PREGNANT FOR A PRICE

by Kathryn Thomas

  “I think you’re enjoying this a little too much, Mom,” I comment, but I’m smiling.

  “Oh, maybe.” She shrugs. “Do you need anything?”

  When she asks the question, I realize how dry my mouth is. “Water,” I breathe.

  She takes a plastic cup from the bedside table, leans across, and puts a straw in my mouth. I suck greedily, sighing as the refreshing coolness goes down my throat. She takes the straw away, and I lick my lips, trying to get some moisture to her. Cassandra, the fire—the fire! “Mom, the house . . .”

  “The insurance will cover it,” she says. “I’ve already checked. Well, we’ve already checked. Maddox has been a huge help, you know. He has a friend – I say friend, but I’m not sure they’re too friendly – who works for my insurance company. He’s a very resourceful man.”

  “Careful, Mom. Anybody would think you had a crush.”

  We meet eyes, hold it for a second, and then burst out into laughter.

  “Am I missing the fun?” Maddox asks as he walks into the room, holding two coffees. He walks around the bed and hands a coffee to Mom and then pulls up a seat, so he’s right next to me. I make to move my arm, but I’m exhausted like I’ve just run a marathon, with a skydive for seconds and a cross-country bike for thirds.

  “Maddox,” I whisper, grinning at him. I fill with warmth at the sight of him. And then I notice the tube sticking out of my arm and think: Or is it the morphine? Whatever it is, I’m glad he’s here.

  “Eden,” he smiles.

  Mom rises to her feet, holding her hands up in defeat. “Never say I don’t know when to make a polite exit,” she says. “I’ll be outside, tending this beautiful cup of coffee your lover so graciously purchased for me.”

  “Uh, sure,” I say. “Thanks, Mom.”

  When she closes the door, leaving Maddox and me alone, I nod to Mom’s empty chair. Then I wince because nodding isn’t such a good idea. “What’s got into her?” I ask. “She’s like a different woman.”

  “The excitement has brought out a different side to her, it seems,” Maddox says. “Not that I’d know what she was like before. But, yes, she certainly seems to be having fun, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, she does.”

  A pause, and then I ask a question that will burn a hole in me if I hold it in any longer. “Maddox, what happened to Cassandra?”

  “She’s locked up,” Maddox says. “Evidence is piled against her. Not just the embezzling charge, but assault, arson, attempted murder. There are a few technical charges relating to tapping my phones, too. She’s broken quite a few laws. I can’t believe I had no clue she’d tapped them. In a way, Eden—”

  “Stop it,” I say at once. “This is her fault. What was your crime? Having a phone and not checking it for hacks? Don’t be silly, Maddox.”

  He nods. “Mason’s doubling down. Turns out he’s a sneaky man, too. Perhaps sneakier than Cassandra. He had their house tapped. That’s not illegal, you know, because it’s his own home. They have the recording of Cassandra bragging to me, along with half a dozen recordings of Cassandra bragging about their plan to embezzle all that money. No recordings of Mason, though. My guess is when they wanted to discuss it, Mason led her away from the house. But of course she couldn’t resist the urge to brag.”

  “No,” I agree. “Cassandra doesn’t seem like the type for self-restraint.”

  Maddox sips his coffee and then places it down beside the water. “How’s your head?” he asks.

  “Groggy,” I answer. “Is there any damage?”

  “Just some bruising,” Maddox says. “You had an MRI. Do you remember?”

  “No, was I awake?”

  “Yeah.” Maddox grins boyishly. “You were singing the lyrics to some pop song like a drunk woman. The doc said there might be some short-term memory loss.”

  “Maybe I should be thankful,” I joke, imagining myself singing so loudly the entire hospital can hear.

  Maddox takes my hand. “Eden,” he says. “There’s something I want to tell you. I’ve never said it to anyone before.”

  Suddenly his gaze is turned to the floor. He bites his lip nervously.

  “Maddox,” I say. “Look at me.”

  With a visible effort, he looks up.

  “I love you, too,” I smile.

  He bends down and kisses my hand.

  Chapter Fifty Six

  Two weeks later, a dozen get well cards (and only four from Nat), several sex sessions with Maddox, a few days of lazing around the house and doing very little (that sweet medical leave), and one day I reach into my mailbox and take out a gold-fringed letter. It’s one of those fancy envelopes with the raised letters. As I walk up the stairs, I run my thumb along my name, feeling the bumps. The gold fringe is patterned and crisscrossing. My name is handwritten in fancy script.

  I sit on the couch and look down at the letter for a while. Sunlight hits it; the gold fringe winks at me.

  It takes me a long while to build up the courage to open it. Mostly because I’ve never received a letter that looked so beautiful. Bills don’t tend to come in gold-patterned envelopes, after all.

  Finally, I carefully peel back the seal and take out the letter. The paper is thick, almost like cardboard, the sort of paper degrees are printed on. But it’s not graduation yet; that’s in a few weeks’ time. Just read the damn thing already! The letter, like the name and address on the envelope, is hand-written.

