One Night Baby - A Romance Compilation

by Tia Siren

  Erica laughed and shook her head. “I think we probably ought to close up early tonight,” she said, glancing around. We only had a handful of people there that evening, and most of them were slowing down at this point. We weren't going to make many more sales, that was for sure.

  “Let's stay open just a bit longer,” I told her, thinking of the guy who had just been escorted out. I didn't want him to still be in the area when I left. Again, not that I thought he would do anything to me, but I didn't want to see him again.

  “All right,” Erica said, shrugging at me. “Are you avoiding Michael?” she asked as I went back behind the bar. There was no one else to serve right then, so there wasn't any way for me to avoid the questions that I knew were coming.

  I sighed. “I'm pregnant,” I admitted.

  Erica grinned broadly and pulled me into a hug. “Congratulations!” she said. Then, she frowned. “Does Michael know?”

  “Yeah, he was the one who bought the test,” I told her. “He came over the other day, and I took it then.”

  “I'm hurt that I'm not the first person to know,” Erica said jokingly. “That's great, though. I'm really happy for you.”

  “I'm happy too,” I told her. “And nervous. More than I thought I'd be.”

  Erica paused. “So are you going to see him again before you have the baby?”

  “I think I have to,” I told her. “He's scheduled all the doctor appointments and these birthing classes and everything. So it seems he plans to be there. And that's probably a good thing so he can make sure that everything is okay with his kid.”

  “When are you going to move?” Erica asked.

  I sighed and rubbed at my temples. “I don't know yet,” I told her. “Soon, I guess. Michael said he was going to deposit the money into my bank account, but I haven't checked for it yet.”

  “You're trying to put it off, aren't you?” Erica asked sagely.

  I sighed. “I can't help it, I'm just nervous,” I told her. “This is the start of a big change in my life.”

  “It is,” she agreed. “But I don't think that's a bad thing, do you? Especially not since you're now a millionaire, aren't you?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “If he's deposited the money.” I smiled a little.

  Erica looked around. “It's going to be so weird, not having you working here with me anymore,” she said. “I'm going to miss you. We'll have to make sure we still get together. For lunch, I guess, since you won't be meeting up for drinks anytime soon!”

  I shook my head. “Yeah,” I said, a lump forming in my throat.

  “Let's close-up for the night,” Erica suggested, sensing my distress.

  I nodded and watched as she cleared everyone out. We cleaned the bar mostly in silence, with just the radio keeping us company. Then, we walked outside, arms linked together.

  The guy from earlier was waiting for us out there, and I froze, not sure what to do. Dan and the other security guy had already gone home for the night, once we'd officially closed up, so it was just the two of us, Erica and I. Neither of us was any match for the guy's broad shoulders.

  And based on the way he was leering at me, he wasn't going to give up, even if I told him no.

  But suddenly, I caught sight of movement beyond the guy. Michael's limo was parked against the curb, and Michael was standing outside of it, lounging casually against it. “Hey,” he called out, and I made a beeline for him.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him.

  Michael frowned. “You look pale,” he said. “What's wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I said, looking back over my shoulder for the guy. But he was either hiding in the shadows or had finally realized he wasn't going to be taking me home that night. He was nowhere to be seen. “Nothing's wrong,” I repeated. “I'm just tired.”

  Michael stared at me for a moment, like he was trying to gauge if I was telling him the truth or not. “All right,” he finally said, his voice soft. “Do you want to come home with me tonight?”

  I wanted to, but not when my feelings were still so jumbled. I knew I had to come to a decision about this pregnancy soon. It was starting to eat me up inside. And what's more, I knew that it wasn't fair to him, either, the way that I kept pulling away from him every time things started to look more like a proper relationship between us.

  Suddenly, I frowned, wondering why he was asking me to come over. I was already pregnant; we didn't need to sleep together anymore. But maybe he just wanted to ensure that I was getting a good night’s sleep. I doubted it would be very good for the baby if I wasn't, and I knew that the baby was all that he was worried about.

  I glanced towards Erica, who was standing a tactful distance away, giving us a little privacy. “I think I'm just going to go home,” I told Michael. I faked a yawn. “I'm exhausted.”

  “All right,” Michael said, but he sounded disappointed. He paused, lingering. “At least let me drive the two of you home,” he finally said. “I know it's not far, but it's no trouble for me, and it would get you to bed even faster. You look really beat.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I'd like that.” I managed the ghost of a smile. “Erica said the other day that she'd never been in a limo before, so this is the perfect opportunity.”

  Honestly, I was just worried that the weird guy from the bar would be there as soon as Michael drove off, and I was still a little scared of what he might try to do. When the door to the limo finally closed and we pulled away from the curb, I barely managed to suppress my sigh of relief.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Michael

  Paige had been acting strange lately, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was. She was hardly speaking to me, and I wondered if that meant she had already decided she was going to keep this baby. Maybe she had decided as soon as those pink lines showed up on the pregnancy test. But she didn't know how to tell me.

  I swallowed hard. To be honest, I wouldn't know what to say in response to that, now that I was also having second thoughts about taking the child away from what could potentially be such a love-filled upbringing.

