t know you guys were there. But the day she showed me that pictured I didn’t even want to hand it back. There were all sorts of things I was thinking of trying to figure out how to keep that picture. It was sort of our first picture together. That first day you walked into the apartment, I was in such a mood. I just got off the phone with Emily. She was threatening me and I was just mad! When I heard you on the phone with your ex, I wanted to scream. I wanted to find a time machine and go back to that game and turn around. It killed me to know that he hit you, that he starved you, and that you almost were homeless. I wanted to go back and turn around and see these green eyes looking at me. I wanted to go back and fall in love with you and rescue you all those years ago. But I couldn’t. So I stuck for finding a way to protect you now. At first I thought that was by staying away till everything with Emily went away, but you proved me wrong by standing beside me those last few court dates. Now I want to stand by you, have a family with you, love you forever. Marry me!”
I jumped off the couch, dropping the box in his lap and grabbed his shirt. Throwing it over my head I walked to the window. There you have it. He wants a family. Something I can’t give him. I can’t give anyone a family. I can’t have any babies of my own anymore. I rested my head against the cold glass and tried to hold the sob back. I should go downstairs. I should take the kids and go stay with Sarah. I should take all my stuff I have here and go back to my parents, not move in. He must not remember I can’t have kids. It’s the only thing I can think of. It’s the only safe thing I can think of. He won’t want me once I remind him I can’t give him a child.