Tell Me No Secrets: Secret Baby Romance Collection

by Jamie Knight

  That idea haunted my dreams at night. That night, Lila was walking down a long highway. I was running after her trying to talk to her, to apologize for how I had acted. But no matter how fast I ran, I just couldn’t reach her. She kept getting further and further away. Then there was a baby crying.

  The baby was still crying when I woke up, adding to the realism of the whole ordeal. I wondered what that could have been about. In any case, I knew what I had to do. I had to find Lila, wherever she was, and give an explanation for my disappearance two years before. I owed her that and a whole lot more. I didn’t expect a second chance and knew I really didn’t deserve it anyway, but I figured it was worth a try.

  The NGO’s office wasn’t too difficult to find. There really weren’t that many NGO’s in Vegas. At least not as many as there would be in San Francisco or Portland, where it really would be like a needle in a haystack. Particularly not an environmental agency like Lila worked for. I suppose there was something about living in the desert that made people happy to be alive in general, without much of a thought for the planet at large. I had gone to college in Washington State and had a bit of a broader perspective on the matter.

  Walking through the glass doors emblazoned with the Desert Protect logo on them, I planned to pour on the charm to get past the receptionist if needed. Truth be told, there really wasn’t much I wasn’t willing to do to see Lila again. Even if she threw hot coffee on me, it would be great to see her and still much more than I deserved.

  As it turned out, I didn’t need to charm my way past the receptionist. Lila was the receptionist — who just so happened to be on a call. Things were so crazy the day before, I couldn’t even be entirely sure I had seen the NGO bumper sticker. It really was a leap of faith, hoping the fates might take pity on me. Or at least that they might pity Lila and let me give her closure for herself if not for me.

  Truth be told, I wouldn’t have minded getting back with my old flame. I wasn’t daft enough to think that things could ever be the way they were before. They were never going to be. Even if we had stayed together, things would have changed. That was just the nature of existence, and I had always found it easier to just go with it rather than trying to fight it.

  Lila’s cheeks were thinner, which was surprising because her body had gotten a bit curvier. She had seemed the same at the office, but I really wasn’t seeing her clearly. The only things about her that remained unchanged were her white-blonde hair, ivory skin, and her startling blue eyes that seemed like they could look right down into your soul.

  My ex finished her call and looked up, almost making me fall down. I was so dazzled by her beauty, I barely noticed her pointing to the door behind me. Telling me, wordlessly, to get the fuck out. Lila didn’t need to know sign language — which she did — to let me know this with nothing more than a gesture. In case her nostril-flaring fury wasn’t quite enough to carry the message across.

  Fortunately, I had a comeback and crooked my finger for her to follow me, making it clear that I wasn’t going to be put off so easily. I was on a mission, dammit, and I was damn well going to give it my best bloody try.

  I was at the office so early, there was no one there to look to when Lila glanced desperately around the room, hoping for any excuse to get rid of me. After appearing quite torn for a while, she got up from the desk and came toward me a few feet. Generally a good sign, though, I really didn’t think it was going to be for a hug. I could feel her rage from across the room, as sure as if she had been literally burning with it.

  I opened the front door and looked back to see if she was following me. Instead, Lila crossed her arms and stood firm in the middle of the lobby. I knew from long experience, there was no point in trying to argue with her when she just wasn’t in the mood for it.

  Leaving the door with a jingle, the little bell attached to it jangling wildly, I went back to her, standing well within punching distance, if that was the route she chose to go. I had never known my ex to be particularly violent, but people could be unpredictable when emotions were high. I was prepared for the worst.

  “Speak,” she said, addressing me as the dog that I felt I was.

  “It sounds pathetic, but I’m sorry.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re right, it does sound pathetic, what the hell are you doing in Vegas and not working for your dad?”

  “I could ask the same question.”

