Keep My Heart (Top Shelf Romance Book 7)

by Lex Martin

  “I plan to swim.” The assured words leap out before I catch them. I don’t want to seem arrogant, but if there’s one thing I have, it’s confidence.

  If there’s one thing I don’t have, it’s tolerance for the douchebag who just walked on set with his new agent. I catch myself glaring at Caleb and make a conscious effort to relax my facial muscles.

  Caleb may have missed the animosity on my face, but Deck didn’t. He glances over his shoulder in the direction of my glare before turning back to smirk at me. He probably thinks it’s simply juvenile rivalry between us, but it’s become more than that. In only two encounters, Iris made it more.

  I deliberately offer Caleb a jaunty salute, my teeth gritting when he gives me that slick crocodile grin, the kind that spreads open all friendly, only to chomp you between its teeth when you least expect it.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Avery says, nodding to a production assistant who’s just handed her a stack of papers. “I need to review a few things with my co-host before the show starts.”

  She walks off, stopping beside Caleb and his agent to give them both a smile and a few words before moving on.

  I want to put some distance between Caleb and me.

  “Where are the restrooms?” I ask, looking from Deck to Lloyd.

  Deck gestures to a dimly lit hall a few feet away.

  “Over there.” He pats my shoulder in an almost avuncular manner. “I hope we’ll get to chat some more before you leave New York.”

  I assure Deck I’d love to have dinner and talk, and that he can set it up through Lloyd. I’m so ready to get away from Caleb’s cocky grin. The bathroom door swings closed behind me, and I draw a deep breath. I’ve known Caleb since middle school, but not once been jealous of him. But knowing he has Iris, I’m jealous. It’s ridiculous, considering I’ve only met the girl twice. I certainly don’t know her well enough to feel this intensely about Caleb kissing her. About him fucking her. About him probably marrying her someday. My hands sting under the hot water while I wash them unnecessarily. I switch the faucet to cold and splash water on my face, a lame attempt to cool down the temper that flares the more I think of a cretin like Caleb with a girl like Iris.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” Caleb says from the door.

  I meet his eyes in the mirror for a moment before looking away, devoting my attention to turning off the water and drying my hands.

  “I didn’t realize you’d be here today,” he continues, though I haven’t said a word in reply. “Maybe they thought I wouldn’t show if I knew you were coming, but they were wrong. I’m really glad we have a few minutes to talk.”

  I still don’t dignify anything he says with a response but hold his eyes in the mirror for another few beats.

  “My new agent has his ear to the ground.” Caleb pushes away from the door, walking deeper into the bathroom until he stands right in front of me. “Seems your hometown Baltimore Stingers want me.”

  Disappointment settles in my chest. It might be a lie, but Lloyd and Decker looked a little too cozy when they came in. I bet they were talking about a possible deal with the Waves. I have so little control over this next phase of my life, and it frustrates the hell out of me, but it’s the nature of the NBA. Rookies don’t get to choose.

  “Oh!” Caleb snaps his fingers. “Before I forget, I wanted to show you something.”

  He pulls his phone out and scrolls over a few pictures until he finds the one he wants. There’s no chance this is benevolent. I’ve seen his “up to no good” innocent face since we were twelve in our first basketball camp together.

  He turns the phone to show me the screen. At first, I don’t know what I’m seeing, but then, as my brain and my eyes connect, I get it.

  And what I wouldn’t give to slam his face into the urinal.

  An ultrasound.

  This isn’t happening. Not to me, and I wish it wasn’t happening to Iris.

  “Aren’t you gonna congratulate me?” Caleb stares down at the little cloudy image before sliding his phone back into his pocket. “I’m gonna be a dad. Iris and I are ecstatic.”

  I can’t do it. The image of Iris pregnant with this man’s . . . spawn . . . strangles the words in my throat. I just stare at him, nauseous, before nodding and walking to the door with still-not-quite-dry hands.

  “I feel like I should apologize,” Caleb says at my back, rushing the words because he probably realizes I’m not pausing to hear him out. “I mean, first the Stingers. Now Iris. I just keep taking the things you want, don’t I?”

