“And what about your mom?”
With a hand on my hip, I turned back toward him. “What about her? She’s jet setting right now, I’ll talk to her when she gets back. What in the world did she put on you? Why are you so concerned about how I react to her? She was wrong as hell too!”
Lorenzo shook his head. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t a good man, Charlie. I loved your mother from the first time I saw her, but I wasn’t ready to settle. I followed her here after our affair, and for a short time, while she was pregnant with you… we were very happy. But… I messed that up.”
“You mean you had women around, stressing my mother out while she was pregnant?”
Again, his lack of an answer spoke for him. I turned, intending to head down the street when he grabbed my arm again. “Listen, sweetheart. Your mother was just trying to protect you. She didn’t want you looking up to me, thinking you had to do the kind of stuff those women were doing to keep my attention to hang onto the affections of any man. I respected that, and kept my distance, but made sure you were well taken care of.”
“And I guess not being a whore was something you never considered?”
“I tried, but—“
“Nope. Nuh uh. Don’t even want to hear it.” Shaking my head, I pulled away, holding up my hands in warning for him to keep his distance. “I… I don’t hate you. I’m just pissed right now. I need some time.”
He nodded, then took a step back as I turned away. As if I didn’t have enough going on between Adrian and Nixon, now this? I didn’t understand why I just couldn’t seem to keep it together. Failed relationship twice now with Nixon. A failed marriage. One failed pregnancy, and now a new one I was terrified would go the same way. And a father who had been in my face my whole life without me knowing.
Awesome.
Really. Freaking. Awesome.
twenty.
nixon.
“Hey babe, you got something in the mail!”
I flipped the lights on, then closed the door behind me as I walked in, pausing mid step to wait for a response. When I didn’t receive one, I looked around as I tossed the mail onto the table.
Where was she?
The sunny early fall weather had given way to rain halfway through the day, and I was halfway surprised that there weren’t candles lit all over the apartment. Charlie loved rain, and it was rare for her not to take the time to “set the mood”. Lights off, candles, and 90s R&B were all part of what she consider the “proper” atmosphere for a rainy day. And no clothes, because why the hell are we wearing clothes when it’s raining?
I never understood the logic in that, no matter how many times she explained, so I let it ride, and just went along. Nakedness, smooth music, and candles usually led to adult activity, so who was I to complain?
I left my wet boots and jacket by the door, then went exploring. I couldn’t see Charlie, but I could feel her presence, so she was definitely in the apartment. In the bedroom, the lights were off, but the bed was empty, and so was the bathroom. On a whim, I glanced into the closets.
Still no Charlie.
I glanced over the darkened bedroom again as I reached for the light switch, spotting her just before I flipped it up.
Charlie was on the floor, tucked into the corner of the room by the window. She had her forehead pressed against the glass, her gaze pointed outward to stare at the rain. Wrapped in a soft blanket, with nothing showing except her pretty face, she looked so innocent and adorable that it was hard to stay mad, but really… I was tired of that anyway.
Especially knowing that she was having my baby.
I called her name, and she didn’t respond. No flinch, no hard blink, nothing. I approached her slowly, then knelt in front of her and touched her leg. That time, she looked up, and it was then I noticed the tears streaking her face. Her eyes were red and puffy, like she’d been crying for a while, and now that I was closer, the pink cords on either side of her face answered my curiosity of why she wasn’t responding to my attempts to get her attention.
I tugged the earbuds from her ears, then reached up to wipe her face. “Charlie… what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She moved away from my touch, then pulled her earbuds away from me, lifting to return them to her ears.
“Wait a minute now,” I said, grabbing her hands. “You’re in here crying. You can’t say nothing is wrong.”
“As far as I know, the baby is fine, Nixon. I’m still pregnant, so… you can get back to whatever you want to be doing.”
She was trying to sound nonchalant, and confident, but I recognized the hitch of pain in her voice. Get back to whatever you want to be doing…
“Charlie… you know I care about more than just the baby, right?”
“Okay Nix.”
Giving up on getting the earbuds back, she drew her knees away from me, and pressed her forehead against the window again as a flash of lightning illuminated her face in the dark. I pushed out a heavy sigh, then reached forward, turning her back to my direction.
“I’m not about to let you push me away again,” I said, trying to meet her gaze.
She scoffed. “Nixon… I’m not the one who’s been acting cold. I’m not the one who said they might need to go stay with a friend. You haven’t touched me in two days, and the only things you’ve bothered to try to talk to me about are the business and the baby. So… who’s pushing who away?”
I dropped my head.
Yeah… I guess she was right, but how the hell did she expect me to react to news that my girlfriend was still married? Thing was, I didn’t even give a shit about Adrian. Or Trent, for that matter. Neither would’ve kept me from pursuing a reconciliation with Charlie, once I’d gotten that “I love you” out of her, that first inkling that I had a chance at winning her back. What I didn’t like was being kept in the dark that for nearly a month, I was sleeping with a man’s wife.
It’s the kind of shit that could earn a man a bullet to the head.