  Lila fumed and stamped one of her feet. “Yes, but you fucking won’t because you weren’t the one who was betrayed and abandoned without a fucking explanation,” she said, poking me in the chest like she used to do when we were kids.

  I sighed. “Fair enough. Basically, I realized I couldn’t live with myself anymore. I’m not saying I was suicidal. I’m not digging for sympathy here. I’m just trying to tell the truth. Things had gotten out of hand, and I was acting like an asshole.”

  “No argument here, bub.”

  “I didn’t want to be an asshole, so I went into rehab to try and learn how to not be an asshole again.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I thought Lila might be skeptical, which was fair enough. That was why I had made sure to bring my card from the facility that marked me as an Outpatient. I had started as an inpatient. No straight jackets or anything. They just kept me in my room for a while. Particularly after I was caught trying to get bets going on the ping-pong matches in the rec room.

  “Oh,” Lila said, staring at the official-looking document.

  “Yeah.” I nodded, looking down into her light-blue eyes. “Still angry?”

  “Of course.” She sighed and turned away from me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  It was my turn to look away. “It probably doesn’t help, but I really didn’t tell anyone to be honest. I really wasn’t in any fit state to be going over it all. I just needed to get out and get help. Of course, when I did get help and realized what had happened, I felt really ashamed about what I did.”

  Lila let out a deep breath in a hiss. “You could have contacted me after if you cared.”

  Resisting the urge to take her in my arms, I looked into her face. “No, I couldn’t. I did care. Of course, I did. I also knew that I wasn’t good enough for you.”

  Shock passed over her features, her lips dropping open just slightly. But it was gone quickly. “It’s not productive to argue,” Lila said.

  “I’m not arguing,” I pointed out.

  She wasn’t listening to me. Lila folded her arms over her chest, walking back towards the reception desk. “We can’t resolve anything right now, but I have something to tell you.”

  Then, as though the scene had been penned by the world’s premier dramatist, the phone rang, and she had to go and get it. Still on the call, my ex waved me over and wrote the name of what I assumed to be a bar and 8:00pm on a post-it then handed it to me.

  Fighting the urge to do a little jig, I slipped out of the building. At least I would get to see her again.

  I got to Sure Thing Graphics only twenty minutes late, and I knew Camilla wouldn’t rat me out. She could be a bit tough sometimes but knew how to pick her battles. It was also the first time I had been late since she started there.

  Settling into my cubicle, I put on my headphones and cranked up some Social Distortion:

  I was wrong/Self-destruction’s got me again/I was wrong/I realize now that I was wrong.

  I just about jumped when I felt the tap on my shoulder, whirling around to see Cooper standing behind me.

  “You’re wearing it again, huh?” Cooper asked.

  The ‘it’ in question was my TSOL T-shirt featuring skull and crossbones in the middle of the band’s name. We’d had words about it before. The manager thought it was a bad influence on the other workers. Though for some reason, Aden’s “Question Sleep” shirt slid right by. Not that Cooper really had any more power than I did. Technically I was more important than him. He was one of many digital artists. I was but the only copywr
iter. Cooper and his ilk made the images, but they would be little more than pictograms without my words to go with them. While, on the other hand, there had been words-only ads on the radio for decades.

  “Yes, I am.” I raised my eyebrows at him, ready for a fight.

  “Why?” Cooper asked, in that way of his that tended to make people want to break his nose.

  “A newfound inability to give a fuck,” I said, looking right at him, making him take a step back.

  To my surprise, Coop sighed. “What’s on your mind, buddy?” he asked.

  I guess my work friends had gotten to know me better than I thought. Running a hand through my hair, I relaxed, sitting back into my chair and putting my feet up on the desk.

  “I’m sure you heard about what happened yesterday with the fainter at Camilla’s desk.”

  Camilla was Cooper’s sister. They were very close. There was no way she hadn’t told him.

  “Sure.” He nodded, taking a seat on the desk corner.

