by Tia Lewis
“Don’t worry,” Nicole winked. “We’ll help you take care of that. We need to get you to the store and get a registry together.”
“I couldn’t ask anyone to do that.” We walked back to the living room, where Violet was laying out the food that Darcy had brought. The lasagna, chicken parmigiana, and garlic bread smelled mouth-watering. I wanted to dive in face-first and only stopped myself from devouring everything in sight because I wasn’t alone.
“Are you kidding me? Will you ever stop thinking that way?” Darcy shook her head.
“What do you mean?”
“People want to buy gifts for the mother-to-be,” Darcy explained.
“Yeah, it’s not charity. It’s something that we want to do for you. And I bet the other girls will want to help out as well.”
I narrowed my eyes, looking at my best friend. “You sound awfully sure of yourself.”
Nicole shrugged. “I know what I’m talking about. That’s all.” There was something in the gleam in her eye that told me that she knew a lot more than she was letting on. I wondered if they were already planning a shower for me.
“So what have I missed around the club?” Darcy asked. It was tough, seeing so much less of her since she’d started working at the restaurant. I envied her the way that I envied Nicole. Violet didn’t seem to care that she was just the girl who cleaned up around the clubhouse, making the beds, doing laundry, or cooking dinners when necessary. That was enough for her, and I would never have begrudged her that. But it wasn’t enough for Darcy, so she’d gone to culinary school and pursued her dreams.
The girls talked on and on about the club while I ate. There were priorities to keep in mind. Would I ever stop feeling hungry? I wish that the baby would come sooner rather than later. I still had ten weeks to go, and I felt that the day couldn’t come quickly enough. I wasn’t scared to bring my baby into the world. Once I had the ultrasound and saw my baby’s heart beating, I didn’t dread my due date anymore.
When it was time for them to leave—and they knew it was time, since I started falling asleep in front of them—the girls cleaned up while I sat with my feet on a cushion. The girls insisted. I didn’t know where I would be without them. I showed them to the door, promising Darcy that I’d call her to keep her in the loop. Nicole was the last to leave.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “We’ll start researching the best crib, car seat, high chair…”
I laughed shakily. “You know how to overwhelm me,” I said.
She didn’t laugh. She gave me a hug. “It’s okay to tell Creed, and I know it’s your decision I understand if you don’t want to, and I support you, either way. I just feel like it’s the right thing to do.”
I nodded, and tears sprang to my eyes. “Please, don’t tell Drake,” I begged.
“I won’t. You know that you can trust me.” And I did. That was the best part of our friendship. I could trust her implicitly.
I shut the lights off around the apartment. The cozy living room was painted a beautiful shade of lavender. My gray couch and curtains went perfectly with the walls. I could imagine having dinners in the dining room with my friends.
Nicole and Drake would be there. Darcy and Violet, too.
What about Creed?
I pushed the thought from my head, turning out the lights in the kitchen, then the hallway. The spare bedroom sat empty, waiting for me to fill it with some of the things for the baby that Nicole had been talking about. I imagined where I would put a crib, a changing table, and a rocking chair. I’d put the baby’s name on the wall in wooden letters, the way that I saw people do online. Nicole would help. She would probably do all the work while I sat down.
It should have been Creed doing those things. I leaned my head against the doorframe, wishing that I could figure out how I really felt about him. I wanted him to be part of the baby’s life so much, especially considering the changes that he was making in his own life. He was showing a new side of himself, one that I hadn’t known existed. He could be trustworthy, he could be disciplined. Hell, he hadn’t even gotten into trouble for getting inappropriate with any of Bobby’s girls. That had to be worth something.
I wanted to tell him. I just wished that I knew how he would react.
15
Creed
I was just coming back from a trip to the gym, thinking about taking a shower at the clubhouse instead of at home. I couldn’t even stomach the thought of showering at the gym, even when I had spent time in the army with a bunch of guys for years. It was funny, but I had an even clearer head when I was on my bike than I did when I was working out. A lot of people worked out to focus, but it never worked as well for me as cruising down the street on my bike with the wind in my hair.
I laughed at myself when I thought about that since I didn’t have hair anymore. It took a little getting used to, but I had finally stopped doing a double take whenever I passed a mirror or a window.
When I got there, it was around dinner time, and I was starving. I thought about picking up a sandwich from around the corner and asking if anybody else wanted something. Tamara was talking with Nicole behind the bar, and I waved before running upstairs for a quick shower.
After I had finished, I took a look in the bathroom mirror. It had been maybe four months since that morning with the girl from Bobby’s gentlemen’s club. I remembered looking myself over that morning, wondering what had happened to the body that I used to have when I was in the Army. I could’ve cracked walnuts with my biceps back then.
I’d gone back to some of my old routines at the gym, the ones that I used to do when I was first getting into shape. It had been hell, in the beginning, ten years of smoking and drinking and being a lazy bum catching up to me in a big way. But after I’d pushed through that, it had gotten easier and easier. And I’d started looking forward to working out. It was the only time in the day when I could think clearly, alone, without a dozen people in my face. I might not have had Drake’s high-profile job, but as Vice-President, I was involved in the nitty-gritty stuff, the day-to-day management of the club that he didn’t have to worry about while he dealt more with the big picture.
