Look at me, pregnant for five seconds and I’m already being responsible and thinking like an adult.
“Probably why none of your relationships worked out,” he says, not so gently. In fact, he sounds downright bitter and angry. “So, you’re telling me I was cat-fished?”
“Well… I mean, I guess? If that’s what you want to call it?”
“What else would you call it? You pretended to be someone else so that I would like you. Well, congratulations, Ashley. It worked.” He pauses and through the phone I can hear him guzzling down his beer, belching afterward and not even excusing himself. “That’s what you do, huh? Meet a guy, pretend to be someone you’re not so you can make them fall in love with you, then you make them so insecure because there’s absolutely no way they compare to your level of perfection until they eventually break up with you, making them the bad guy rather than you,” he spits out angrily.
Whoa. That was quite the leap. How did this day turn around so badly? I’m exhausted, the day has been way too long, and I’ve learned way too many things about myself. A big part of me wants to defend myself and tell him he’s wrong, but a bigger part of me knows that he’ll believe what he wants to believe. The only thing I can do is apologize and do it sincerely.
“I’m sorry. You deserved more from me.”
Zachary grunts and makes a sound of agreement but otherwise says nothing.
“Good luck with your pregnancy. I’m sure you’ll need it after shaking up your perfect little plan. Oh, wait. That plan was a lie, right?”
“Listen here,” I snap, having enough of the blame game. I might have not been the perfect person for him like I tried so hard to be, but I tried, which is more than I can say about him. He’s the one who liked me because of my perfection. He’s the one who didn’t think he was man enough to handle it. “I called you because I genuinely wanted to talk to a friend, something I thought you were. I know I messed up but guess what? You did, too. You cheated on me several times. And… the clincher? One of those times, that I know of anyway, was not just with a woman. You had a freaking threesome with other people while we were together. That’s on you. If you aren’t man enough to be with someone like me, then you should have bucked up and admitted it rather than being a jerk. Have a nice life, Zachary. Hopefully this is the last time we talk. Oh, wait, I do have one more thing to say,” I pause but not long enough for him to say his piece, “I faked every single orgasm, too. Learn how to please a woman. Or man. Whichever gender you’re into these days.”
“What the fuck?” he spits angrily.
“You heard me. In the two years we were together, you never gave me an orgasm. Not once. But the night I got pregnant? Multiple.”
My thumb presses down on the red END button so hard I’m surprised I don’t crack the phone screen and then I slam it upside down on the couch cushion, cover it with a throw pillow, and stomp out of the living room.
For good measure, I holler, “Jackass!” at the top of my lungs just in case there’s a possibility he can still hear me through the cell wires.
Chapter Eight
Nikolas
“How’d they take it?” I ask Ashley, hitting mute on the remote for the TV in the spare room. I came in here to take a nap. At least, that’s what I told Josie. In reality, I’ve been expecting Ashley’s call and wanted privacy when it came through.
It’s a little after noon on Christmas Eve and Ashley had texted me a few hours ago to let me know she was going in, rip the band-aid off style. Wish me luck! I had chuckled and, apparently, the smile on my face meant that my sister needed to read a lot more into that little laugh than she should have. I have a bad feeling that she’s going to be incredibly pushy and annoying through this.
“Excited. A little bit upset that I got pregnant with someone they’ve never met, even though they tried hard to hide it, but I could see it.”
“Can’t blame them,” I mumble.
“No. Neither can I.”
She sounds a little sad and for reasons I’m not willing to really dig into right now, I hate that I wasn’t there for her. I hate that she had to do this on her own. I should have offered to go along, even if it would have been a little uncomfortable or awkward.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I am.”
“You don’t sound okay.” I risk telling her. She doesn’t, though. She sounds like she’s been crying, her voice a little gravelly.
Ashley’s quiet for a few moments then sighs. “Honestly, I don’t know. My dad wasn’t thrilled, which is yeah, understandable and a little expected, but my older sisters are being kind of bitchy about it all. They’re rubbing it in my face that I was irresponsible, which is only stirring the pot and making it harder.”
I immediately don’t like her sisters. “Why is that? Don’t sisters normally stick together?”
“Well, it could be because they’re both married but neither have kids and it’s a sore spot for both of them.”
“You’re the youngest?” I guess.
“Yeah.”
“How old are they?”
“Forty and thirty-eight. I’m thirty-three. I was a rainbow baby. They had a miscarriage between us.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. My sister and I are five years apart, too. My parents had a miscarriage after me then struggled to get pregnant.”
“Scary, huh?” She pauses while we both think. I hadn’t really thought of it as a possibility until now. Even though this pregnancy is a complete surprise to both of us, it would be really hard to have that happen. “You know, I was always the odd one out. I always thought it was because the older two are closer in age but I wonder if it’s because my parents always treated me a little differently because of the miscarriage.”
I can honestly say I don’t remember my parents favoring Josie. “Is that true? Did they?”
