Knocked Up By The Doc Box Set (A Secret Baby Romance)

by Claire Adams

  Nate

  Three Months Later

  I'd never been to a Hawai'ian wedding before. Keno's family had wanted something a lot more traditional, while Makani's family was a little more modern. They came to a compromise that looked like a wedding of about one hundred people at a public park overlooking the ocean.

  It had only been three months since Keno had proposed. I asked him over and over whether it was happening so fast because she was pregnant, but he kept denying it.

  It didn't matter anyway. They were getting married. I was happy for them. After Kirsten, I had to admit, I wasn't that excited to try doing it again.

  Maybe it really did come down to whether you were marrying the right person. Keno thought Makani made the sun rise every morning, and hey, I got it. I thought Abby was an actual angel, and I had just been the lucky shmuck she had felt sorry for and decided to give some love to.

  I had loved Kirsten, but I didn't remember feeling what I saw between Keno and Makani with her. I didn't remember feeling for her what I felt for Abby. Maybe that was a sign that I wouldn't be paying Abby a divorce settlement in the future when it all went to shit, but I didn't see the need to rush anything.

  She was still in school, and I was still moving my life from LA to Lanai. I had had to have a few flights back just to arrange everything and make sure I wiped that slate clean. I was stoked on Lanai. I understood why Abby and Keno loved it so much. It certainly didn't hurt that I had some actual friends now.

  I had gone almost twenty-eight years of my life without having ever been a groomsman at someone's wedding. It was kind of embarrassing when I thought about it. Kirsten and I had had a really small ceremony at my house with like, ten guests. It hadn't felt anything like this.

  The people who weren't family were friends, colleagues, and people who had known Makani and Keno since they were young. There were old teachers, former classmates, people who worked at the market in the city, everyone.

  I liked it. It was great feeling like you belonged to a community. It was like it was everyone's big day, not just theirs.

  Speaking of big day, Keno had been nervous as fuck since we had gotten to the ceremony.

  He had been asking me how to deal, but I wasn't sure if he wanted advice from someone who had ended up getting a divorce. I just told him to wait till Makani showed up, then he'd be able to calm down. I was standing at the front of the ceremony waiting for it to begin with him, his brother who was his best man, and one other guy who was his last groomsman.

  Makani walked down the aisle to the Hawai'ian Wedding Song instead of the bridal march most people knew. Before she did, though, her bridal party walked down the aisle. I watched the other girls walk down the aisle waiting for Abby's turn. She was maid of honor, so she went in just before Makani.

  She and Keno were wearing white, but her bridesmaids, Abby included, had these long, flowy dresses that were cotton-candy pink. She took my breath away coming down the aisle. She looked really pretty in the dress, but she had these white flowers in her hair and I don't know, maybe it was because we were at a wedding and she was walking down an aisle. It put some crazy ideas in my head.

  That was my girl.

  Where the fuck would I be if she hadn't come to my suite that day to tell me to come to the luau? Definitely not here.

  I was coming up on six months dope free, we were living together, and I had just gotten more and more requests from producers to work with them. She did that. Even if I had managed to stop using on my own, if we hadn't met, if she hadn't refused to give up on me, I would have gone back to LA and probably ended up trying to make it work again with Remus, which would have driven me fucking crazy.

  I was happy. I had forgotten what it felt like to wake up and want to go back to sleep because everything sucked. I liked where I was and the people I was around. I loved her. She was the brightest and best thing in my life. She had met my dad, and he had felt the same way. She was perfect.

  The ceremony was really nice. It really said something that the two of them were together again after they had broken up. Not every couple was like that. I thought I deserved a little credit helping them patch things up, but I didn't tell them. It was their wedding — I could just do it during the toasts.

  The reception was a huge luau-style party. The feast was ridiculous; eating here had ruined me for other food whenever I had to fly back to the mainland. Abby was picking off my plate at our table. Being part of the wedding party, we were all sitting together. There was an open bar, but we didn't need booze tonight.

  "How does it feel to be married?" Abby asked Makani.

  "Amazing," she said, smiling.

  "Hold on to that. Whenever he pisses you off, just remember women live longer than men do. He's going out first," I said.

  "Not all of us are cynics like you, Nate," Keno said, laughing.

  "When he fucks up, just tell me. I'll sort him out," I told her. She laughed.

  "I'll take that as an invitation to make Abby the same promise," she said.

  "Am I still on probation?" I asked, laughing.

  "You've lasted this long without messing up," Keno said.

  "It never ends," Makani said. "We're sort of a package deal." She wasn't kidding. That was sort of what life here was about: that weird closeness you develop when there's so few of you around. It would take getting used to, but I was getting there. Any day of the week, this beat LA, hands down.

  The entertainment began, and I went up on stage to perform a song I had written with the wedding band. That was sort of my thing now. I only did things that I cared about for people I cared about. It was a hell of a way to live. I didn't know why I hadn't started earlier.

  Epilogue

  Abby

  Two Years Later

  Something I always thought would make me love Lanai even more than I already did was being able to see the sun rise over the water instead of setting. The morning sun had just begun illuminating our bedroom.

