by Lexi Wilson
It wasn’t just the sex, either. It was what I’d found out about Barrett before the sex. It was learning that he was the reason I wasn’t about to be fired from the PowerShot campaign when I’d barely even gotten started. He had gone to bat for me. He had stood up for me. He’d actually done that.
I dared to believe that for the first time he might have actually found a woman that he actually cared about beyond just being a sex partner. Barrett never took the same woman to bed twice. But after having me in the penthouse bathroom, he’d had me again at the hotel in Boulder and then again at his house, That had to be a record for him.
That had to mean it would be okay, really okay, to tell him about our child now. That had to mean he’d welcome the pregnancy, he’d love the baby, and perhaps he’d even care for me. And, maybe even having a child would bring us closer together. Sharing the responsibility for caring for the little life we’d made might make something more of us than just two people who went to bed together.
Just thinking of all the possibilities made my imagination run wild. The next morning I was charged up with energy, and I was hungry, even ravenous. When I got back to my apartment, I whipped myself up some steak and eggs and practically inhaled it. Then, with energy to burn, I did the dishes and didn’t stop cleaning. With what must have been the silliest grin on my face from the future I was imagining with Barrett, I attacked the whole kitchen. I scrubbed down the countertops and sink, swept the floor, and had just broken out the bucket and mop when the buzzer rang.
It was Kira, dropping by to check on me. Laughing like a schoolgirl, I buzzed her up.
We sat in the living room and talked. In addition to the situation with Barrett and the baby, there was still the whole thing about my status with the Rangers Cheerleaders.
At the same time as I’d made my resolution about Barrett, I’d also decided my future with the squad. Really, there was only one decision to make. My twelfth week was coming, and by then, I’d start to get a bump. I was no longer Rangers Cheerleaders material, and I discovered I was okay with it.
And, it would be good news to Glenda and whatever little pack of she-wolves was running with her. They could thrash it out among themselves who would lead the squad now. She wouldn’t have me to snap at any more, and her girlfriends wouldn't have me to resent any more. I was done, and that was fine.
“I think it’s for the best,” Kira said supportively. “You know I would have had your back no matter what, but it would have been a losing battle, especially when Vera and Quinn and the higher-ups got hold of it. It’s best you quit now while the quitting’s good.”
I was just about to agree with her when my phone, which I’d left on my nightstand, sounded an incoming text. “Hold that thought,” I said to Kira, getting up and going to the bedroom. My decisions and my certainty that they were the right things to do made my steps feel lighter than they’d felt since I first saw the results of the pregnancy test. In the bedroom, I grabbed the phone from the nightstand, and the biggest smile blossomed on my face when I saw the name on the screen.
It was Barrett. It occurred to me that I hadn’t given him my number. But then, he hadn’t given me his address. If I’d found a way to his house, he’d have little trouble finding his way to my phone. I didn’t care; I was glad to hear from him, especially when the text said he wanted me to come over again.
I came bounding out of the bedroom almost as if it were halftime at a game, and told Kira the good news.
“Well, that sounds promising,” she said.
Hugging myself, wanting to bounce up and down, I said, “That sounds fantastic! That sounds…” I couldn’t even find a word wonderful enough for what I thought it was. “And this time, I’m going to tell him. Oh, Kira, I’m really going to tell him!”
She was happy for me. There’s nothing like being happy and having your best friend share it with you. I decided to change before I went to over. And maybe pick up a bottle of non-alcoholic wine on the way. Maybe when I told him, we’d have a little toast. .
Everything was really coming together. My life was actually working out. Kira excused herself and I dashed for my closet to get ready.
Chapter 24
Barrett
Cole had his ways. They were a little roundabout, but he knew how to get things done. There was no time to get a private investigator to dig something up on such short notice. But, Cole had another way to get the intel that I needed.
He’d been casually dating Diane, the cheerleaders’ uniform manager and the woman who was responsible for cleaning and mending and keeping all their suits in top condition for every game. Diane happened to be friends with Kira, and Cole talked her into dropping by Kira’s place to poke her for information, subtly, with a little innocent girl talk – while she had her phone on and recording it.
And being a hell of a sly devil when he wanted to be, he even gave her the perfect pretext for the whole thing. I don’t know how he did it, but he actually talked Diane into lying about a pregnancy scare that she’d had from dating him. The idea was for this surprise to loosen Kira’s lips.
Well, Diane got the job done and went back to Cole with the recording of her visit with Kira, which they copied onto his phone. Then he came over to my house and we sat in my living room while he played back what Kira and Diane talked about.
The shock of hearing about this woman’s pregnancy scare worked. It knocked Kira back on her heels and she poured out her sympathy, and her relief that Diane wasn’t in the same spot as “this friend of hers.” Kira, without naming any names, opened up about how worried she’d been about her friend who’d had a fling that left her in trouble and not knowing what to do. She talked about how this friend hadn’t told the father about the pregnancy yet, but she’d have to do it soon because it wouldn’t be long before she started showing.