“I don’t know. They always teased me about being the favorite. I thought they were just being jerks because that’s how siblings are. It makes me wonder, though. I mean, they still joke about me being the favorite sometimes but it’s all in good fun, but for the most part now that we’re adults, they don’t treat me differently. Until tonight, I guess.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I get why they’re frustrated, not that they have a right to be, you know?”
I’m glad that she’s talking and opening up. We have a lot to learn about each other but the fact that she’s willingly telling me about her life is a good sign. We need to keep open lines of communication if this is going to work between us.
“Tell me about them.”
“My oldest, Grace, she’s a career woman and has spent her life devoted to being a kick ass lawyer. She’s awesome and crazy smart. She always loved researching and learning. She loved school. It’s only been in the last year that her and her husband decided they would like a child, but they’re having a hard time getting pregnant. Her doctor warned her with her age it might be difficult but she’s determined. My second oldest, Lucy, has always wanted children. She and her husband got married two summers ago and have been trying to get pregnant since. She’s an econ professor at State. Obviously, they’re both smarty pants.”
“I’ll say. So I won’t have much in common with them, huh? I didn’t even go to college.”
“Ehh, they don’t judge. I promise. They actually have a lot more appreciation for someone who doesn’t spend tens of thousands on an education that they don’t need. Not everyone is meant for college.”
“That’s a good way to think about it. I knew once I graduated high school, I wasn’t going to be sitting in a classroom again. Unless it was to learn more about my specific trade. Anyway, back to your family?”
“So maybe their bitchiness is more about sadness for their own situation and a little bit of jealousy. Of course, that makes me feel bad, but it’s not exactly like I tried to go out and prove to them that I could get pregnant first.
“Luckily, Mom has been wonderful. She knows t
he type of person I am and that the night we spent together was out of character for me.”
Thank goodness her mom is being good about it, at least. I can’t imagine what my parents would be saying if they were alive. They were wonderful parents but also very conservative. Sex before marriage was not something they understood or approved of. My divorce was definitely not on their list of proud moments. While they understood that my marriage wasn’t meant to last, they also didn’t want people to know that. They were very much worried about appearances and what our actions reflected back on them.
“I also called my ex-boyfriend last night and told him I was pregnant. That was not super fun, either.” I’m quiet, digesting all of her information while also thinking of my parents and the fact that they’re missing all of this. What I wouldn’t give to disappoint them by getting a woman pregnant who I barely know. “I’m sorry, I’m probably bumming you out. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that but I also promised myself I would never lie to you about anything. It’s not a good way to start whatever it is that we’re starting.”
I don’t know how I feel about the fact that she called him and now she’s sad. Is she sad because she misses him? Wishes this baby were his? Either of those would make sense. The night we met, she was so upset that he broke up with her that she got raging drunk and slept with me, which is another thing I’m trying to work through.
“How’d he take it?”
“It was an interesting conversation. At first, he was panicking that the baby is his, then I reminded him he hadn’t had sex with me in a while and he relaxed a bit. Pretty sure he has a pretty low opinion of me now,” she murmurs. “It was enlightening, I guess.”
Pretty low opinion? Because she got pregnant or for another reason? The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I stand up, pacing around the bedroom. “Enlightening how?”
“He brought to light the fact that I wasn’t who he thought I was when we were together. I’m a fake and a liar.”
I stop moving and say lowly, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He says that I cat-fished him, and maybe he’s right. I guess I kind of pretended to be this perfect person and he felt like he couldn’t compete with me.”
“When did a relationship become a competition?” I growl, the tension heating my skin and prickling the back of my neck. This fucker sounds like the biggest dick on the planet.
“I missed that memo, too.”
Not being able to stand still, I march out of the spare bedroom, barely glancing at Josie and Dean who are watching me storm through the house. I slip my feet into my Hey Dudes shoes and throw on a stocking hat and step into the frigid temperatures, pacing around the small area behind the house that we’ve shoveled already so it’s clear of snow.
Once I’m outside, not giving a shit about the cold weather, I feel like I can breathe a little deeper. “What’s this about being a liar and fake?”
“That part might be a little true,” she admits.
“We might not know each other all that well but I disagree with you being fake.” The inflection in my voice is impossible to miss. I know she didn’t fake those orgasms with me. There’s absolutely no way. But more than that, I know she didn’t fake her personality.
“Not to you,” she adds. “And not the way you’re thinking. Though, I did inform him of that part. He was unimpressed. Or, I assume he was because I hung up on him before he could say anything more than ‘what the fuck’.”
That’s my girl. The immediate thought has me sucking in a sharp breath that I quickly cover up by laughing. I watch a squirrel scamper up a tree, and shiver a little when a gust of wind blows around me. “I take it he wasn’t aware of the fact that he needed a road map to make you come?”
“Clueless.”
“Well, that much is obvious.”
Her light giggle takes at least some of the tension off my shoulders. “I can’t believe that you just said road map to make me come in a sentence.”
“Got you to smile, didn’t it?”
“How do you know I’m smiling?”
“Are you?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she flirts.
“Why yes. Yes, I would. Call me on FaceTime so I can be proven right,” I flirt back.
