by Jamie Knight
“Good job, Dad,” said a nurse who had just come into the room. “You seem like a natural already.”
“Whew,” I sighed. “I was afraid I was holding her wrong.”
“There’s no wrong way,” she assured me, with a smile. “As long as you do it with love.”
And love is what flooded my heart as I gazed down at my new baby girl.
We had already decided on her name – Daisy – and I said it for the first time.
“Her name is Daisy,” I announced to the nurse. “And she’s even more beautiful than the flower.”
“I agree,” the nurse said, as she peered closer at Daisy’s face. “That really is an adorable baby.”
We both stared in awe for a while until the nurse straightened up and coughed, regaining her professional demeanor. I knew I was a biased father but I couldn’t help but think that she was truly think she was overtaken with amazement at how beautiful Daisy was.
“Well, I’ll come back in an hour or so to take Hayley’s vitals,” the nurse said. “I want to let her get a little sleep after that long labor. She was a trooper.”
“She sure was,” I agreed, shifting my gaze to Hayley and smiling at my peacefully sleeping warrior of a life partner. “And I love her for that. Just like I love everything else about her.”
“You guys are off to a great start for an amazing life with little Daisy,” the nurse said. “It’s nice to see such an involved father. And speaking of that, I can change Daisy’s diaper and take her vitals while Hayley sleeps, and show you some things about what color poop she should have.”
“What color poop?” I repeated, with a laugh. “Is that what you just said?”
“Yes,” the nurse told me, smiling nicely, not as if she was making fun of me. “It will start out dark brown, it’s still meconium, but then it should change to yellow. You don’t want too much green in there, or it could mean she’s not getting enough milk.”
“I see,” I told her, fascinated by this very strange subject.
I was certainly learning a lot as a father already.
And as I looked happily at my baby daughter and at Hayley once again, I knew that I had hit the jackpot in life.
I had love and happiness and I had just become a father to a gorgeous baby girl.
What more could a man ask for?
And it was all because I had risked taking a chance on love with Hayley. That was something I would never, ever, regret, no matter how many poopy diapers I had to change in the middle of the night.
I would do it with honor and pride, because I was happy to take care of my family, forever.
THE END
Bad Company
A Fake Fiancé Romance
Copyright © 2020 Jamie Knight Romance.
Jamie Knight –
Your Dirty Little Secret Romance Author
All rights reserved.
Chapter One - Jacob
I had heard stories about L.A. traffic, mainly how terrifying and demoralizing it could be. Though after five years of dodging car bombs in Kabul, I really couldn't complain. The heat was terrible in California, but at least I was allowed to dress for it. Buying and choosing my own clothes was something I had lost for a while after returning from service. PTSD left me in a haze. Thank mercy for Hayley, my sweet twin sister, and not just for the clothing consultation. Without Hayley, I would be in even worse condition than I was. Something I tried to remember whenever things started to get worse. It didn't always work, of course, but it was still better than giving into the void.
This wasn't my first attempt at post-army employment. I had tried several jobs, though, for one reason or another, they hadn't worked out.
My first thought had been protection work. I was still a crack shot despite only having full movement in my right arm—the left being somewhat hampered by a piece of shrapnel. It seemed like a good idea at the time, though, in retrospect was more of a dream than an option. I wasn't as strong as I used to be and had a registered disability.
Security seemed a more likely fit, but again, there was a problem. The insurance company got a bit skittish about the PTSD issue. Adjusting my ambitions, I applied for a position at a gun store, one of the reputable places that catered to hunters and sport shooters. Considering I could field strip a Glock in ten seconds, I figured my chances were good. I actually made it to the shortlist, but the owners thought that my apparent disability might damage their optics.
I couldn't really blame any of them. It didn't seem entirely fair. I had been in therapy for almost a year and was doing a lot better. Though, to be honest, I couldn't argue with their logic and couldn't say I would act any other way in their position. I still had the notion that if I could just get another job and place to live, it would all work out. Neither of these seemed to be on the horizon, though, and it wasn't doing much for my mood.
It was only by the grace of Hayley that I was even considered for the position of a paralegal at Howell and Howell. Apparently, this was a position a million people more qualified than me would kill to get. Though, as it would turn out, one of the partners, Ann Howell, was a vet herself and had a soft spot for the decommissioned — at least two of the lawyers working there were in a similar situation to myself.
Still, I wasn't exactly sold on the idea of working in the legal firm. Tiny, niggling bits of doubt and paranoia kept pricking at the back of my mind as I piloted my 2002 Saturn toward the downtown core of LA. The car had belonged to Hayley. Our parents had gotten it for her when she graduated as a joke — or so we suspected, in any case.
On the upside, it had a CD player built into the radio. A fancy feature at the time, and I was still old enough to have a few of the shiny plastic discs kicking around. Most of them were hand-me-downs from my dad, who had been way into Goth back in the day. I slid Life Is Killing Me into the slot, setting it so that the opening riffs to “I Don't Wanna Be Me” filled the rolling, steel cube.