  I read:

  Dear Eden Chase,

  It is my pleasure to write to you personally to inform you that you have been awarded the McArthur Genius Award for your electronic game, ‘The Angels of Death.’ My attention was first brought to this piece of work when one of my colleagues – your own professor, I believe – invited me to play it. I was at first shocked when I was told that this game had been submitted in place of an essay for your dissertation. But half an hour of play soon dissuaded me from this archaic notion. While I am not an expert in video games, my grandson is, and he had this to say: ‘The gameplay is sick and the graphics are slick.’ I assume that is a good thing. I was more taken with the characters and their relation to feminism. You have, indeed, done an excellent job creating strong females, a varied cast, and interesting characters.

  Please, accept this reward with honor.

  Yours humbly,

  Dr. Francine Michelle Hobson Ph.D.

  Enclosed is a note with a date for the award ceremony.

  I stare down at the letter for a long time, so long that the sun begins to set, before I move. I’m stunned. Absolutely stunned. The work paid off, I think. The work actually paid off! It is so rare for hard, continuous work to pay off in such a clear way.

  The note says I can bring three guests; that’s no struggle.

  Chapter Fifty Seven

  We sit in the conference room of a rich-person hotel. You can tell it’s a rich-person hotel because a chandelier hangs from the ceiling, catching the light and throwing it back outward. There are around one hundred tables, all full of brilliant men and women, dressed in suits and dresses. The sound of raised voices is loud, but it’s like there’s a pod around our table, closing us in. Silverware shines almost as brightly as the chandelier.

  My trophy sits in front of me on the table. The dinner has been served and the plates cleared. Now, with shiny spoons waiting, dessert is going to be served.

  “You really should have gone up there with me,” I say, facing both Nat and Maddox. Markus sits beside Nat, his hand casually on her leg. “Seriously,” I go on when both of them roll their eyes in unison. “Nat, you’ve been with me since the start. And you’re not just a contractor. You were involved from the start, helping me build the thing from the ground up. And you, Maddox—”

  “I just got lucky,” he interrupts with a smile. “That’s the truth of it. When I was looking over the code, I just noticed something, which just by chance, I’d been taught last semester at college. I’m sure with enough time you and Nat would’ve figured it ou
t. I’d be willing to bet on it.”

  “And it was your idea,” Nat said. “I just helped.”

  “Argh!” I grunt, wanting to bang their heads together. In my acceptance speech – made possible with a few complimentary glasses of champagne – I had gone out of my way to thank them both personally, by name. And then I’d invited them to come and take a bow on stage. Both of them infuriatingly refused.

  “Are you still working on it, then?” Markus asks, looking like a giant sitting at a kid’s play set, hunched over. “Maddox told me you’re still working on it.”

  “We are,” I say, pointing at Nat, and then to myself. “We are, aren’t we, Nat?”

  “Oh, yeah, but I’d never take any credit for it.”

  “Argh!” I growl.

  “What’re you going to do with it?” Markus says.

  “Turn it into a commercial game, hopefully. What I submitted for my dissertation was more of a ‘demo.’ More of a ‘taster’ if you get my meaning. It was good enough for a dissertation, but I want to make a whole game, with multiple levels, a storyline, everything.”

  “But it will be expensive,” Nat says.

  “Well, there’s the snag. But we can still add to it slowly, and it won’t cost so much.”

  Markus and Nat fall into each other, start that whispering they’re so fond of, teenage lovers discovering their first love. I’ve never seen Nat so into a man, so completely consumed by one.

  Markus rests his hand on my knee. Whispers of pleasure move up my thigh, beneath the hem of my dress, tickling me down there.

  “I’m so proud of you,” he says.

  “Of us,” I insist.

  He gives my knee a playful squeeze. “Of you,” he says. “You’re brilliant, Eden. Truly brilliant. You’re the most brilliant woman I’ve ever met. He speaks with deep emotion, his voice cracking. I touch his face, which is fresh-shaved and smooth for the party. He looks handsome and strong in his tuxedo, tattoos poking up his neck.

  “You’re getting soppy on me,” I say, but my voice is just as choked as his. “Anybody would think that you’re not a dangerous biker, someone to be messed up, but some kind of lover man.”

  “Can’t say they’d be wrong, Red.”

  We split apart when the dessert is served, eat it, and then come together again. He moves his chair right next to mine, and I half-sit on his lap. Champagne swells in my head and my chest, and for a few mad minutes, I can’t stop laughing. Nat looks over, winks at me, and goes back to crooning over Markus.

  “Are you glad you stalked me that day?” he says.

  I slap him lightly on the cheek. “Stalked, you love to provoke me, don’t you? But in answer to your question. Yes, I am glad. Very glad. It was completely unlike me, and I have no clue what exactly I was doing, but I’m glad I did it.”

  “I am, too, Red,” he smiles and then kisses me hard on the lips.