  I was awake, just sort of slipping in and out of wakefulness, enjoying the feel of the sun on my naked body and the sound of Nate's playing infiltrating the rest of the house from the living room.

  The wall facing the water in our bedroom wasn't a wall at all. It was all glass, with a sliding door that opened onto a balcony. He had asked for it just for me, knowing how I felt about mornings. We had gone back and forth about the design of the house for months before agreeing on something that was small enough for me to be comfortable in, and grand enough for Nate to feel like he was giving me a gift by having it built.

  I had been a little sad about leaving my beachside hut near the Four Seasons, but this place was nice, too. We had designed it from the ground up, and Nate had called it my present for our one year anniversary when we had moved in. I had wanted something small and cozy for two people to live in that didn't feel cold and empty. He had drawn inspiration from a beachfront villa he and his parents would stay in when they would come to Hawai'i when he was a child.

  The compromise had been a scaled down villa on the eastern coast of the island overlooking the beach. It was secluded, but not isolated. We had our privacy, but the city was less than twenty minutes away when we really wanted to go.

  I stretched in the sunlight like a lizard basking on a rock. Nate often played in the morning. His inspiration hit at the strangest times, but I loved when the sun was just creeping up the horizon and his playing infiltrated my fading dreams. I could hear his voice, too; he was singing. He composed and wrote more than he sang, so it was always a treat when he did.

  It was time to get up. I wasn't even tired anymore; I was just being lazy. I had graduated a while back, and the summer peak season had just come to an end. I was enjoying my days off after a busy season. I climbed out of bed and walked to our split closet. I pulled on a pair of panties and grabbed one of his worn old t-shirts to go downstairs in.

  I walked down the stairs, following the music. The closer I got, the clearer I heard the song. I recognized it. I
t was the one he had written for me his first summer here. He tended to play a lot of the old stuff he had written with Remus, too.

  He had distanced himself from the band since he had ventured out on his own solo career, but since he had writing credits on so many of the band's songs, people were constantly finding out about Nate through the band anyway.

  If the balcony upstairs was for me, the recording studio basement was for him. I had felt he needed it to make up for the fact that we lived so far from Los Angeles where the people he collaborated with lived. Having a studio at home meant he didn't always have to leave when he needed to record. The times he did have to travel for shows were bad enough, especially when I couldn't join him.

  His beautiful grand piano was in the living room. I walked into the room seeing him, but stopped. It was starting to get light outside, but the room was illuminated with soft yellow light from candles on the mantle and coffee table. A sea of blood red rose petals covered the floor between me and Nate at the piano. The scene was soft and romantic, but we’d already celebrated two years a couple weeks ago. I didn’t know what this was for.

  "Nate?" I called carefully, walking into the room, feeling petals beneath my feet. The playing stopped, and he looked over his shoulder at me. He didn't have a shirt on. He was on the bench in just a pair of pajama pants. He smiled seeing me and waved me over.

  "Morning, babe," he said, grinning.

  "Hey," I said smiling, walking up to the bench. I sat next to him with my back to the piano so I could face him. He kissed me sweetly. "What happened in here?" I asked.

  "Do you like it?"

  "It's beautiful, but I don't know what we're celebrating."

  "Do I need a reason to do something nice for you?" he asked, smiling.

  "This is for me?"

  "Everything I do is for you, Abby," he said.

  It had been two years of hearing him say things like that to me, and they still never failed to fill me up with insane pleasure. He was a songwriter; he knew how to say things to make them sound the sweetest, but that wasn't even where it stopped. I believed him when he said things to me because he was generous with his words, his heart, his body, his money. He gave me everything.

  "I love it," I said. "Thank you."

  "I love doing things for you; don't mention it. I should be the one thanking you," he said.

  "Me? What for?" I asked.

  "For all the delicious food you make me, for coming with me on tour, for being my biggest supporter," he said making a list.

  "I do those things because I love you, Nate. You don't have to thank me."

  "I wouldn't be able to do anything without you, Abby," he said.

  "Oh, come on. What were you doing before we met?"

  "Nothing," he said seriously. "Nothing good. I wasn't making music, I was high all the time; I was a junkie."

  I sighed. I remembered. The more distance we gained from the time, the more dire it seemed in my remembrance of it. We were both here on the other side of it, in love and stronger than ever, but when we had met, this man that he was today was somewhere obscured behind the pain of a broken dream, a failed marriage, and addiction. It was hard to think sometimes that he was the same person.

  His left arm was covered in beautiful, dark tattoos instead of track scars now. He was inspired and healthy, and through it all, he was still the creative, beautiful soul I'd been drawn to when we met.

  "All that happened in the past. You aren't that person anymore. You got better, and you took your career back."

  "I didn't do shit, Abby. You're the one who got me here."

  "I just didn't let you ignore me," I said, smiling.

  "You treated me like I was someone worth saving," he said. "I wouldn't be alive if you hadn’t driven me crazy the first summer I got here." I smiled, remembering how upset he would get when I'd wake him up in the morning.

  "Yes, you would, Nate," I said. "I'm not the one who beat your addiction — you are."

