Delia Bay

by Lauren Cooper

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” I spin her on the spot, my hackles rising, she’s never this jumpy. The usually bright blue eyes that shine back at me look anywhere in the room but at me.

  “Luna” I growl, the pit of my stomach tightening with worry the longer she refrains from answering me. I take her hands in mine and move us to the couch, sitting her down next to me and grabbing her face between my hands, forcing her look at me.

  “Luna. Talk to me” I urge, my eyes searching her any sign of something I should be concerned about.

  “I’m sorry” she shakes her head, bringing her hand up to her forehead and rubbing the taught skin there slightly.

  “For what?” I push, watching as she swipes the stray hands of hair from her face. The light outside is fading, the sun setting in the distance casts a golden hue on Luna as she curls her legs beneath her.

  “For this” she flicks her arms out around her but I’m still none the wiser to where she’s going with this.

  “For everything. Are you even ready for this? A baby? You told Mama I was living here now” she says so quickly she inhales a sharp breath at the end of her sentence.

  “It’s all so quick Reid. I’d understand if you felt overwhelmed by it all” she adds quietly, her baby blues flicking up at me worriedly and forcing a dagger into my chest.

  “Is that how I’ve made you feel?” I shuffle closer to her on the couch, my one leg tucked beneath me as I reach for her hands.

  “No, but” she shrugs her shoulders, “after everything, I’d understand” she exhales a long breath that she must have been holding for a while as if she’d been dying to get those words off her chest. I can’t seem to find the right words to tell her how stupidly happy that I am that she’s carrying our baby, or how terrified I am either.

  “I know you’re scared” she whispers, the damned little dove reads my mind again.

  “Fucking terrified” I swallow, dropping my head a little and letting my too-long dark mop hide my eyes away from her for a split second before she’s shoving it back up my head.

  “No more hiding” her sweet voice filled with nothing, but the god honest truth has me aching but not in the painful way. I ache for her, for us. Suddenly the future doesn’t seem like an endless blackhole just waiting to swallow me up, there’s a bright light at the end of it, holding something so fucking precious that could end up being the death of me anyway.

  When words fail me once more I get to my feet to grab Aurora from her stand, the weight of her in my palm and the scent of Luna filling my nostrils has a small smile spreading on my lips.

  “I want to play to the baby” I sit cross legged on the couch, pulling the instrument onto my lap and strumming the strings with my thumb before tightening a few of them after they’ve loosened from not being played for a few days.

  I choose a song, one without words but enough chords to carry sound through to my tiny seedling. I’d done all of my research years ago when we’d found out about the little poppy, I’d even downloaded a guide for expectant dads onto my phone. Aurora had giggled at me, her sweet teenage laugh that always had me second guessing my sanity. Little did I know the information I’d memorized back then would come in handy way down the line.

  I’d read that playing music to the baby whilst it was still in the mother’s belly would form a connection to you once they were born, if they remembered the song that is. My words weren’t enough right now, instead I’d talk to my baby through my music, and hope that somehow that was enough. Even if the tiny being wasn’t mine, I still wanted to love it like my own. Luna hadn’t said anything about it, and I sure as hell wasn’t prepared to burst the happy little bubble I’d just found. Just one last time I wanted to be happy, if everything I had right now was going to be ripped away from me then I was damn sure going to enjoy it for now. If Luna was having this baby, then so was I.

  Heartbeats & Tears

  REID WAS QUIET FOR a few days, lost in his own head somewhere so far away I couldn’t even get to him. The day of the doctor’s appointment came around far too quickly for my liking and now I found myself in the passenger seat of my Chevy on my way to the hospital.

  “Can we swing by the shop real quick?” I turn towards Reid in the driver seat, his cute black beanie drooping from the back of his head, the long hair at the front has started to curl a little and it makes him look a little less threatening.

  “As long as you’re quick” he mumbles, changing the gear stick a little too roughly for my liking. I bite my tongue from spilling the words of how I’ll quite happily ban him from driving my baby if he isn’t careful with her, we don’t need to bicker right now.

  The weather was brighter today yet cold, I’d chosen my oversized knitted jumper and paired it with some leggings and my comfy ankle boots. A woolen scarf was thrown around my neck and I’d wished I’d had a chance to grab the matching hat from my flat. Each day this week more and more of my things had turned up at the cabin, silly things like toiletries and clothes to my surfboard that now lived next to Aurora in the living room.

  “Two seconds” I flick a smile towards Reid after he drops me outside the shop. I close the door to the truck behind me before swinging the glass door open on Moonbeam. The fall display in the window brightened the room up with its oranges and reds.

  “Hey! It’s only...” I snap my mouth shut when my eyes land on Rachel behind the counter.

  “Holy shit” I gasp, my hands coming to my mouth and my eyes going round at the sight before me. The shop is deserted aside from the two culprits going at each other’s’ mouths behind my counter.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I snap, stomping way over to the two idiots.

  “Really Austin? This is magic dick?” I find myself asking.

  “Well...” Rachel starts, wringing her hands in front of her nervously as Austin smirks widely at me.

  “I don’t want to know” I hold my hand up.