After my own personal revelation that communication was key, it was hard to swallow that she’d kept something like that from me for so long. I understood where she was coming from. It had been a busy month. We did have a lot going on. We were so wrapped up in each other that besides the business, pretty much everything else got forgotten.
But it didn’t make the shit feel any better.
I was pissed. I was mad as hell that he’d been in her place, mad as hell that he’d brought her flowers, mad as hell that his ass existed, to be honest. There wouldn’t be a need for a divorce if she hadn’t run off and married him in the first place, and maybe I was still a little upset about that too.
Maybe.
Anyway, yeah, I was mad that she waited a whole damned month to tell me, and… I was mad that this bullshit overshadowed the news of her pregnancy. We were supposed to happy right now, celebrating. Sharing secret smiles while we were out with our friends, and figuring out how to deliver the news to our parents.
Instead, she was shrinking away from being touched, and feeling like all I cared about was the baby, which was… so far from the case.
“Baby…” Against her protests, I pulled her into my arms, and after a few moments, she relaxed.
“I hate you being mad at me,” she mumbled, burying her face against my neck. “I feel like shit.”
I chuckled, then kissed her forehead. “So now you know how it feels, huh?”
“Yeah.” She pulled back, her eyes glossy with tears. “I’m really, really sorry for not telling you.”
Nodding, I wiped her face, then kissed her again. “Apology accepted… crybaby. You see how I didn’t hold it against you for years? Or go get married, and move across the country?”
“Okay, now you’re pushing it. And don’t call me a crybaby,” she said, sniffling, but smiling. “I can’t help it.”
“Oh, I know. I should have known you were pregnant. You were a crybaby the first time too.”
Charlie swatted me on the shoulder as
she giggled. “Shut up. I’ve had a really crappy last few days.”
“I’m sorry, honeybun. What happened?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Well… they started out really great. I found out I was pregnant, by a man I love with all my heart. But then, the bastard who wouldn’t give me a divorce showed up. And I had to tell that man I loved I was still married, and he was upset with me. And then, this morning… I go in for a haircut, which should be relaxing, but instead… I accidentally figure out that Lorenzo is my dad.”
Immediately, my face dropped into a scowl. “Wait a minute… what?”
She gave me a wry smile, then nodded. “Yeah. Exactly. You know that story my mom told at my birthday?”
“The one she made up?”
“You mean the one that’s absolutely not made up, because I heard Lorenzo telling his side of it to his little cronies at the barbershop?”
“Wow.”
Sitting back, she leaned her head against the side of the window again. “Wow is right. He gave me some bullshit about my mother thinking he was a bad role model or something, which… I guess it makes sense, but he was always around anyway. Never at the same time she was, but he’s always been inserting himself into my life. I just… thought it was because he liked her, but turns out… he was trying to have a relationship with his daughter.”
I reached under her blanket to stroke her leg, and got a pleasant surprise when my hands met bare skin. She closed her eyes, letting out a low moan that told me she’d missed this kind of contact just as much as I had. I wanted to scoot my hand up a little further, but knew it wasn’t the right time. Instead, I satisfied my need to touch her by moving a hand on to each leg as I moved in front of her, then mirrored her position against the window.
“How do you feel about knowing this?”
She shrugged, then turned to meet my gaze. “I dunno. I mean… it’s not like I’ve had… daddy issues or anything, I don’t think. I had male figures around me, so I can’t remember feeling like I was missing anything. I had my uncle when they were in America, and your dad, and… Lorenzo. So… I know that I’m angry, but I think what I’m most heated about is that they didn’t tell me. They just let me live with this assumption, and… it kinda makes me see why you were so upset. Not that I didn’t understand it before, but now… I get it. And I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” I said, taking the liberty of pulling her into my lap. She snuggled close to me, still wrapped in her blanket as the rain continued to come down. “I accepted your apology, right?”
She burrowed her face against my neck, breathing deep as she nodded.
“I’m sorry.” I stroked her shoulder, then brought my hand up to push my fingers into her curly hair. “I was pissed off, but I didn’t mean to make you feel like I only cared about the baby. I… shit, I didn’t know what to say to you without saying something stupid, so I stuck to what I assumed were safe topics. The business and the baby. The business doesn’t mean shit to me if you aren’t a part of it, and I don’t know if science has come far enough for the baby to get here without you. And I don’t know shit about taking care of a baby anyway,” I laughed.
Charlie turned her face up toward me, locking her eyes with mine. “Nix…”
“Yeah?”
She swallowed hard, then rested her head against my shoulder again, flinching a little in response to a clap of thunder. “I’m… I’m kind of scared.”
“About what, Beautiful?”
The baby… and us.”
I smiled, then lowered my head to peck her on the lips. “Join the club. You wanna know the name of it?”
“Yeah.”
“The I don’t know why our crazy asses think we can do this, but I’m damned sure willing to try club.”
Giggling, she swatted me on the shoulder. “Silly ass.”
“You love it.”
“I do.”
Now that the mood had shifted, I felt free to help myself of a generous caress of her thighs, and a healthy handful of ass. “Why are you naked under here?”
With a sheepish smile, she shrugged again. “Cause, it’s raining. And besides… I just didn’t have the energy to put anything on. I’m exhausted, already.”