“You’re ridiculous,” she jokes.
“Get used to it, baby. So tell me… what made you decide to you call your ex?”
She sighs, it’s heavy and exasperated. “Can’t we just call this one of my many mistakes I’ve made over the last month?”
“Am I one of those mistakes?”
She stutters, floundering and trying to cover her wording. I grin, loving that I can get under her skin. Even though I admit that I do wonder if she does consider me that way. A mistake. It would hurt if she did, and yet that night was kind of a mess.
“Relax, Ashley. I’m just teasing you.”
“Phew. But that’s not how I see that night. Or you. It was a mess, but not a mistake and I’m sorry if I hurt you. That wasn’t what I meant.” She voices my thoughts. Huh. That’s never happened to me before.
“You okay?”
“Kind of. I don’t know, really. I called him last night when I was panicking and, don’t take this the wrong way, but I just didn’t feel comfortable calling you yet. I really don’t know why I chose him, though. I have friends. I have sisters. I guess I wanted to make sure that whatever the two of us had was for sure over. Which, by the way, it is. Way, way over. He’s not even in my rearview mirror at this point.”
I’m a little perturbed that she chose to call him when she was panicking but I’m planning to hide it from her. There’s absolutely no way I’m going to admit I’m an unreasonable asshole. For fuck’s sake, we barely know each other so of course she would call him, someone she’s comfortable with. Besides, she said she wasn’t going to lie to me, and that it’s over between her and the dickhead ex. I believe her and for the sake of all our mental health, it’s probably best that we both just push forward.
With the toe of my shoe, I kick a little mound of fluffy snow and it topples over. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Putting you in this position.”
She groans an incredibly aggravated noise. “No. We are not doing this again, do you understand me? We’re moving forward. Together. Or, not together together, but you know what I mean.” Yeah, I do. The night we spent together we were nursing broken hearts. I don’t know about her, but even though I want nothing to do with my ex, Stacia, I’m still not ready to jump into a new relationship. Especially one as complicated as ours began. “Besides, this little guy that’s growing is not a mistake. He’s nothing to be sorry about, either.”
Wait, did she say… “He?”
I imagine she shrugs when she says, “I don’t know. Seems right to me. Obviously I don’t know for sure yet. I just called my doctor to make my first appointment today and it’s way too early to know the sex.”
“But you think it’s a boy?”
“I’m sure I’ll change that opinion several times. Until we find out the sex of the baby, anyway.”
“You want to find out?”
“Maybe? What do you think?”
Shaking my head, I scrunch my nose when I admit, “I haven’t really thought about it, to be honest. It all happened so fast.”
“And unplanned.”
Unplanned. Hmm. It’s not untrue, however, I really don’t like the way that sounds. “Do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s not call the baby unplanned. A surprise, sure, but I feel like we need to set the tone now and if we tell a baby that he or she is unplanned, they might think unwanted and that’s not okay.”
She’s quiet for so long I pull the phone away and look at the screen to make sure the call wasn’t dropped. The timer is still going on the screen. “Ashley?”
“Did that happen to you?” she asks softly.
“A friend of mine. And by a friend of mine, I
literally mean a friend, not me who’s talking about myself but calling myself a friend,” I explain.
She laughs on the other end of the line. “Glad you cleared that up.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Of course.”
“I’m a little nervous,” I confess.
“It’s just little old me. That’s all.”
Ha! Little old her. Right. The woman who’s going to give birth to my child in about eight months or less. The woman who made me feel more in the two days I spent with her than any other woman before. I’ve known she’s pregnant for less than twenty-four hours and it’s turned me inside out. Everything she says, I’m sensitive to, overreacting like a prepubescent teenager. It’s annoying.
“You’re feeling okay?” I ask, changing the subject. If I focus on her and what’s going on, I’ll get over myself.
“Yes?” she hedges, probably confused.
“No morning sickness?”
The smile in her voice is evident when she replies with a cute little, “Not yet.”
“That’s good. You’ll let me know if that changes?”
“Sure.”
If she’s trying to be convincing she’s failing miserably. We’ll get there, though. Eventually. When we have the chance to learn more about each other and build trust. It might be too soon now, but it won’t always be this way.
“So what’s your plan for the rest of the day?”
“Family dinner tonight.”
“What’s on the menu?”
“Pasta. Lots and lots of pasta. Lasagna, ziti, fettucine alfredo, shrimp scampi. Lots of garlic bread, mixed green salad, some other veggies that we all pretend we want on our plates to compensate for the plethora of carbs.”
“Sounds delicious.”
“It is. It’s my favorite.”
“Which one?”
She makes a sound similar to a scoff. “Uh, all of them? What’s not to love about pasta?”
Grinning, I admit, “Not a thing. I agree with you completely about this subject.”
“That’s good. What are you guys eating?”
“My brother-in-law is smoking a giant pork butt. We’ll have some cheesy hash brown casserole to go with it, and whatever else my sister has planned. I try to help but she’s insistent. Since it’s just us, I let her have it.”
Together: A Surprise Pregnancy Romance Page 8