There it was – everything but the name. But it all lined up perfectly with the conversation with Kira that I’d eavesdropped on after my last hookup with Bama. It was practically the smoking gun.
I leaned back in the big leather chair next to the fireplace in my living room and rolled my eyes up to the ceiling. It was true. It had to be true. It was my baby.
Cole, sitting across the coffee table from me, turned off and pocketed his phone, and looked at me with the sympathy you get only from a guy friend who understands your pain.
“God damn,” I sighed, the whole thing sitting heavily on my heart. “God. Damn.”
He frowned and shook his head. “I know, buddy. I know.”
Using a football analogy, I said, “It’s like somebody just drop-kicked my life. One woman lays on me that she aborted my kid and never told me. Now this. Bama’s been sleeping with me. I’ve been fucking this woman repeatedly – something I never do – and she hasn’t breathed a damn word about carrying my kid.
“What the hell does she mean to do? Is Bama planning to do to me what Shelly did? Am I gonna lose a second child? What the hell am I gonna do?”
“Do you want the baby?” he asked flatly, directly.
I sighed, “It’s not so much a question of if I want the baby. If this is true... I don’t know if I want the mother. The baby’s innocent. But if she’s really having my kid and lied to me about it… I’m done with women who use me, and I’m done with women who lie to me, Cole. I swear, I am just plain done. Who needs this grief? Who needs this crap? Who the hell needs it?”
“If she has the baby,” he pointed out, “that baby will be a fact of her life. And, it’ll be a fact of yours. Do you want to be a father to it?”
I bolted up on the chair, raking my fingers through my hair from pure frustration. “Yes! No! I don’t…” My thoughts and feelings were all tangled up.
“If she has it, yeah, Cole, I want to be a father to it. But after she kept this from me, being the kid’s father and doing right by it is all I want. Bama can have child support and whatever else she wants – as long as it isn’t me. I am done. I’ve had it. I’m fucking done.”
&n
bsp; Right on cue, there was a knock at the front door.
Tensed up from who I knew was out there and the decision I’d made, I got up from the chair and said to Cole, “Wait here.” He watched me walk out to the entrance hall.
And there she was on my doorstep: Bama, wearing a pretty blouse, pressed slacks, and a big smile, and carrying a wine bottle. I felt as if this woman already brought me a bottle and cracked it over my head.
“Hi, Barrett,” she said cheerfully, like there was everything in the world to be happy about. It made knots in my stomach.
“What’s the bottle for?” I asked her. My face was stone. I didn’t return her smile.
She looked curiously about my lack of a reaction to seeing her. “I was happy that you called. And the wine...it’s for us. I thought we’d...have a drink together and talk…” She slowed down talking to me, and the smile melted from her face and her voice. Bama gave me a funny look and asked, “Barrett, is anything wrong?”
“What did you think we’d talk about?” I asked her, almost in a monotone. “Is there maybe a piece of news you’ve got to share with me?”
She started to fidget, nervously. “Well, yes, actually. There was...um...something that I heard about...the campaign. About something I found out that you did. It’s something I didn’t bring up the last time.”
“Is that all you didn’t bring up the last time?”
“Wh-what do you mean?” she stammered, going pale.
“Like maybe about something more that happened between you and me besides…you know. Like maybe a little something you found out and weren’t sharing?”
She stammered worse. “B-Barrett… I... I... What are you…”
“It happened the night before the Super Bowl, didn’t it? I did the math, Bama; that must have been when it was! You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
She was absolutely shocked. Bama looked as if she could fall down my front steps, and if I went to help her, it would only be for the baby’s sake.
“Oh, Barrett,” she said, her voice turning to a sob, tears rolling down her face. “I wanted to tell you. I tried to tell you, but there was never a right time. There was always something else going on. I thought now was the time. I was coming to tell you. I swear, I was…”
“How could you do that?” I barked at her. “All this time – you knew! All this time! When we went to Colorado! When we went to bed there! When you showed up here and we slept together in my bed! And, you knew! You knew!
“Even that morning in Denver when I opened up to you about my family and told you things that I never, ever talk about! You knew then that you were having my baby!
“How could you, Bama? What, you think I’m nothing but a walking cock? You think I’ve got no heart? My God, Bama!”
She openly wept at me. “Barrett, I’m sorry. If you’d just let me in... If we could just talk now… Please, Barrett. Please…”
I pointed an angry finger at her. “No! No! You’re not coming in my house again! You’re not coming near me again! If I ever have anything to say to you again, it’s gonna come from my lawyers! Get away from my house! Get the hell out of here!”
I slammed the door on her, leaving her outside on my front steps with her bottle of wine and her tears.
Chapter 25
Bama
The only thing that surprised me, after I walked staggering and crying away from Barrett’s house, was that I managed to drive home without dissolving into tears on the road and having an accident that might have killed both me and the baby that I hadn’t told Barrett about.