  I do turn then, meeting his mockery head-on.

  “What makes you think I want her?” I ask, cocking one brow for good measure.

  “Oh, come on, West.” Caleb laughs, sliding the phone back into his pocket. “How long have we known each other? I’ve never seen you look at a girl the way you looked at my girl.”

  “You’re such an asshole.”

  “An asshole who has the girl and the team you want.” A bright smile breaks across Caleb’s face before he turns toward the urinal and I hear his zip slide down. To the sound of him whistling and pissing, I stalk out of the bathroom, ready to blast Lloyd for putting me anywhere near Caleb and his damn ultrasound. My teeth ache biting back curses. What I wouldn’t give to punch this dude’s pretty face.

  What I wouldn’t give for a few moments with Iris to remind her of our last conversation.

  Don’t lose yourself in him.

  Don’t forget your dreams.

  Don’t follow him.

  Most of all . . .

  Don’t choose him.

  I didn’t have a right to say those things before, and I certainly don’t now that they’re having a baby together. He’ll convince her to marry him. I know it in my bones the way you know two trains racing toward one another will collide. With this baby in the picture, it’s a whole new ball game.

  For the first time in my life, I’m riding the bench.

  Iris

  The bleeding hasn’t stopped. It’s been heavy, constant since last night. I didn’t want to, but I called Caleb, who predictably freaked out. I’m freaking out, too. Is it anxiety twisting my stomach into knots, or am I miscarrying? Are my breaths short and quick because of fear, or is it something else? What’s happening to me? To the baby?

  My OBGYN told us to meet her at the hospital. I’m nearing the end of my first trimester, when miscarriages are most likely. God forgive me, but there is a small part of me that would be relieved if I miscarried. Like I’d dodged a bullet and could go on with my plans undisturbed.

  I know there are women, probably on this very floor, so joyful and grateful to be pregnant. Some of them made sacrifices, lost babies along the way, underwent fertility treatments to have what I don’t want and never asked for, but I can’t argue with that renegade part of me that sees this as a possible escape.

  The door to my room swings open slowly, and Lotus pokes her head in.

  “Hey, Gumbo.” Her smile belies the concern on her face.

  I wave her in, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. She hurries over and plops onto the bed beside me, her arms encircling me. I bury my face in her shoulder and try to hold all the emotions in—the anxiety, the guilt, the hope, the frustration. They all swirl inside of me, as mixed up as the soup I’m nicknamed for.

  “How you holding up?” Lotus asks, pulling away to study me closely.

  “I’m okay.” When she levels a skeptical look on me, I give up the pretense. “Alright. I’m losing my mind.”

  “What do they say?

  “They’re running tests.” I sniff and swipe at my wet cheeks. “They should be back in soon.”

  “Where’s Caleb?” She looks around the room like he might be hiding in the closet or under the bed. “I’m sure he’s not far since this is his heir apparent.”

  I laugh, but Caleb is slightly obsessed with this pregnancy. I may still feel ambiguous about this baby, but he certainly doesn’t. The only thing I’ve ever seen him want m
ore is basketball.

  “His agent called and needed to go over a few things, so he stepped out for a sec.”

  “I guess he’s excited about going to Baltimore, huh?” Lotus asks.

  The Baltimore Stingers took Caleb in the draft. August wanted to play for his hometown team, but the San Diego Waves drafted him instead. Somehow, even though he smiled for the cameras and pulled the team’s cap over his dark, caramel-streaked curls, I knew he was disappointed. He and Caleb keep trading victories and losses.

  Score another for Caleb.

  “Yeah,” I finally answer Lotus’s question. “He’s looking for a place in Baltimore now. He’ll be moving in the next few weeks.”

  “And you?” Lotus studies my face. “Where will you be moving?”

  “I have to be out of my place in the next couple of weeks.” I try to ignore my anxiety. “Since it’s an on-campus apartment, and I’m graduating . . .well, I gotta go.”

  “If my scholarship didn’t require me to live on campus—”

  “I know,” I cut in. “Don’t think twice about it. That still wouldn’t solve everything. Having a baby with no job? I was hoping to have heard from Richter about the internship by now.”