  I wanted to ask her about it, but she was so closed-off toward me I wasn't sure how to approach her about it. I thought that if I surprised her at the bar Wednesday night, I could take her home, and we could talk. I hadn't thought about the fact that Erica might be with her. Even so, I still had hoped that she might agree to come with me. I would still have dropped Erica off at home, and then Paige and I would have had some privacy.

  But Paige hadn't wanted to go home with me.

  I remembered what she had said about wanting to stick to the terms of the contract, about how we were just hanging out because we had been trying to get her pregnant. I wondered if maybe, now she, she really wouldn't have anything more to do with me. It was strange to think she wouldn't want to; we were friendly, whenever we did get together. But she really seemed to want nothing more to do with me.

  Chris, of course, wanted to go to Thirsty Thursday again. “Come on, man,” he said over the phone. “I need a wingman.”

  I wanted to tell Chris that Paige was pregnant but I wasn't ready for him to know yet. Especially not since I was still worried that Paige was going to want to keep the child. But maybe going to Thirsty Thursdays was a good thing. There was nothing that said I had to hook up with anyone, and it would give me a chance to see Paige and maybe talk to her a little.

  “All right, all right,” I agreed. “I'll meet you there.”

  “That's the spirit,” Chris said.

  The first thing I noticed when we got to The Shift that night was how hot Paige looked. She had on tight jeans that hung low on her hips and a sheer, cream-colored top, with a black lacy bra underneath it.

  Chris clapped me on the shoulder. “All right, I see there will be no dragging you away from here for at least a little while,” he said, nodding towards Paige, who, fortunately, was helping someone where she should be out of ear shot. “I'm going to go chat with that girl over
there. See you later.”

  “Sorry I'm not a better wingman right now,” I told him, feeling apologetic. But Chris just waved off my apologies.

  I watched him for a moment as he chatted, suddenly struck by the realization that I was glad to not be there, doing that anymore. I had always thought I was enjoying myself, when I was at the bar trying to pick up some random chick. You know, the thrill of the chase and all of that. But when I really thought of it, it hadn't been that much fun. The end game had been fun, maybe, but not the chase. And when I thought more about it, I wasn't even sure the end game was much fun. I preferred being with Paige, whose body I was really starting to know. It was exciting, being with her again and again. She was the sexiest girl that I'd ever been with, despite the fact she wasn't a one-night stand.

  Then again, she involved just as much chase as a one-night stand, or maybe even more.

  I suddenly realized I wasn't the only person eyeing up Paige. There was another dude, down at the far end of the bar, who was eyeing her even more intently, his eyes skimming her behind every time she bent down to grab a clean glass. And even when she was standing up, it was like he couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

  I scowled, wondering who he was and whether he knew her. I knew Paige had a past, and I bet that she'd gone home with some of the guys from the bar before. There was no reason to think that one of those guys would never show up here again. But I didn't like it.

  I had to wonder why Paige was still working there, and I wondered if I could say anything about it. She didn't need to work there anymore. I had given her the first half of the money, just like the contract had stipulated. I wasn't sure I wanted her around all these guys.

  But there was nothing in the contract that said she had to quit working there, she just had to take care of herself. I might be able to say something about her not getting enough sleep, but as long as she wasn't drinking, I couldn't say much to her. I frowned, wishing suddenly that I'd thought of this before I'd drawn up the contract. Now, it felt like I was overstepping if I told her I didn't want her working here anymore. Especially since I was sure part of it was she just wanted to spend time around Erica.

  I wondered suddenly if I could talk to Erica, convince her that Paige shouldn't be working there anymore. But if talking to Paige was overstepping, talking to Erica about it no doubt was. Ultimately, it was Paige's decision.

  Still, I couldn't seem to quit feeling unhappy about the way this guy was looking at Paige.

  “Who's that guy?” I asked Paige as she came down to my end of the bar and got me a drink. She wasn't avoiding me, but she wasn't acting particularly friendly towards me, not like she used to.

  Paige barely glanced over at the guy; she obviously knew who I was talking about. “He's just some guy,” she told me.

  “Do you know him?” I asked.

  Paige rolled her eyes. “Not that it's any of your business, but no,” she said. “He's just some drunk. He comes in here every so often.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly, wondering if there wasn't more to the story than that. Because from the way the guy was staring at her, there was. Plus, it was there in the way she kept glancing over at him out of the corner of her eye. Yes, something was going on here. But it wasn't my place to pry.

  “Do you want to go home with me tonight?” I suddenly asked her.

  She was pouring another guy a beer, but her grip on the tap faltered for a moment. Then, she looked over at me. “Yeah,” she said.

  I was surprised: I had expected her to decline. I wondered if her agreement had to do with the guy, or if it had to do with the fact that she could tell that we needed to talk about things sooner, rather than later. We couldn't keep going on like this. I couldn't keep talking to her like this around her work.