  “She’s my ex. I left her when I went to rehab. I don’t mean we broke up. I just left her behind. Along with everyone else. I didn’t even tell her where I was going. Anyway, I found her office and went down there this morning. Lila was understandably pissed, but still wants to meet me for a drink tonight.”

  Coop hummed as he thought. “Does she know you’re on the wagon now?”

  “No, I’ll get something non-alcoholic, though that’s not really the point is it?”

  “No, I suppose not. I knew you went into rehab, but I didn’t know you had a girlfriend you left behind. You must have screwed up good.”

  It was true. I had screwed up so bad, I had basically tried to become another person. Now my past was back, and I didn’t know what to think or hope for.

  “I did, but now she wants to see me, and I don’t know why.”

  “Do you want to get back together with her? If that turns out to be an option?”

  I didn’t really have to think about that one. I wanted it more than anything though I also knew that it was possibly too late.

  Chapter Five - Lila

  I had picked the bar because it was close, only a few blocks from Aria’s house. I needed to stay close to home. It gave me a sense of security. I also didn’t feel like being far away from Billy right then. Even though seeing him reminded me of what had happened before, I still loved my baby, but I couldn’t help but notice how much he looked like Carl, or Jinx, or whatever he was calling himself these days. I had called him both for most of our life together, but I switched to mostly Carl when we feel in love. Jinx was a nickname his father gave my ex when he was a toddler, so it was almost like his official name, Carl “Jinx” Willcox. It sounded like an Irish mafioso. The fact that his dad owned a chain of casinos didn’t help that impression. However, he seemed to have stopped wearing three-piece suits.

  I sat on the surprisingly comfortable stool at the bar, trying not to fidget too much. Something hard to do while I was both nervous and angry, but I gave it my best shot. My resentment was even worse than it had been the day before.

  The fact that Jinx had gone to rehab didn’t erase the hurt that he didn’t tell me. I was happy he had gotten help, but I really wished he had told me. I would have understood and waited for him when he got out. Or, I would have gone to see him if that was allowed. I really had loved him, which only made it hurt even more when he disappeared without a word, no matter what the cause might have been.

  I looked at my watch, my fury growing with each minute that Jinx was late. It turned out to be twenty in all. By the time he finally showed up, I was about ready to explode.

  “You’re late,” I hissed, still not wanting to actually yell.

  “Sorry.”

  “Bullshit. You are the same ‘Jinx’ you were before. It was Carl I loved, and I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

  I was reconsidering my decision to tell him about Billy. Not sure he wouldn’t just walk out on both of us.

  “I deserve that,” Jinx said, surprising me. He gave me a sad smile, sitting down on the barstool next to mine.

  “Y-you do?”

  He shrugged, glancing down at the bar. “Yeah. I can see why you would think that. I haven’t really given you any reason to think otherwise. The fact that I work as a copywriter at an advertising agency probably won’t help my case. I mean, I get paid to convince people.”

  “Is that what you do?” I asked, it making so much more sense than him having secret drawing skills.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty much the only one. Everyone is a graphic artist of some description except for Chris, the art director, and Camilla, the receptionist who checked you in. It’s a bit weird sometimes. Like being an ostrich among the penguins, but I make the best of it.”

  “An ostrich among the penguins?” I asked, this being precisely the kind of goofy thing he would have said when we were teenagers. It made me smile.

  Jinx smiled at me sweetly. It made his light-brown eyes light up. “Yeah. I really did miss you. I mean that. No bullshit, no tricks. I really wish things could have worked out better between us. We’ve been friends since we were kids and then, well, more than that. I really couldn’t imagine my life without you in it, Lila. I now have a much better idea of what that would be like. Yet, still, here we are.” He tapped the bar top.

  Sweet as his words were, they didn’t tell me if he still loved me. Friends was one thing, but did Jinx still love me the way he said he did when he had gotten me pregnant with Billy? I was soon berating myself for even thinking such a thing. I didn’t care if he loved me or not. It didn’t matter. The whole thing had been a passing thought from the old me.