  Unless vomiting on Jared ruined my chances. Couldn’t blame him for thinking twice about hiring me.

  “Maybe I can work at the bookstore for a little longer,” I say.

  It sounds ridiculous even to my ears. Work at the campus bookstore instead of living in luxury with Caleb when there’s nothing holding me in Atlanta? I’m in some kind of limbo until I hear back from Richter, but a hasty move could be the wrong one. It could change the course of my life, and as much as Caleb keeps pressuring me, I won’t be rushed. I know if I want to move when he does he’ll pay all my expenses, but that would feel like one more step in the direction I promised myself I’d never take.

  Needing something to do, I press my phone home button. Two missed calls.

  “Hmmm. I missed a call from Mama,” I murmur. “And some number I don’t know.”

  “How is Aunt Priscilla?” Lo’s voice is a polite query, but I know she doesn’t enjoy discussing my mother, and her mother even less.

  “She’s fine.” I sigh, my heart as weary as my body. “Of course, she wants me to ‘make the most’ of this pregnancy. Wants me to marry Caleb and do anything I can to secure my future. At least, the only future she imagines for me.”

  “Hey, our futures won’t look like our mamas’ pasts,” she assures me. “Don’t you worry about that.” Lotus grips my hand, the green stone of the ring she wears glinting under the hospital’s fluorescent lights. I link our fingers so my ring, identical to hers, winks back at us, too.

  “Remember when MiMi gave us these?” I ask, a tiny smile tugging at my lips as I remember one of the few times our great-grandmother visited us in New Orleans.

  “Of course I do.” She scrunches her face and clears her throat, signaling she is about to do her famous MiMi imitation. “Mes filles, wear these always and have my protection.”

  I giggle at Lo’s heavily accented, but spot-on, imitation. I haven’t been around MiMi much, but when I am I only ever understand half of what she says since she switches seamlessly from French to English. She blends her languages the way she blends her faiths, saying Hail Marys one minute and praying to the Great Spirits the next. She wears rosaries around her neck and scatters her potions and gris-gris throughout the house.

  “These rings haven’t failed to protect us since we put them on,” Lo says, the laughter leaving her face. She lays her hand against my stomach. “It’ll protect you now.”

  I barely stop my eyes from rolling. To be a college-educated, sophisticated millennial, Lo puts more stock in MiMi’s voodoo mumbo jumbo than she should. She did live with the woman for years, so some of the superstitions were bound to rub off on her, but I think it’s a load of crap that pulls the wool over people’s eyes and preys on their fears and ignorance for monetary gain. I don’t say any of that because Lo gets defensive, and I get irritated, and right now I need the harmony between us more than anything.

  “You’re right.” I rub my thumb across the gold band on my ring finger before continuing quietly. “It’s just . . . there’s a part of me that wants this pregnancy to be over, Lo.”

  Her eyes snap to my face. My confession might draw judgement from someone else, but Lotus’s face softens with sympathy. She understands how hard I’ve worked.

  This baby is a life. I know that. I respect it, but my dreams are alive, too, and I wonder if one must die for the other to thrive.

  “I get it.” She pulls one knee up under her on the bed. “We’ll know what’s going on soon and go from there.”

  I nod, my stomach muscles clenching while we wait. What if the baby isn’t okay? What if the baby is okay? The two possibilities send my life spiraling in radically different directions, and my fear spirals with them. To distract myself, I tap the unknown number alert and see a voicemail. I open the voicemail and put it on speaker.

  “Iris, hi,” a vaguely familiar, deep male voice says from my phone. “It’s Jared Foster.”

  My eyes go wide.

  “The internship,” I whisper-hiss at Lotus, who stretches her eyes wide back at me.

  “I hope you’re feeling better since the last time we saw each other.” Jared’s voice holds a touch of humor. “I know you felt bad about what happened. Don’t. My dry cleaning was tax-deductible.”

  Even though I’m not in the same room with Jared, embarrassment burns my cheeks. Vomit. Seriously?