  “I only came by to check that everything was okay”

  “Everything’s fine” Rachel offers quietly, her pleading eyes begging my forgiveness already.

  “Me and you” I point in her direction, my eyes threatening yet soft, “need a chat” I spin on my heel.

  “No more in my shop!” I snap before giving everything a quick once over and stomping my way out the door.

  I get back in the truck with what must the total look of bewilderment and thunder on my face because Reid immediately grasps my hand in his and pulls it onto his lap.

  “What’s up?” his concerned tone is quiet as the small specks of rain start to hit the windscreen.

  “Austin is magic dick” I mumble, rubbing at my forehead with my hand and glancing back at the shop front but being unable to see what’s going on behind the window because of the condensation that’s risen there.

  “Excuse me?” Reid splutters, his voice a gasp as I turn back towards him. Round, panicked eyes search my face and I realize then what I must have sounded like.

  “Oh no!” I clutch at his hand tighter, hopefully reassuring him that I don’t think that Austin has a magic dick.

  “I just caught Rachel and Austin eating each other’s faces off. A few months ago, she told me about this guy she was hooking up with who had a ‘magic dick’. Turns out that guy is Austin” I shake my head a little in disbelief but really, I don’t know what I was expecting. Coming to think of it, they’ve been acting different around each other for a while, I just never seen it being because of them being together.

  “Luna” Reid sighs, his head hanging slightly and my hackles rising with his quiet voice.

  “What? You don’t think Austin and me...?”

  “I don’t know” he shakes his head softly before bringing his eyes up to meet mine.

  “What do you mean?” I pull my hand from his grip, offended by him implication. After everything we’ve been through does he honestly think I’d cheat on him?

  “Luna...”

  “Spit it out Reid. Is that how low you really
think of me?” I snap, tears blurring my eyes as the rain starts to pour harder around us.

  “Luna, I can’t get you pregnant” he meets my eyes and I know he’s telling the truth. But, that’s impossible.

  “That’s impossible” I whisper, my hand going to abdomen. What if it wasn’t true? What if I wasn’t pregnant?

  “I haven’t been with anyone else since you Reid. It’s only been you” I say still with slight venom in my tone, before I turn back towards the window buckling my seat belt up and waiting impatiently for the dick-head to drive to the hospital appointment that may or may not reveal a baby.

  A soft sigh comes from his general direction but I daren’t look at him. I’m too embarrassed that he would even think that I would fuck someone else.

  The drive up to the hospital as awkward, the tension thick enough in my beautiful Chevy to weigh us both down until we drowned. I didn’t know what to say to him, what if I was pregnant but he still didn’t believe me?

  “How can you not get me pregnant?” I find the quiet words spilling between my lips as Reid pulls into a parking bay.

  “I’ve had a vasectomy” he mumbles without turning his head my way. My entire world feels like it’s bottomed out, how in the fuckety-fuck is that possible?

  One glance in his direction gives my answer, he doesn’t believe me. I refuse to acknowledge his petty-ness with a reply and so, instead I pull open my door and make my way into the hospital. I know he follows behind me because I can sense him, that stupid all-hair raising feeling I get straight up my spine and neck whenever the ass-wipe is around.

  Yes, I’m hormonal and I hate the bastard right now.

  I follow the directions I was given over the phone when I made the appointment and book myself in with a very bored looking receptionist before taking a seat in the waiting room. Reid comes to sit silently next to me, each of us refusing to break the icy-silence between us.

  My stomach is in knots as a million things fly around my head. If I am pregnant then it’s Reid’s. There’s not a flying chance that it’s anybody else’s. How am I supposed to prove it to him before the baby is even born? What if I’m not pregnant and this was just a whole mix up when we were here last time?

  “Luna Perry” a middle-aged woman with soft brown hair tied up in a bobble at the back of her neck calls my name. I get to my feet and make my way towards her, Reid following like a naughty puppy at my heels. Well, boots, but you get my drift.

  I so badly want to turn around and tell him to sit his sweet little ass back down if he thinks I’ve been sleeping with someone else but I don’t. I’m not that person. When I said earlier that there could have been a mix up at the hospital with my tests I was lying. I know I’m pregnant. Call it a feeling, but I know there’s something special growing quietly and snuggly in my belly.

  We follow the nurse into a small room fit with a hospital bed and a lit-up monitor with a screen I know I’m supposed to see my baby on. I step further into the room as Reid bumps into my back gently, it’s only then that I notice I must have stopped dead in my tracks at the reality that’s just hit me like a ton of bricks.

  There’s a baby, I know it. That baby will grow and rely on me to care for it, to love it and protect it, what if I can’t do that?

  “Luna? Are you ready?” the nurse smiles at me as I stare in wide-eyed horror at the bed before me.

  “Yes, she is” Reid helps me onto the bed with a hand at my elbow and I do as I’m told.

  “You’re dad?” the nurse asks as she grabs a white tube from beside her.

  “Yes” Reid nods once before taking a stand beside the bed next to me. I don’t argue, yet stare dumbfounded at him towering above me. What the hell is he doing to me? My hormones are all over the fucking place anyway, I don’t need his bad-boy city bullshit to add to them. First, he doesn’t believe that the baby is his and now suddenly he’s daddy?