The Howell and Howell offices were not what I expected. To the point that I actually drove past it twice while looking for the address. I had expected a mammoth tower of doom. Not a classy, retro, red brick building. But the latter was indeed what I found when I matched the numbers on the building to the ones on the phone that Hayley lent me. Finding parking on the street, I headed in, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.
The whiffs of coffee and European pastry were quite strong from the next-door cafe. No doubt by design. Resisting the siren call of espresso and Eccles cakes, I soldiered on, making my way to the only elevator.
I leaned against the cool elevator wall, my head against the cool wood paneling, doing the meditative breathing technique I had learned in therapy. I hadn't been good with confined spaces since getting trapped for three days in the back of a flipped Humvee. The driver was killed instantly, and apparently, the shooters thought the transport was empty because they didn't even check the back. Even after we go out, I was the only one of my company who survived the extraction.
With an anti-climactic ding, the elevator doors slid open, and I was released on the top floor, taking a moment to get my bearings and found the conference room I was supposed to be in.
As soon as I opened the door, I regretted it. The room was filled with nicely dressed people milling about, chitchatting, and sipping coffee from paper cups. Large crowds in small rooms were the worst. My hands started shaking.
“Sit down,” I heard a voice say behind me.
As soon as I was seated, a hand attached to an arm in a well-tailored sleeve handed me an unbleached cardboard cup of water.
“Who—”
“Shhh. I get it,” Ann Howell whispered, standing near my shoulder.
I took the water and drained it in almost one go, forcing my pulse to slow down just a bit. I couldn’t go for too hard a drop, or I might pass out. Never a good look.
“Hey, bro,” Hayley said, walking up next to me. I hadn't even heard the door to the conference room open aga
in.
“Hayley.”
We hugged as well as I could with my one arm. Ann took back the cup as I moved to stand up.
“Ready to start?” Ann asked.
“Yes, ma'am,” I said clearly, standing up straight and following her towards the head of the large table.
Ann had apparently been a sergeant during her service, and she still wore it well. Her ‘military bearing’ came across as efficiency in the civilian office setting. Her clothes, while fashionable, were still fairly stark, and she wore her black hair in a short bob. Even if it didn’t make the strong impression on her that it did on me, service could change one’s way of thinking. It made sense, really. Being in the military was a different way of life.
We were led to a room at the back of the conference room. I had attended enough college to know that it was set up as a classroom. Four long tables with about ten chairs each were set up to face the front of the room, where an impressively large whiteboard had been mounted on the wall. As was my custom, I sat in the back row by the window. The farthest distance away from most potential trouble.
When everyone was seated, the training began in earnest. Hayley really wasn’t kidding when she called it ‘intensive.’ I tried my best to focus, but my mind kept wandering to an apartment I really wanted to rent. Nothing fancy in and of itself. Just a basic one-bedroom, really, but it had a beautiful view of the ocean, mostly by virtue of the height of the building, and it wasn’t that far from the beach. The only downside was the landlord, who was somewhat hesitant to rent to someone with PTSD. Like I might start firing shots into the wall in the middle of the night or something stupid. Never mind that I hadn’t owned a gun since being discharged. It really seemed like a dick move for him to do that, but I didn’t know what to do to convince him that I was okay.
I was just about to get mired down in negativity when a different sort of distraction presented itself. A sexy girl was sitting in the row in front of me and slightly to the right. She had turned enough for me to see her beautiful face and that she had bluest eyes I had ever seen. This woman had a sort of delicate, ethereal beauty angels are depicted as having. She caught me staring, so I smiled to let her know that I came in peace. She seemed convinced and smiled back.
Somehow this angelic girl reminded me of a woman I had been writing to when I was deployed. Not anyone I knew. Just a sort of pen pal set up through the USO. Even so, at that time, the woman had given me a sense of purpose. Her letters gave me the will to keep fighting when life seemed broken. We stopped writing after I returned home, something that I regretted, but I couldn’t help the fact the PTSD had kept me from functioning for months.
Losing the movement in my arm and having to leave the military set me adrift with no real plan. I hoped joining the firm would give me a sense of purpose again.
Chapter Two - Charlotte
I thought my new job would be some big adventure, like college had been, at least at first. The first four years of college were relatively easy. My natural skill for Criminology presenting itself fairly quickly. It was mostly memorization anyway. Giving my grades, combined with my upper tier LSAT score, that let me walk straight into the law program at UCLA. I even met my fiancé there. Pride before the fall as Mother Superior at St. Bernadette's would have said.
My fiancé lost his scholarship and joined the military to make money — my scholarships and grants only going so far to keep us afloat. It was another year or more before I would be allowed to practice law. I got pregnant soon after, and that did not make things any easier. We were happy, of course. We were together and about to start a family. We just had to hold on until he came back, and I graduated.