Once I got home, stopping the tears was impossible. I left the stupid bottle of non-alcohloic wine in the car; I didn’t care what happened to it now. It was all I could do to get myself upstairs and through my front door, collapse onto my bed, and cry.
It had all started out so wonderful. I had started out feeling so much hope, so much happiness, looking forward to telling Barrett the news and the two of us sharing it together happily.
It didn’t matter how he had found out. He knew. He’d found out before I could tell him. And, he was furious with me. The way Barrett looked at me, the way he sounded when he ordered me away from his house, I could see he would never forgive me.
The only thing that Barrett would probably ever want to have to do with me again would be to work out some visitation and shared custody with the baby. He didn’t care anything for me anymore. I was the mother of his child, but that was all.
I cried as if I’d never stop.
The rest of that day and night were a blur. I think I ate something, but not that much. I had to eat, for myself and the baby – the baby whose father now hated me.
That thought now filled my mind and my heart until I was hardly aware of eating or anything else. I was pregnant and the father hated me. I would have to work with Barrett this way on the campaign – unless of course he changed his mind and told the PowerShot people he couldn’t work with me after all. I’d be out of the campaign. My spokesmodel career would be over as quickly as it started.
And, I’d be at the mercy of whatever Barrett and his lawyers decided to do about the baby.
I just cried myself to sleep. And when I woke up during the night, it was to the knowledge of what had just happened to my life when I’d let myself believe that I’d be so happy and everything would turn out so good. And, I cried myself to sleep again.
_______________
I’d gone to sleep without setting an alarm. The ring tone on my phone shocked me awake late the next morning. I bolted upright on my bed, the sound of the ring tone jarring my brain and my bones. Feeling absolutely empty and desolate, I groped for the phone on my nightstand and took the call without even looking at the ID.
“Bama? Bama, is everything all right?” It was Kira.
Rubbing my forehead, I croaked out my reply, “Um...hey, Kira. Morning. I’m just getting up.”
“You are?” she said, sounding more worried. “Bama, we’re all down here waiting. Honey, you’re late!”
Groggily, I said, “Late for what? Waiting for what?”
“Practice, Bama! We’ve got practice, and our head cheerleader isn’t here! Everyone’s waiting!”
I suddenly snapped to wide-eyed attention. “P-practice? Now?” I took the phone from my ear and gaped at the time. “Oh my God, now! I forgot! Oh my God, I’m late for practice! Oh, Kira…”
“It’s all right,” she said. “I know all the moves. I’ve been covering for you. But, you’d better get over here on the double!”
Leaping from the bed, feeling grungy in the clothes that I’d slept and cried in, I said frantically to Kira, “I’m on my way; just keep everybody busy!”
_______________
One quick shower later and change of clothes later, I was on the road with my uniform tucked into my bag, without even a bite of breakfast. I knew this was bad for me and bad for the baby, but with everything that was on my mind now and everything that had been on my mind yesterday, soon it wouldn’t matter.
Perhaps I had no control over Barrett’s feelings about me and perhaps my options about my own life and my baby’s future were limited. But there was one thing that I definitely did have some say about. I drove like a woman determined. Where one thing was concerned, I was prepared to take charge.
_______________
I can only guess how I must have looked, coming into the practice room. Kira and all the other girls stopped what they were doing and just looked as I walked towards them, bag in hand. My hair was barely combed. My eyes were still puffy and red. I must have been pale and shaky. I probably looked as tired as I felt. I didn’t care.
The eyes of the cheerleading squad fixed me with a variety of looks. From Kira there was only sympathy and concern. From the others came curiosity, bewilderment, mockery, and a bit of disgust. And from one person in particular, total anger and total hostility.
Kira moved to take Glenda by the arm and tried to hold her back. Glenda, almost hissing, swatted Kira away an
d came striding right up to me as I walked towards the group. Eyes narrowing, face frowning, I stopped and let her come near. Suddenly, I wasn’t tired anymore. I wasn’t despondent any more, the way I’d been last night. The determined feeling of my drive from my apartment had taken over.
Glenda pointed her finger at me like a dagger and bitched, “Hey! Hey, Miss PowerShot! Aren’t you using any of the product you’re hawking? What do you mean, dragging yourself in here whenever you feel like it while the rest of us are in here ready to work? Are you better than the rest of us now?”
I didn’t say anything at first. I just glared at her and set my jaw.
Getting in my face, Glenda said, “And look at you! Looking like something the cat didn’t even want to drag in! What the hell is this you’re looking like, here? Is this supposed to be our head cheerleader? Is this what our head cheerleader’s supposed to look like? You come in here looking like a dishcloth that somebody wrung out? What the hell, Alabama?” She used where I’d come from as an insult. “What the hell?”
Finally, I spoke up. “Are you finished?”
Getting more in my face, she bitched more loudly, “What if I’m not? What are you gonna do about it?”