  I nodded a little to myself and took a sip of my drink, continuing to watch her. She had gone back to ignoring me, but she wasn't ignoring the other guy, I realized. Instead, she kept looking at him even more, almost as though she was uneasy about his presence. I wanted to get one of the bouncers and have the guy thrown out, but I didn't know the whole story, and anyway, I was sure that they had more important things to deal with on a busy night like this.

  After another half hour of watching this guy stare at her, basically drooling over her, I realized I couldn’t just let him do that. I knew it was overstepping, but I’d had enough. I approached one of the bouncers by the door. The bouncer was a big, bald man who was at least twice my size.

  “Hey man,” I said.

  “The fuck you want?” the bouncer asked.

  I put my hands up to let him know I had no intentions to start trouble. “I just thought I’d let you know, there’s a guy sitting at the bar that is making the bartenders pretty uncomfortable. I’ve been here at least two hours, and the whole time he’s just been staring at them. They don’t even want to deal with him.”

  The bouncer looked over. “Damn. I kick him out every single time he is here. I’ve got this.”

  I walked back over and sat down. I hoped Paige hadn’t seen me talking to the bouncer. If she had she didn’t mention it. I watched as the bouncer escorted the guy out and Paige instantly relaxed. That really bothered me.

  I didn't leave the bar for the whole night, even when Chris tried to drag me over to meet a couple women. I felt bad about it. Chris had brought me here because he needed a wingman. But he seemed to hear something in my voice or see it in my eyes, and he didn't protest.

  “All right, man,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Good luck.”

  Good luck? I only hoped I wouldn't need it.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Paige

  I was tired when I finished up at work on Thursday night. I knew it was partly that it had been busy as ever that night, but I also hadn't been sleeping that well lately. Every time I lay down, I found myself thinking about the pregnancy. Thoughts churned in my head about my relationship, or non-relationship as the case may be, with Michael. And trying to decide about moving out of the place that I shared with Erica and quitting my job at The Shift.

  There was just so much changing, and I wasn't sure how to feel about any of it.

  When I would finally get to sleep, I kept dreaming about Michael. They weren't all sexy dreams, although there had been a couple of those, too. Dreams that I woke up embarrassed from, aching all the way to my core, wet with desperate need. I only hoped I wasn't doing anything really embarrassing like moaning in my sleep. With just the sheets between our beds, Erica would hear me, and she would know who I was dreaming about, too.

  I blushed just thinking about it.

  But more-so than the sexy dreams, I'd had these sweet dreams about Michael and me. About us, far in the future, raising a family together. Those were the dreams that stuck with me after I woke up. I wasn't sure what to think about those.

  Except I could remember Paige's warning when she had told me to be careful. Nine months was a long time.

  But with the guy eyeing me at the end of the bar, and the fact Michael had shown up at The Shift two nights in a row and asked me to come home with him, I had to think there was something that he wasn't telling me. Maybe he was having second thoughts about the contract as well. In any case, we needed to talk. I either needed to be clear about things, ask him to stop showing up at my work, or else we needed to redefine the boundaries of our contract.

  I didn't honestly know which I wanted.

  My feelings for him were all tangled up in my feelings for this baby. But more and more, I wondered if I was just confused about how I felt for him and the baby because I was confused about how he felt about me.

  We were both quiet on the limo ride home. It was the first time we were going to spend the night together since we had found out I was pregnant, and I didn't know how to ask him what he expected. Did he want me to stay the night, or did he just want to see me? Why hadn't he called me and asked to take me to lunch or something like that? Wouldn't that be a more appropriate time to talk?

>   Unless he didn't plan to just talk to me.

  “I didn't think we were going to be hooking up anymore,” I finally said, bluntly. We had practically just walked in the front door, and I was embarrassed at having blurted it out like that. Surely there was a more tactful way to say it.

  But Michael looked amused. Then, his expression turned thoughtful. “I'd like to keep hooking up if that's okay with you,” he said. “I know you're already pregnant. But I've been enjoying spending time with you, and the sex is great. Or at least, I think it's great.”

  “You're the best I've ever had,” I told him. I clapped a hand over my mouth, hoping I hadn't said that out loud. But from his amused expression, I could tell I had. I winced; surely that went beyond whatever it was we'd signed off on in the contract.

  Michael didn't seem to mind, though. Instead, he grinned at me. “To be honest, you're the best I've ever had too,” he said. He looked thoughtful, and almost as though he wanted to continue that line of thought. But instead, he just asked, “Do you want something to drink?”

  “I'm pregnant,” I reminded him. “I cut back on alcohol before I knew, but now I'm one hundred percent not drinking.”

  “Right, I know,” Michael said. “I meant, water. I think I have some orange juice, too. Or tea.”

  “Tea would be nice,” I said. I normally wasn't much of a tea drinker, but the warm drink sounded soothing, and holding the mug would give me something to do with my hands. I didn't know why I suddenly itched to do something, but the tension between us was rising.

  I knew better than to keep hooking up with Michael. If we didn't this for the entire nine months of the pregnancy, there was no way I was going to be able to quit him when the baby was born. But I already knew that I was developing feelings for him, and surely another couple weeks wouldn't make my feelings for him any stronger. If it was going to hurt to have to end things with him, I might as well get as much time out of it as I could.