I looked at my progress. My gut was just about gone, my abs making a return after years of hiding. My shoulders were stronger, my biceps were more defined. Even my ass was firmer than it used to be. My waist was smaller, that’s for sure. My jeans were so big, I’d have to buy a few new pairs. I’d already bought a new belt when my old one got too big.
“Not bad,” I muttered, grinning at my reflection. I remembered for the first time in years how it felt to be proud of what was looking back at me in the mirror. I was proud of myself.
I trotted back downstairs with a smile on my face, ready to get something to eat before I dove into some stuff from Bobby’s place. I was learning more all the time about how he ran things, and it was fascinating as hell. The best part was the way that I understood it. I was picking up things easier, and it didn’t seem like it a foreign language anymore.
“Hey, maybe Creed can go with you.”
I turned to the bar, where the girls were still standing. Tamara looked like a deer in headlights.
“What?” I asked, looking at them.
“I was supposed to go with Tamara to register for baby stuff at the store tonight—she has an appointment. But I can’t. I forgot that I got some important club business that I have to take care of.”
“And you just remembered right now, Nicole?” Tamara asked sarcastically. smirked. “You forgot until this very minute.”
“I did, I swear.” Nicole’s eyes were wide, all innocence. I wondered what the hell was happening between them that I was missing and decided not to bother asking.
“Do you want me to go with you, so you don’t have to do it alone?” I asked.
Tamara chewed her bottom lip. Nicole answered for her. “Sure!”
“Wow, you’re getting good at throwing your voice. I didn’t even see your lips move.” I grinned a
t Tamara, who grinned back.
“Okay. I guess we can go together. Thanks.” I was sure that I saw her shoot Nicole a dirty look as we were leaving. She was up to something.
“Do you mind if we get something to eat first?” I asked. “I was on my way out to get a sandwich before you stopped me.”
“Yeah, I could go for something. I could always go for something at this point.
Tamara looked down at her growing belly. I laughed a little and wondered if women were usually that big as far along as she was. I was no expert, but Tamara was huge. Maybe she was having twins. No, she would have said something about that. The idea that she was wrong about the due date, and wrong about the father, also floated through my head. I couldn’t stop hoping, strange as it seemed even to me. It wasn’t like me at all, wanting to be a father.
It wasn’t that I wanted a kid, I decided as I drove her car to the mall. I just wanted the baby that happened to already exist to be mine, because it would mean that she wasn’t screwing around when we were together—or that even though we weren’t technically together, she was too hung up on me to be with anybody else. It was all my ego, my pride. I knew it. That didn’t stop me from feeling the way I did.
We’d decided to get something to eat close to the store where she had her appointment, some big warehouse type place with a million baby things. I guessed my plans for the night were out the window, but it was all right as long as she was in a good mood and not bitching me out over something. We’d been getting along so well. It was just like old times, except one of us had lost weight and the other had put a lot on.
She still looked good. Some women got pregnant and let themselves go. She was taking care of herself, I could tell. The weight she gained was what that she needed to gain during the pregnancy. She had been pretty thin before, so it showed. But it made her look fuller, rounder. Her ass, her tits, they were both luscious looking. Enough to make me wanna lick my lips and dig in. Like that wouldn’t have been the worst idea ever. I couldn’t stop looking at her while we were waiting for a table, just the same.
“Italian, huh?” I asked as we sat down.
“This is okay, right? I can’t stop craving Italian food. This baby is a carboholic, I swear.”
“That’s fine. I could use the carbs after my workout.”
I might not have needed to say that, but I wanted to remind her how hard I was working out. I wanted her to know that I was serious about getting into shape. Just in case she ever decided that she’d made a mistake when she’d stopped sleeping with me.
“You’ve been working hard,” she said, nodding with a smile. “I’m impressed.”
“Drake brought up that I might not look the way Bobby wants the people who represent the club to look, so…”
Her face darkened in the candlelight. I had said something wrong. “What is it?”
“I just hate that club so much,” she admitted.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. That’s the funny part, I really don’t. Something about them just pisses me off.”
“They don’t come into our clubhouse anymore—the girls, I mean.”
“Yes, and good thing, because I was ready to rip out some extensions the last time I saw one of those girls.” She looked at the menu, and I could tell from the way she’d clenched her jaw that she was seriously pissed. When was the last time that she’d seen one of those girls? I thought back. Was it… Was it the one I was with, the one who’d charged me three hundred bucks? No. No way. Was she jealous?
I told myself to keep calm and not overplay it. If I pushed Tamara too hard, she might overturn the table and throw shit everywhere, then steal somebody else’s food and eat it on the way out the door. She was just that kind of person, and it seemed like she was in that kind of mood. Even I knew not to fuck with a pregnant woman.
