Chapter Eighteen
Fisher
There’s nothing much to do in the coffee shop. I deliver Mr. Clark’s breakfast. He’s doing a lot better. Lang sent a couple of guys to help him with his cows and chickens. I don’t get to see much of Nathalie because she has patients. I leave her breakfast and lunch in the small fridge that Lang got her for the break room. At least he took pity on her.
The town is too quiet. This is the eye of the storm. I can feel the change in my bones. The hours pass slowly. When I arrive at my house, Lang’s car is there, which is weird. He doesn’t like to drive to Luna Harbor. He usually takes the helicopter. There are also a couple of moving trucks next to his Land Rover. Why bring the Rover? Unless he’s carrying something. Is he moving in with me?
I open the door carefully and look up. Buckets filled with water are an old trick, but everyone falls for it. There’s nothing. Only Lang by the stairwell barking orders, quietly. “Make sure you set up that camera in both corners.”
“Are you going to be filming me?” I ask. He turns around, and I stare at him, dumbfounded. “You have a baby.”
Lang marches toward me and extends his hands, offering me the baby. “No. You have a baby.”
I look at him and chuckle. “Good one.” I even touch the baby’s cheek. It’s soft and warm. “He feels real.”
“He is real—and he is yours.”
“Okay, this is funny, but you can’t be playing with a human life.”
“Take him,” he orders, almost shoving him against me.
I grab the blue bundle with both hands at first. The baby is so tiny and sleepy. I caress his tiny head with my left hand and flinch because stretching still hurts. “If this is your idea of a joke, it’s terrible.”
“It’s not a joke,” he insists. “Congratulations, it’s a boy.”
I stare at the baby in my arms.
He’s a boy.
A boy.
My boy?
That’s impossible. It’s been almost a year since the last time I had sex.
“Okay, you win. You’re good at pranks. The best.”
Two men make their way downstairs. “Everything is set,” one of them says. He hands Lang a monitor. “You can see the four cameras. You know how to connect it from your phone. The furniture guys are almost done. Anything else?”
Lang shakes his head.
“What’s happening?”
“They’re delivering everything you need for your son.”
“This is a prank. This has to be a prank,” I insist. “Where did you get this baby?
“Laura dropped him off at my office two days ago. I had to hunt her down to get an explanation.”
“And that makes you think he’s mine?”
“No. She assured me he’s yours after I threatened to put her in jail for abandoning her newborn child with a stranger—my assistant.”
“Again, you’re taking her word. I haven’t seen her in eight, maybe nine months when we…” I scrub my face with my free hand. “Fuck.”
“That’s probably the right word.”
“I mean, it happened, but…I wasn’t the only one there. We used protection.”
“Listen, you can get a DNA test,” he suggests.
“Shouldn’t we get that before we signed for him?” I joke.
“It’s a baby, not a package.”
“I don’t know what to do with a baby,” I remind him.
He looks at me in a way that he barely does. He means business when he says, “Well, figure it out because this one belongs to you.”
I grab the phone and call Laura. She sends me to voicemail.
I change the settings to appear as an unknown number and try again.
“Hello,” she answers immediately.
“We had a baby?”
“Fuck, it’s you,” she breathes out harshly.
“Yes, fuck, it’s me,” I respond angrily. “Why didn’t you tell me nine months ago that we were expecting a baby?”
“I wasn’t sure it was yours.”
“What makes you think it is mine?”
“I did a couple of tests with the other guys,” she mumbles.
“And you couldn’t come to me and tell me?”
“No. You’re too intense, Fisher. You would’ve tried to—”
“Be prepared before you blindside me with him,” I answer. “You could’ve had the guts to bring him over. Not send him like a package via courier.”
“You would’ve wanted to become a couple and raise him like…a family.”
I doubt that would’ve been the case. She’d be the last person I’d want to raise a child with. But here we are, with a newborn. “What’s the plan?”
“Well, I tried to do the mommy thing, and it didn’t work. The kid is demanding—I guess he got it from you.”
“So that’s why you shipped him off to me? If not, you wouldn’t have told me about him?”
“Who else will take care of him? I can’t keep him.”
“What in the ever-loving fuck, Laura. This isn’t a piece of furniture you disliked. You can’t return a baby.”
“Like I said, I thought I could handle it…obviously, I can’t. It’s your responsibility.”
“How old is he?”
“A week old.”
“What’s his name?”
“I haven’t had the time to figure it out. I tried Bear, Lars, and—”
“Got it,” I interrupt before she dares to tell me that she tried calling him pencil or some other stupid shit. “You’re not getting him back. Do you understand that?”
“Ugh, you sound just like your manager. I don’t care. You can keep him. I already signed some legal bullshit. He’s all yours.”
“Wait, aren’t you supposed to name him before leaving the hospital?” I remember some drama around that with Grace’s niece, Mae. Her mother died when she was born, and her dad was too fucked up to name her. I might have to call her cousin to see how I can get around not registering him at the hospital.
“I had him at home. I’m sure your people can fix that little problem.”
I stare at the poor baby, who is just a week old and already being rejected by the one woman who is supposed to love him the most.
Me too, kid. Me too.
“Do me a favor, Laura. Don’t come back…ever.”
“Sure, until you’re horny again. You’re the one who always comes crawling back to me.”
That’s a lie but if she wants to believe it, I’ll let her. “Either way, I’m done with you, Laura.”
After hanging up, I look at Lang. “He doesn’t have a name. We’re fucked.”
“I know. We’ll be filing the birth certificate as soon as you find something suitable. The lawyers have that under control.”
“She can’t claim him, right?”
“She won’t. She signed her parental rights over to you. She won’t even be on the birth certificate if that’s what you want.”