But my fiancé didn't come back. He had apparently been on a routine patrol when he was shot dead by a sniper. Then I lost the baby. Not sure how to go on, I dropped out of law school. Because we weren't married, I didn't qualify for the widow's pension. Unknown to me, though, he had gotten life insurance and set up a Survivor's Benefit Plan before joining up. It was almost as though he knew he was going to die.
The benefits plan wasn't a lot, but it was enough to get by, though there wasn't much I could do about my depression. That only began to lift when my friend Hayley suggested a program in which civilians wrote letters to deployed soldiers to keep their spirits up. It was based on a program that started during World War II; only instead of pen and ink, the correspondence this was conducted via email. Which made a lot of sense considering how long it would take to get a physical letter from California to Afghanistan even by airmail.
It was mostly anonymous, with only first names given, and no photos allowed. I was paired with a private also from California named Jacob. It was surprisingly comforting, and I came to really look forward to his replies. It was nice to have some sort of human connection again. Even if I wasn't allowed to see his face. I had asked a couple of times if he could send me a picture, or we could video chat, but Jacob refused to break the rules — mostly for fear of being removed from the program.
He did send a written description of himself. What stood out to me most at the time was the description of his eyes, which Jacob described as an almost luminescent blue. Those two words — luminescent blue — kept me up at night as I envisioned what my mystery soldier looked like and dreamed about meeting him.
I could understand his reluctance to send a picture, not really wanting to lose contact with him either. I had felt lost and broken before we started writing, and I was finally starting to feel better again.
However, it would seem I had done something to offend the fates because suddenly, the messages from Jacob stopped. I tried to find out what happened to him, but no one would tell me much because I didn't have clearance or know his last name. All I was able to find out was there had been an attack on his transport with a car bomb, and he was missing in action. I assumed he had been killed.
Somehow I survived that loss.
Hayley came back just over a year later with another bright idea. She had gotten a job as a paralegal at a reputable law firm. I knew the law better than some of the lawyers, so she suggested I do the same. They were looking to expand and were taking candidates. Turns out, she worked for the famous Howell and Howell law firm.
As amazing as it would be to be back in law, and at one of the titans of the profession no less, I was hesitant. I had lost a lot of the gusto I'd had when I was younger. Then I remembered what Jacob had once written about trying things and not feeling like you had to commit forever. This bucked up my mood considerably, and I decided to try the paralegal training and see how it went. It might help me heal to do some good for others.
My breath caught as I walked up to the legendary Howell and Howell offices. As notable for its modesty as its exquisite red-brick architecture. Imagining working there was one thing, but being presented with the actual prospect of it was something else entirely. The weight of reality was more than I had imagined. Doing my best to center myself, I went in, trying not to think about where I had parked.
The next-door cafe smelled absolutely amazing as I passed on the way to the one and only elevator. Giving in to temptation, I popped in for a medium hot chocolate and a cinnamon bun that was roughly the size of my face. Sufficiently sugared up, and still not late, I headed for the elevators munching on the last few bites of the bun.
“Hello,” said the surprisingly perky, redheaded assistant behind the reception desk at the top floor.
“I'm here for the paralegal training,” I managed to say.
“Name?”
“Charlotte Foster,” I said.
“Ah, here you are, follow me,” she said, getting up gingerly.
The assistant led me to a back room with several large windows, which was set up as a classroom, with lines of tables and chairs from almost front to back. It made me wonder exactly how many people were going to be at the training. The room set-up was already giving me flashbacks to college. I took a seat near the middle in the second row from
the back, the position I had always found the most comfortable during lectures.
Like a broken pipe, the other trainees started to trickle in and picked their seats, each one getting closer to the appointed time than the last. The morning traffic and sketchy parking no doubt playing a deciding role. With everyone seated, none of us late in the conventional sense —though it got pretty close to the wire near the end — the training started.
The class was headed by none other than Jim Howell himself. I recognized his black hair and green eyes from an online article I had seen about him and the firm’s success. Legend had it that he had worked as a paralegal for years before going to law school, helped in no small part by his father, who was a successful lawyer at the time.
The main issue had been the LSAT, Jim having a slight back deformity that kept him from being able to sit long enough to take the test. He could have gotten accommodations in which he wrote the test in two parts, but his results would have been flagged. Mr. Howell explained to them just how flagrantly illegal and prejudicial this was, in clear violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Jim was able to write the test in two days with no red flags being applied to his results. He graduated from law school in less time than usual and with honors.
A lot of the information given at the beginning of the training was pretty rudimentary. I could have been mistaken, but there really didn't seem to be much to it. Though that also could have been because I had two-thirds of a law degree finished and knew case law like the back of my hand.
A lot of what they were going through in training was the copying and filing system, the latter of which we covered in the first year of law school. Still, though, I tried to pay attention as best I could, really wanting to do as well as I could. The prospect of a job, really any position in the legal profession, was filling me with more drive than I'd had in a while.