  I didn’t make it easy on him, keeping my end of the conversation to a minimum in case I accidentally let something slip about Billy. Or the feelings I still had for Jinx that I was doing my best to repress. Though as I was listening, I almost thought I could hear a bit of the old Carl in there somewhere. The playful little boy turned scrappy punk I had known all those years. I could see the pain that had been caused by his own, short-sighted actions, and I wasn’t unsympathetic. We all make mistakes.

  I still hadn’t told him about our son by the time we got to the bottom of our glasses. He had surprised me by ordering a Coke and nothing else. Maybe Jinx really was starting to change for the better.

  “Can I get you anything else?” asked the cute bartender who was clearly flirting with Jinx, not that he seemed to notice.

  “Mineral water,” he said.

  “Two,” I said, realizing that he wanted to keep talking, and I did too, just to see where it might go.

  “So, you’re not drinking?”

  “Not anymore, caused too much trouble. I don’t need any more trouble.” I nodded, deciding to leave it at that.

  “You write commercials?”

  His face lit up as he leaned against the bar so he could turn his whole body to face me. “Kind of. There’s a whole process. I come up with the words that are either written on or spoken over the images and hand it off to the art director to give to the artists and voice-actors or whoever. Still, though, nothing really happens without me.”

  I smiled at Jinx’s apparent pride in his work, hiding it by taking a sip of my drink. “Sounds like a lot of responsibility,” I prompted.

  “Sure is, though, that’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

  “It sure looked impressive when I was there.”

  “Multi-Award winning,” he said, without a trace of hubris. “What are you doing at the NGO?” he asked, taking a long pull of his mineral water.

  “I needed a change,” I admitted.

  I really didn’t want to get into how pushy his dad had been once our son was born. That would mean explaining about Billy, and I still wasn’t ready to do that.

  “I can appreciate that,” Jinx said with the soft smile that always made me melt.

  I fumbled for my mineral water, shaking with physical desire, my mind, a
nd my body suddenly at war with each other. I tried to remind myself that I was mad at him. There was no way anything was going to happen. No matter how desperately I wanted it to.

  “Will you see me again?” Jinx asked. He glanced down at his drink; his face clouded with worry.

  “I-I don’t really think I’m ready to date anyone,” I stammered.

  “I’m not just anyone, though, am I?”

  “I really don’t know who you are.”

  “We were friends, once upon a time. I’m doing my best to get back to that. How was I then?”

  I felt my heart aching for him. Jinx was so close I could feel his body heat. Little whiffs of his cologne would hit my nose, pushing my mind and emotions back to the past. I had felt so safe in his arms once.

  “I-I don’t know. I have to go,” I said, jumping up and leaving in a hurry.

  I needn’t have bothered. He didn’t try to follow me. Just the same, I took a cab back to the house, having the driver go around the block so Jinx wouldn’t know where I lived. It was too much. I opened the mineral water I had put into my purse without thinking and took a long drink. It was delicious. I could see why he liked it so much.

  Irene was playing with Billy when I got in. She really was quite good with him. I felt fortunate to have her around when I couldn’t be.

  “How was it?” Aria asked, sitting down on the couch.

  “Strange?” I paced across the room.

  “Like how?”

  “Well, for starters, he is working as a copywriter. That was why he was at the advertising firm. He’s their main guy apparently. Without him, there are no words. The voice-over people have nothing to say, and the animations would be silent. I never really thought about what an important job it is before.”

  “Sounds like a lot of responsibility,” Aria said.

  “I know, right? But that’s not the weirdest bit. Not only is he not gambling anymore, but he’s also not drinking either. Only had Coke and mineral water.”

  “Bit of a drunk, was he?”

  “Oh, terribly! He could drink an Irish dock worker under the table and still win thee games of darts in a row. I actually saw him do that.”