  "If you weren't there, I wouldn't have been able to do it. You were it, Abby. You still are. I'm alive because of you, and you deserve every last one of the years I have left on this earth." I felt my eyes well up.

  "You don't owe me anything, Nate. Here and now with you is enough." He shook his head.

  "I don't want here and now Abby; I want every day." I watched him stand and round the bench. "Abby," he said quietly. He took one of my hands and sunk down on one knee. My heart started pounding as I realized what was happening.

  "Every good thing in my life I can trace back to you. I had nothing when we met, and you gave me everything. I didn't know what unconditional love felt like before I met you and when I think of the future, you're the only thing I know I can't live without. I have a life because of you, and I don't want to live life without you."

  I wanted to say something, but I couldn't, my throat was closed, and tears were pouring down my face. I saw him reach into his pajama pants pocket and pull out a ring.

  "Abby Terrell, I love you, and I don't want to live a life without you in it. Marry me?"

  I nodded because I couldn't speak. He slid the ring on my finger and stood up. I looked at it. It was a beautiful pink stone in a rose-gold band.

  "I thought..."

  "You thought I'd never ask you?"

  "I thought you didn't want to do it again," I said.

  "I didn't want to do it again with the wrong person," he said. "You're the right person, Abby. You're the only person. Do you want to be my wife?"

  "Yes," I said, looking up at him. "Of course. I just want to make you happy."

  "You already do, babe," he said. I smiled. He made me happy, too. Happy, excited, passionate...full. He was my missing piece to paradise. Now I had everything.

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  SEXY TATTOOIST

  By Claire Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 Claire Adams

  Chapter One

  Graham

  “A rose.” The girl gestured vaguely to her tanned, freckled cleavage, of which there was plenty. “Right here.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes, which was generally a frowned upon reaction when a customer was telling you what they wanted you to tattoo on their body.

  “Okay,” I nodded, and tried to arrange my features into an expression that suggested I thought getting a rose tattooed on her cleavage wasn’t a completely overdone and tired idea. Not that someone like her would care—I could tell her mind was made up about it, regardless of what anyone said.

  “A red one with thorns,” she said after a moment. “You know, so it’s like symbolic of who I am … I have a hard exterior, but inside I’m like—”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” It was 2 o’clock in the afternoon, but still way too early in the day for this kind of talk. “Give me a minute and let me sketch something up for you.”

  “Great. I’m so excited to see how this will turn out.” She grinned, lines creasing the corners of her eyes. She wasn’t so much a girl as a woman who was still trying to be a girl, with her tight tank top and short shorts. She probably dedicated a considerable amount of time to working out, and it wouldn’t be long before she delved into the world of plastic surgery, if she hadn’t yet already. “You come highly recommended, you know,” she said, widening her eyes at me.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. You tattooed my best friend, Stephanie. She got a ... like a flower or something, half a flower, really. No, it was a lotus. I don’t totally remember, but it was here,” she gestured to her inner forearm, right below the wrist, “and you did it this s
pecial way, I forget what it’s called? Jab? Stab? No, not stab—”

  “Stick and poke,” I said. “Or hand poked.” That nasal, high-pitched voice of hers was starting to shred my eardrums.

  “That’s it! It was so beautiful. I might get something like that next time, but I’ve always wanted a rose, so I’m going with that first. But I really do like the idea of the stick and poke tattoos. It’s like, going back to the basics or something. That’s why Stephanie said she wanted one.”

  My thighs were covered with the rudimentary stick and poke tattoos I’d been giving myself since I was a preteen, sitting in my small, shitty bedroom, my stepfather, Wade, taking up all the space in our small, shitty living room, watching TV in a haze of cigarette smoke, surrounded by crushed PBR cans. I used a sewing needle, a chopstick, and some Bic ink and decorated my legs with all the things I wanted to say to Wade but couldn’t: Fuck off & die, Eat a dick, You are a cunt. Oh, I’d said a few things to him before, but that had always resulted in black eyes, broken ribs, a few concussions. The worst of it was when I was 10 and he hit me in the face with a two-by-four. It didn’t knock me out, but it left a spectacularly jagged scar right along my jawline, which I’ve since erased by growing a beard. The last fucking thing I wanted was a daily reminder of Wade’s existence every time I looked in the mirror.

  It only took me a few minutes to sketch the rose exactly to this particular customer’s liking—so she said—and then she sat in the chair and I got to work. She kept up a steady stream of chatter that was easy enough to nod mindlessly to while tuning out at the same time. I felt a building sense of discontent, some sort of strange malaise, even though I knew how little sense that made. On Point Tattoo—my very own shop—was doing better than I ever could have imagined, and showing no signs of plateauing any time soon. I’d been doing so well, in fact, that eight months ago, I’d hired a second artist, an art school dropout named Helena with an uncanny ability to recreate, from memory, pretty much anything she saw in exacting, photographic detail. She was better than I was, though that wasn’t something I was willing to admit out loud. At least not yet. She probably knew it, but she hadn’t brought it up, and she didn’t seem like she was one of those people that needed to prove something about themselves. Besides, it would be good for business, which was what I told my buddy Todd when he started giving me shit about it.