“This place is nice. I’ve never been here before.” It was a chain restaurant, but a better chain. The kind with butcher paper on the table and servers in white shirts and black pants who offered fresh black pepper on everything. Because I wasn’t riding, I had left my leather vest at the clubhouse. In my black t-shirt and jeans, and her tunic top that she thought hid her belly but didn’t, we might have been just an average couple out for dinner.
“Yeah, I like it,” she said. “I used to come here with Darcy and Violet sometimes when we’d go shopping.”
“Used to? Why not anymore?”
She smiled, a little sadly I thought. “I won’t have time for that kind of thing anymore—or the money, for that matter.”
“You’ll have to shop for the kid, right? And people bring their kids out with them all the time.” I pointed to a table on the other side of the room, where a couple had two children with them. One of them was in a high chair. “It happens. Plus, please, don’t act like Nicole won’t be on your ass to babysit all the time. She’ll come up with things for you to do just for the excuse to babysit.”
“She really wants a baby,” Tamara murmured.
“Yeah, I can tell. So can Drake. It’ll happen,” I promised.
“So what happens when she has one of her own?” Tamara laughed. “Then I’ll be screwed.”
“You’ll work out something.” I’d tell her to leave the kid with its father, but that would just start a fight. I was starting to predict her triggers, and that would be one of them. Nicole would hear about us on the news at eleven o’clock and know that she should have gone to the registry instead.
We got our food—chicken and vegetables for me, fettuccine alfredo for her—and the rest of our time there was spent eating. Watching her eat was hilarious. She just jumped in headfirst. I wondered if being pregnant wasn’t a relief in some ways when a woman could just eat whatever the hell she wanted for the first time without feeling like she would be judged. I couldn’t watch her inhaled her food too much, or I would laugh out loud. She wouldn’t like that. I just had a feeling.
“So, what’s this registry thing all about?” I asked as we walked from the restaurant to the store. She was moving slower than usual, so I had to slow down my pace for her. I wondered how much bigger she was going to get. She had a lot of time left—twelve weeks, I was sure. Three months. She’d be the size of a house by then. Was this kid going to be a basketball player?
“You know what a registry is,” she said, smirking.
“Pretty sure I don’t. That’s why I asked.”
“You don’t know what a registry is? How have you survived on this planet for your entire life without knowing this?”
“I don’t know. I never had to use one before.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s actually really fun, and I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks. Don’t tell anybody that I said that.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want them to know. It’s a long story.”
“You can tell me. We have plenty of time.”
“I feel weird asking people for things. It’s never been a strong point for me.”
“Oh, I get it. But I guess they’ll get you stuff anyway,” I reasoned. “So you might as well tell them what you want, or you’ll end up with a bunch of shit that you don’t need.”
“That’s pretty much what Nicole said, but not in so many words,” Tamara chuckled. “I have a whole list of the best products out there. We did a lot of internet research. It was very official and scientific.” She handed me her list with a smile.
“So you have to make a list at the store? And people know to buy the stuff?”
“See? You’re getting it!” She grinned.
“Why couldn’t you just make a list online? Couldn’t you do that instead?”
“I could have, but I wanted to touch the things myself. I want to see for myself if they’re any good.”
“Yeah, I would’ve done the same thing.”
“Really?” she smiled.
“Sure. I could buy a bed for myself online, whatever. It’s just me. But my kid?”
Her eyes went wide for a sec
ond, but she didn’t say anything. We walked into the store without another word, and she led me to a desk where they handed her one of those price gun things cashiers use. We walked around, and she got the chance to touch the crib and the car seat. Then she would scan them with her gun and giggle every time.
“Okay, so this is fun,” she finally admitted after a half hour. “Actually, this is a hell of a lot of fun. I can only imagine a wedding registry. Oh, the things I would ask for.”
“Wow, you’re getting the hang of asking for things already,” I joked.
“Yeah, I’m working on it.” She rolled her eyes, then scanned a walker. I never knew a baby needed so many things, but as I read off the list and we went from aisle to aisle it just seemed like it would never end. Clothes and diapers and this garbage pail thing that made the diapers not smell so bad. She tried to explain to me how it worked but it made no sense to me. I took her word for it. Then a breast pump. I asked her to explain that one, but she only walked away, shaking her head.
As she was scanning a bunch of what she called onesies, she stopped and put her hands over her stomach.
“What is it?”
“Quick! The baby’s kicking!” She laughed, putting one of my hands on her stomach. I waited for a few seconds, then sure enough, I felt something kick my hand.
“Holy shit!” I looked at her, and she was smiling so wide and so happy, I wanted to kiss her. I wanted so much to kiss her, right then and there in the middle of the baby store with everybody watching. I wanted the baby to be mine, and in that very moment, I realized that I wanted her to be mine because I loved her.
But the moment passed, and she dropped my hand, still smiling. We finished up at the registry and left the store without saying anything else to each other. What else was there to say? I couldn’t make sense of what I was going through, much less say anything about it. I was at a loss for words. All I knew was, no matter what, I would never forget that moment when I felt the baby kicking, and I finally forced myself to admit that I had fallen in love with Tamara.