  “Okay, this is cold” the nurse snags my attention back to her when she helps me usher my too-big jumper up and over my boobs to reveal the lower half of my belly. I inhale deeply when the cold gel hits my stomach and Reid snags my hand up in his, squeezing it tightly his eyes remain trained on the black screen.

  My heart breaks for him, even after everything that was said between us this morning I need him to see this for himself. There’s a tiny little thing inside me that’s half me and half him, growing and kicking around already.

  The nurse grabs the wand-thing from the side of monitor as she clicks a few buttons here and there before she places it on my belly and presses gently. The screen lights up like something off an old TV screen, the type that had rubbish signal and every program you attempted to watch had those massive squiggly lines across the screen.

  It feels like an eternity that she’s moving the wand over my belly, pressing on my too-full bladder that they insisted I leave as full as possible prior to the scan, when suddenly she stops and clicks a few more buttons before turning to face us.

  “Okay, this right here” she points one finger at a tiny dot on the screen that’s surrounded by nothing but darkness. “Is your baby” she smiles softly.

  “Everything looks good, the heart beat is strong”

  “Why can’t we hear it now?” Reid demands, his voice a little cracked.

  “It’s too soon, but you’re measuring around ten weeks, so your next checkup will be at twelve weeks. You’ll hear the heart beat then” she smiles. “I’ll grab a couple of pictures for you” she starts tapping at the keyboard again when a small printer by the side of her prints of four little black and white prints of the tiny sunflower growing inside me.

  “You can see its arms and legs” I smile softly after she hands them to me before cleaning up the goo on my skin.

  “Yep, whatever it is, is perfect and on track. Everything looks perfect” she smiles softly once more before helping me up off the bed.

  “Be sure to book your next appointment on the way out, give this to the receptionist” she hands me a little card with my details on and my estimated weekly gestation and ushers us out of the room and back down the hallway.

  Reid takes the scan photos from my hand without a word and I head to make my next check-up with the receptionist. When I turn back around Reid is studying each photograph intently, his long index finger tracing the outline of the tiny baby. I wait until he finally glances in my direction, those green eyes I’ve come to love so much are filled with so much unbalanced emotions it cracks a few ribs in my chest. Instead of arguing right here in the doctor’s office I start to walk back out towards the exit.

  Half way down the corridor Reid grabs me by the elbow and tugs me around a quiet corner.

  “What kind of game are you playing?” he demands, holding up the scan photos in one hand while the other remains wrapped around my arm. Wild, green eyes search my face for an answer he should know I can never give him. This man is someone I’ve never seen before and someone I never want to encounter again.

  “Reid, listen to yourself. There’s only so much I can put up with. You know damn well this baby is yours!” I rip my arm from his grasp and make to move away from him when he grabs me again, a little more forcefully this time.

  “It can’t be! I made a choice a year ago to cut my fucking tubes. That baby can’t be mine” he hisses

  “Well, guess what Reid? It is and you don’t have any other choice. Deal with it” I snap, my head thumping as I try to pull my arm from his grasp.

  “You know I have another choice” he grits, his voice growing angrier by the second. I gawk at him, his words slicing through my heart and my head as his eyes turn a thunderous green, the smoke swirling in them tells me not to poke the beast but I’m too pissed off not to.

  “Oh yeah? What’s that? What is so wrong about admitting that you know this baby is yours? About admitting that you’re happy Reid?”

  “I can’t! You know that!” he snaps, pointing his index finger towards me.

  “You can! You just fail to fucking see it�
�

  “I should never have come here” he shakes his head, his fingers rubbing at the stress lines on his head.

  “Why? So, you could have lived out the rest of your days in total darkness in the city?”

  “Yes! It’s too fucking bright here. If I’d never have come here I wouldn’t have met you and I wouldn’t be dying inside from all this goddamned guilt!” his voice rises, my hackles following suit as his free hand comes down to pin me to the wall albeit it gently.

  I should be terrified of this Reid but I’m not. He’s a lost soul I know that and yes this isn’t the best goddamned situation but there’s fuck all I can do about it.

  Having half of Reid isn’t enough. Call me selfish but I know he’s in there and he’s fucking hauntingly beautiful. That broken soul deserves to see the light of day and I’ll be here waiting when he’s ready to wake up again.

  He could toss me aside for all I cared, it would break my heart and my soul in two but if it made this handsome man

  happy then so be it.

  “Hey! Get your hands off her!” Cash comes running down the far end of the corridor, his white doctors’ jacket flapping behind him as he does. Reid immediately releases my arm from his hold and takes a step away from me.

  “Cash, it’s okay” I mumble, holding my hand up towards him as he nears.

  “What the fuck is going on?” his worried eyes flick between the angry, brooding man and my hormonal mess that wants to melt into a puddle of my own tears on the floor.

  “Luna” Cash demands, his hands going to his hips and his stern doctor voice coming into play.

  “Nothing Cash. We just had the scan is all” I shrug. “Everything is fine” I force a small smile but know as soon as it appears on my shitty face he knows I’m lying.