  “I’ll just get right to it,” Jared continues. “Richter is offering you one of the internship spots. We’d expect you in Chicago in the next month, and we’d need you ready to travel pretty much right away. There’s several deals we’re about to close, and you’d have to jump right in.”

  His low chuckle interrupts the list of expectations. “You said you were ready to work, to do whatever it took,” he says. “I hope you meant it. Give me a call so we can talk details. Congratulations.”

  My fingers tremble over the phone, and I immediately want to replay the message. I’ve been anxious, biting my lips all day, but now they stretch into a wide grin. In the midst of so many things going wrong, something is going so right.

  “Oh, my gosh.” Lotus squeals, her eyes lit with as much joy as she’d have for her own good fortune. “This is amazing, Bo.”

  “I know,” I squeal back. “He told me it would take a couple months to decide, but I had almost given up—”

  The door swings open in the middle of my sentence. The doctor walks in, followed by Caleb, who lowers the phone from his ear and slides it into his pocket, obviously just finishing a call.

  It all comes crashing back. I’m in the hospital, three months pregnant, and bleeding heavily. What felt like the greatest moment of my life now feels like a cruel joke—a carrot dangled in front of me and snatched away. Lotus grips my hand again, lining our rings up and giving my fingers a reassuring squeeze.

  “We’ve looked at everything, Iris.” Dr. Rimmel’s eyes are kind, and her expression is serious. “You have a rather large subchorionic hematoma.”

  “English, Doc,” Lotus says with a wry look. “No speak medical-ese.”

  Dr. Rimmel’s lips twitch, and I’m so glad Lotus is here, or I’d be going crazy. Caleb comes to sit on the bed beside me, his concern and frustration all over his face.

  “Yeah, what’s that actually mean?” he demands. “We’ve been waiting forever.”

  Where Lotus’s comment lightened the atmosphere, Caleb’s injects so much weight, Dr. Rimmel’s slight smile disappears, and her shoulders square.

  “To put it simply,” Dr. Rimmel says, giving Caleb a pointed look, “the placenta detaches from the uterus, which causes clots and the bleeding we’re seeing.”

  “The baby?” I force myself to ask, not sure what I want to hear her say. “Is the baby okay?’

  “Yes, the baby’s fine, but we need to put you
on bed rest to make sure everything stays fine.”

  “Bed rest?” I croak. “I . . . like full-on stuck in the bed? For how long?”

  “As long as it takes, Iris,” Caleb interjects sternly. “We’ll follow instructions to the letter.”

  We don’t have to lie in bed for God knows how long. I do. Of course, I’ll do whatever the doctor recommends, but Caleb has no right to be cavalier about my life, my time, my body.

  I bite my tongue because this isn’t the time to assert myself. I need to understand what is required and set Caleb straight later.

  “For how long?” I ask again.

  “We’ll start with full home bed rest,” Dr. Rimmel says. “And assess in a few weeks.”

  The word home hits me hard. I have to be out of my on-campus apartment. The university has extended as much grace as possible, and I’ve got a few prospects, but nothing in stone.

  Full home bed rest?

  I don’t have a home, much less a bed to rest in.

  “I’ll take care of her and the baby.” Caleb glances at me. “We’ll get your things moved into my place right away.”

  A sense of helplessness washes over me. I clench the hospital gown in my fists. I hate feeling out of control in my own life, like an actor on someone else’s stage, my every move directed.

  “It’s not just bed rest, but pelvic rest, too.” She gives Caleb a stern look. “That means low activity and no sex.”

  Caleb’s face falls, but for me it’s a little bit of a silver lining. I haven’t wanted to have sex for weeks. I chalked it up to hormones, but maybe it’s Caleb’s high-handedness that’s been turning me off. At least this baby and this damn bed rest give me a good excuse to abstain.

  I hate to think this way, but when I glance at my phone and remember Jared’s voicemail about Chicago, no sex feels like the only good thing coming out of this. MiMi’s talisman ring winks at me from my lap. I don’t know if it’s working or not. For now, the baby is protected, but my plans for the future are in definite jeopardy.