  I fall into the kiss. Only when Nat taps me on the shoulder, do we stop. Maddox and I grin at each other sheepishly. Music has filled the air while we’ve been kissing. Ballroom music, the kind of music you expect to hear in a fairytale movie, slow and graceful. I turn to Nat. Markus is standing behind her, looking terrified.

  “You’re not going to force the big guy to dance, are you?” Maddox says.

  “Afraid so.” Nat smiles. “Why don’t you two come up? Look, they’re clearing the tables.”

  It’s true: the front tables are being neatly and efficiently moved to clear the way for a dance floor. Music sings out from speakers set high in the ceiling and low near the stage.

  I turn to Maddox. “What do you think?”

  He shifts in his seat. “I’m pretty good at fighting. But dancing? I don’t know.”

  “Oh, well then.” I push my chair back and stand up, tottering on my heels from the champagne. “It looks like I’ll have to lead, doesn’t it?”

  I give him my hand, and he takes it with a smile. “You always lead, Red,” he says. “Even when I’m leading, you’re leading, really.”

  “Are you getting poetic on me, biker man?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he chuckles, as I lead him to the dance floor.

  It’s a slow song, and we dance softly, our bodies pressed together.

  Chapter Fifty Eight

  “Would you like your usual spot, Miss Chase?” Irish says, acting the gentleman. We stand in the hallway of The Miseryed’s clubhouse, next to the decommissioned motorbike. He makes a bow as he talks, smiling at me.

  “Why, thank you, Mr. Irish.”

  He leads me through the clubhouse to the far corner. It’s the middle of a Wednesday, and the bar is almost empty, apart from a pledge behind the bar and a couple of the men sitting at computer terminals. I like to sit at the far end of the bar, my back to the men, and the wall in front of me. On the wall hangs a picture of Irish, Knives, Markus, and Maddox. Sometimes, when I want a break from work, I’ll look up at the photograph and stare at Maddox’s face.

  I sit down today, grab my laptop from my bag, and get to work.

  Later, Maddox will come out and join me, and we’ll go to dinner or to a hotel. Or I’ll just bring him back to my place, and we’ll spend our time falling into each other, sweating, kissing, laughing. But right now I turn my attention to the code.

  There’s something reassuring about working here. Maybe it’s fear. Cassandra’s trial was quick; she’s been sentenced to ten years in prison. But still, the specter of what she did to me and Moms still hangs over me. Sometimes I wake screaming. Luckily, Maddox is always there, and the night terror rarely lasts very long. I work for two hours on the code, tapping away, fingers skimming over the keys. And then I close the source code and go to the game.

  My work today is on the city itself, not the staging area. But I always like to linger on the staging area, walking my character around it. Maddox is in the game: an artist’s rendition, which highlights his muscles and his good looks. His character stands near the door, helping the female characters put on their coats. I look at him in the game, and then up at the photograph, and I think: He is mine.

  Then I decide it’s time to go and check on the city. I direct my character to the door, but Maddox’s character steps in the way. “Not so fast,” he says, and it’s his voice. The cheeky . . . He’s changed the code behind my back! I make my character jump, but Maddox’s character steps forward, blocking my path. That’s when I notice something I should’ve noticed straightaway. The character I control is me. Thin and redheaded, wearing the denim shorts I often wear. I turn the character to the screen. Yes, it’s my face!

  What has he done?

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Maddox’s character says.

  I wait, thinking: He’s a dead man!

  And then his character sinks to one knee, reaches into his leather jacket, and takes out a ring box. “Eden Chase,” he says, “will you marry me?”

  My heart stops beating for a moment—and then picks up rapidly. That romantic, grizzly man! That, that . . . My breath comes quick, and I grip the edge of the laptop so hard the plastic digs into my palms. “Please,” the character goes on, “don’t keep me waiting.”

  How did he . . . When did he . . .

  “Eden.”

  At first, I think the voice has come from the game again. But the character’s lips don’t move, and the voice is behind me.

  I twist in my chair.

  I gasp.

  I tremble with excitement.

  Maddox is kneeling on the floor, a ring box in his hand.

  “Will you?” he says. “Please, don’t keep me waiting.”

  Behind Maddox, I see Irish and Markus watching from the bar. And . . . Nat! Nat is standing beside Markus. They all knew, I think. The sneaky . . .

  I stand up, place my laptop on the chair, and walk to where Maddox kneels. He looks up at me with that smirk which first attracted me to him, but it’s changed. It’s not just cocky and arrogant anymore. There’s genuine love in it, a love that makes m
e happier than I ever dreamed of.

  I realize that I’m just standing here, looking down at him. How long? I don’t know. Maddox is beginning to look uncertain. As if there’s any need for that!

  “Of course I’ll marry you!” I squeal.

  From the back of the bar, Irish and Markus and Nat let out a cheer.

  Maddox springs to his feet. “You had me worried there,” he admits.

  He takes the ring from the box. It’s a huge diamond; a diamond I can’t imagine will really fit on my slender finger. But when he slides it on, it fits wonderfully. My hand feels heavier. It’s a comforting heaviness.