“What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, sha?” The sound of her amazing voice brought back so many memories of nights in the bayou, partying in the French Quarter, listening to her gran talk about the ghosts of the past.
A sob ripped from my throat. “Oh God, Delia, you have no idea!”
A quick pause, then her panicked “They found you?”
“No!” I quickly responded. “No. But nearly as bad.”
“What is it?” Her tone was grave, full of concern.
“I’m pregnant.”
“You broke your second most important rule?!”
I sucked on my bottom lip for a long second before breathing out a quiet “Yes.”
“Tell me,” she commanded.
And I did. I caught her up on all the dirty details of that day, then of the last few months up until today. She listened, adding her own commentary along the way. Cussing out Kai when I told her what he said. We both knew the guys, all the sex, were part of my plan. It may have sounded insane, but it was part of my control. That didn’t mean I liked basically being called a slut by the man who was now the father of the baby in my belly.
When we were completely caught up, she was silent for a few heartbeats before she sighed. “Even though the dad was a total douche, you want to keep it?”
It wasn’t a callous question. We’d gone over this scenario during that long drive, discussed every single possibility of what could happen down the road. And yes, at the time, I’d said I wouldn’t keep it if I ever got pregnant. Now my mind violently shied away from the idea. There was no way, absolutely no way I could be rid of the tiny spirit that depended on me. The fact that it was healthy and thriving in there was a miracle all of its own. With the amount I drank in that first eight weeks and the hormones from the birth control shot I usually got, the doctor had called the baby a little fighter. Just like me.
“Yes. I’m keeping it,” I told her.
“You know what this means. What could happen.”
“I do,” I replied, falling back on my bed. “I have to ask…. You did so much for me, Del. Sacrificed so much already. But is there any chance you would come stay with me for a while?”
The next pause, filled with only our breathing, made my nerves tingle. I was never vulnerable enough to ask for help, not after she’d helped me run—I hadn’t even asked then, she’d insisted—but the wicked hormones kept drawing strange reactions from me.
“I can’t,” she finally said. And that was it for the crack in my heart. It split right down the center. “You know I would, Chlo, you know it. But Gran. She’s been sick. I’ve had to help Mama keep the house going while taking care of her. I’m so sorry.”
“Gran is sick?” I croaked, a tear streaming down my cheek. It couldn’t be true. Her gran was such a fixture in New Orleans. But the fact that Delia hadn’t told me sooner, hadn’t wanted to bother me with the information, somehow hurt more than anything else had.
“Yes. She’s got something going on we haven’t been able to pinpoint yet. I’ve been taking care of her day and night for months now. Makes me wish sometimes you were here. All this distance sucks some days.”
“I’m so sorry, Del. I should be there. I should be facing my demons rather than running from them.”
“You know that’s not what I meant. You had reasons to run. It’s just hard—” She broke off, muttering something to someone in the background. “Look. I gotta go. Mama needs me. You call me again if you need to chat.”
“Okay. Bye, Delia.”
“Bye, Chloe.”
The moment the phone went dead, the walls closed in around me. So many emotions bombarded me from every side that I could only curl in a ball and allow wave after wave to crash over me. How women handled emotions like this was beyond me. I wasn’t even through my first trimester; how was I supposed to handle over seven more months of this?
Ava stayed true to her word, and she and Cade came to get her things that evening. I stood, watching in my doorway with my arms crossed over my chest while they went in and out with all her stuff. It should have made me sad, but my emotions were rubbed raw to the point of being numb. Cade wasn’t being his usual moody self, but every time they came back inside, he would give me and then my stomach a concerned-looking glare. But even that small amount of whatever it was couldn’t elicit any emotion in any crevice of my heart or mind.
It took them so long to get all her things loaded into the bed of a truck Cade had borrowed from his boss that I pondered going to bed. But I remained at my doorway, watching them until the job was done. Once it was, Ava came up to me with a hard look in her eyes, hands fisted at her sides. She was getting pretty close to a good scolding bitch look.
She held the key out to me, saying, “Is the dad going to be by to help you out?”
Again, she said the completely wrong thing without even knowing it. I snatched the key from her, putting my own scolding bitch look in place. “Nope.” I popped the p. “I don’t know who it is.” The lie was easy. She didn’t need to know. At least not from me. If he decided to tell her, that was all on him.
She rolled her lips between her teeth, eyes softening slightly, while Cade leaned against the front door, watching us with that concern again. “This kind of sucks, you know?” she said.
I snorted.
“Anyway.” She shrugged, shifting her feet around. “If you ever need something, you can call me. At least after the bitchiness subsides, I guess.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I drawled.
She was out the door with a curt farewell faster than a bronco out the shoot.
Cade glanced back at me, a hand on the doorknob. “You know she means it. If you need anything, she’ll be there for you.” With that, he left without waiting for a response from me.
Having my quiet apartment all to myself was more depressing than I thought it would be. Even when I had a carton of double fudge ice cream to watch The Walking Dead with. I’d thought that being alone in this, not having to rely on anyone else, would be the way to do it. Doing things on my own was what I did. But this was new territory, one I wasn’t so sure I could navigate by myself. I would though, for the little person who was depending on me. How I was going to make rent or buy food was beyond me, but I would find a way. I always did.
My phone rang again around one in the morning, another damn call from Kai. I didn’t answer it, even though I was awake since I’d just finished hurling up the ice cream. In the amount of time I had to myself, I’d decided to let him off the hook. He didn’t need some chick with a baby weighing him down, especially since he was about to be free of his obligation to the military. That didn’t mean I wasn’t still mad at him for what he said, but I’d finally come up with a plan to deal with this new surprise in my life all on my own. My control was intact.
4
Kai
Two months. I called her every single day for two fucking months. She didn’t answer once. Everything changed the day she called me to tell me we were having a baby, and yet nothing had. She wouldn’t let me apologize for what I said. Not even through email. Though I wasn’t sure she was even checking her email. Either way, she refused to talk to me.