I moved my hand up to slide over her stomach. “You feeling sick?”
She nodded. “A little. Not as much as I was at this point with Noah.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Too early to tell. I’m hungry.”
I burst into laughter at the helpless look she gave me after that, like the only way she would eat again was if I fed her. I gave her a gentle smack on the bare bottom, then maneuvered us to our feet.
“Tell you what… you put some clothes on, and I’ll see what I can whip up for us, okay?”
She gave me a little grin, then dropped the blanket, showing off that sexy curvy body that I loved. “Why I gotta put on clothes?”
“Cause you said you were hungry… if you wanna work out a different arrangement now.., I can handle that.” I reached for her, turning her around as I pulled her against me, slipping a hand between her thighs. “Do you want to do something different?”
“Mmmm, I do… after you feed me.”
I chuckled again, releasing her from my hold. “After I feed you, okay honeybun. If that’s the order we’re working in, you’ve gotta put on some clothes.”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “Fiiine.”
Charlie headed for the bathroom, and I headed for the kitchen, where I washed my hands to see what we had. A few minutes later, I heard Charlie’s bare footsteps padding across the hardwood floor.
“Hey,” I called out. “There was something for you in the mail.”
When I looked up from seasoning our pork chops, Charlie was already at the table, reaching into the basket. She gave the thick envelope with her name on it a quizzical look, then opened it and pulled the contents from inside. A few moments later, her face broke into a big smile.
“What is it babe?”
Her grin was huge as she turned a letter toward me. “This is from Adrian. He is vacationing in Guam — unincorporated territory of the United States — for the next week, which satisfies their residency requirement, and he will then file for a dissolution of our marriage — which only takes a few weeks there. Then, we will be officially divorced, I will be a single woman again, and my money is waiting in an escrow account. He sent confirmations from his lawyer, bank account numbers, everything!” I smiled at the happy little dance she did, moving her way into the kitchen to place a kiss on my lips.
I was relieved that she was gonna be officially divorced too, because I didn’t want to have to knock Adrian’s throat into his back. I was happy for her to have her money returned, because shit, it was hers. She earned it.
But this single woman bullshit?
I would have to do something about that.
— & —
“So after everything that happened before… you’re really gonna take that chance again, son?” My dad took a long swig from his coke, then turned back to his task of unraveling tangled fishing line from his reel. I tried to make it down to my dad’s boat with him at least once a month when the weather was good, but this time I was almost wishing I hadn’t.
He asked about Charlie and me, and I told him, because… he was my dad. I should be able to tell him about the good news that she and I were together again, and I was happy, but not even a full minute after I told him I was thinking about making it permanent… he was already on this bullshit again.
“Come on, Pops. Give it a rest. You know damn well that marriage isn’t what ruined your relationship with Mom.”
“Says who?”
“Says her,” I exclaimed, cursing as I pricked myself with one of the hooks I was preparing for the lines. “Dad… it’s over. It’s done. Your cover is blown.”
“My cover? Son… I don’t answer to anybody, let alone a nagging ass wife. Now, I love that sweet little lady of yours like my own. Hated it w
hen it you two broke up, cause I know it hurt you. But I am telling you… you’re in for a world of trouble if you ask that girl to be your wife. Just enjoy being young, being together. You’re working on your business, just date each other, and focus on that. What’s the rush?”
I sighed. “The rush is that I lost her last time. I don’t want that to happen again.”
“She stuck around six years last time.”
“Yeah,” I scoffed, “And I highly doubt she’s interested in a repeat performance. I’m not looking for your blessing here dad, I just want you to be happy for us. And I would love to hear you admit that you just… you messed up, man. I did too, it’s not a big deal, Pops. You have no idea how freeing it is to just admit you fucked up.”
Pops laughed, a deep, hearty chuckle as he began stringing his fishing pole with the newly untangled line. “I’ll let you have that, youngin’.”
“Come on, man. Mom is happy. She’s married again now, she moved on. And they are beautiful together. He treats her like gold. I grew up in the house with you, Pops… I know you weren’t doing that for her. Why is it so hard for you to say you were wrong?”
“Why do you need to hear it so bad?”
I sat back on my stool, taking a deep sigh as I thought carefully about the question before I answered. Why did I need to hear that?
“Because you fucked me up, man.” My dad lifted an eyebrow in surprise, but surprisingly said nothing — his nonverbal permission to continue. “Man… you hammered that “don’t get married” crap into my head as soon as I was old enough to date, and I bought it. I had Charlie… and I was ready to give her the world, but I kept hearing your voice in my head, telling me it was a mistake. And even though I knew what she wanted, I listened to you, because… dude, you’re my dad. I’m supposed to be able to follow your lead, live by your example, but doing that cost me the woman I love. Then, when Mom finally speaks up, I find out that you were full of shit, Pops. I mean… I know it was ultimately my own responsibility to do right by Charlie, and I’m not trying to pin that on you. But man you know that shit was wrong. Even if you didn’t back then, you’re sober now. You’re telling me that you look back on that time with mom and really think taking vows was the problem?”
Fall In Love Again (Serendipitous Love Book 3) Page 20
