Looking For Love (Semper Fi, The Forever Faithful Series Book 2)

by Stella Starling

  Ending things with her had only made room for something better in his life. Zach’s lips started to curve up at the thought. Micah. But when Janis smiled back—as if she thought his smile had been meant for her—he ran out of patience.

  “Are you going to tell me what this is about, Janis?” he asked, gesturing between the two of them.

  Yes, he wanted to do right by her after she’d helped get him to the hospital, but mostly he just wanted to hurry up and get back to the rest of his life, to go spend what was left of his weekend with his boyfriend.

  “Our relationship has been over for more than a year,” he reminded her. “We haven’t even talked for months—” other than the night he couldn’t remember, “—and to be honest, I’m not really sure why I’m the one you reached out to if you have a problem.”

  “Months?” she shot back, her eyes narrowing. “I’ve been trying to talk to you. We only haven’t because you kept avoiding me, Zach.”

  “No,” he corrected her. “We haven’t talked because there really hasn’t been anything to say.” He bit back another irritated sigh, reaching for his famed patience and reminding himself not to be an ass. “Look, I’m here now, and I’m willing to help you out if I can, but I really don’t have all day. What’s going on, Janis?”

  He half-expected her to snap back at him for his brusque tone, but instead, she started worrying her lip between her teeth, giving him a look he couldn’t interpret. After a minute, her shoulders slumped.

  “I’m pregnant, Zach,” she said, keeping her eyes locked on his.

  He blinked. O-kayyyyyyy. He was at a loss about how to respond to that news. Janis was the last person he could picture as a mother. No, that wasn’t true. Actually, he could picture it all too well. Her tendency to be self-centered and her casual disregard for the feelings of others reminded him a lot of his own mother.

  For a moment, he wondered if there was some fucked-up part of him that had been attracted to her just for that similarity, but he pushed the thought away. Even if there was some truth to it, he was less interested in psychoanalyzing himself than he was simply grateful that he’d gotten over it. Because she definitely wasn’t attractive to him anymore.

  “Well? Are you going to say something?” she pressed, twisting a napkin in her hands.

  He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Based on the way she was acting, he doubted that “congratulations” was the response she was looking for, but he wasn’t quite sure what else to say.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Janis said after a moment, starting to cry. “I’m tired all the time, Zach, and I feel so sick, and I haven’t even been able to see a doctor yet.”

  “Why not?” he asked, happy to have something concrete to focus on. “Good prenatal care is important, Janis. You should be going in for regular checkups.”

  “I can’t. I don’t have insurance anymore,” she said, pressing the napkin to her face as she sniffled. “I had to quit my job at the title company over the summer—” he vaguely remembered that she’d been working as a receptionist for a while, “—so I’ve been bartending part-time the last couple of months. It covers rent, but there aren’t any medical benefits or anything.”

  While they’d been dating, she’d taken a few classes at the local community college, but she’d never really seemed to put much effort into them. As far as he knew, she didn’t really have career ambitions… especially not ones that would interfere with her being able to have a good time.

  He’d really been hoping that whatever help she’d needed would have been more along the lines of borrowing his truck to move to a new place, or hell, even loaning her money to bail her out of a parking ticket. In other words, something he could have handled in a single afternoon and then walked away from. But whatever she was getting at with the pregnancy news, it obviously wasn’t going to be something that simple. In fact, the way she was carrying on, he was pretty sure it was going to be something he really didn’t want to get involved in.

  Zach sighed. Still, she was sitting in front of him, pregnant and crying, and they had been together for two years. He just didn’t have it in him to be the kind of asshole that would wish her luck and just get up and walk away without hearing her out, the way he kind of wished he could.

  “So, why did you quit the title company?” Zach asked, groping for something to say that would move the conversation along.

  Janis’s tears dried up, her face brightening at his question.

  “You remember my friend Cynthia? She got us a great deal on a vacay package to Mazatlán back in June, but my boss wouldn’t give me time off for it.” She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t even because we were that busy, he was just being a dick because we’d hooked up once. But anyway, that’s not the point.” She reached for Zach’s hand again. “I need your help with this, Zach. At first, I wasn’t even going to keep the baby, but I… I want to. It’s just a little overwhelming, you know? And you were the only one I could think of to turn to. You know, because you’re such a good person, and because of your background and all.”

  Oh, hell no. He did not want to get involved. And sure, Janis wanting to keep it was one step up from his own mother, but still, the whole thing was already stirring up the kind of feelings he could do without.

  “My background is really more field medicine and basic care, Janis,” he said, pulling his hand away from her. “Obstetrics aren’t my specialty, but I’m sure even without insurance, there are options for you to get the prenatal care you need. What about the father? He should be helping you with this. It’s his responsibility, too.”

  Her lips tightened into a thin line, and she stared hard at him for a minute.

  “Zach… I don’t… I mean, I need you. I don’t know—”

  She snapped her mouth closed mid-sentence, going as white as a sheet all of a sudden. And then she was out of her seat in a flash, dashing toward the back, where the restrooms were.

  Zach rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a long sigh as he sent up a silent and completely useless prayer to be anywhere but here. This was not how he’d wanted to spend his Sunday, and his knee started bouncing under the table impatiently. Seriously, why on earth was Janis coming to him? Knowing her, his best guess was that the father was probably military, and regardless of what had gone down between the guy and Janis, he could and should step up and take responsibility for his child. If he did, they wouldn’t be the first couple to marry just for the spousal medical benefits, and Zach pinched the bridge of his nose, huffing out a frustrated breath as he tried not to think too hard about a child growing up like that.

  Growing up like Zach had.

  He rolled his shoulders back, trying to force the tension out. No, not like he had. Janis’s situation was different, and he didn’t need to start imagining how her unborn child might feel if its father decided he wasn’t interested in getting involved in its life… even if it was all too easy to do. Zach may have finally found some personal closure after his father’s death, but he’d never forget what it had felt like to know that the man who’d fathered him hadn’t wanted him.

  Taking financial responsibility just wasn’t good enough.

  He finished up his sandwich while he waited for Janis to come back, wadding up the wrapper, doing his best not to let his mind go there. Getting involved with Janis and her pregnancy drama was the last thing he wanted to do, but he still couldn’t help hoping—for her child’s sake—that the father would step up and do more than just help her get the medical care she needed.

  “Sorry,” Janis said in a subdued voice when she finally slipped back into her seat. “Morning sickness. The ‘morning’ part is kind of false advertising, though, since it hits me all day.”

  She was still looking pale from her bout of nausea, and even under her carefully applied makeup, Zach could see the purple shadows under her eyes. He really didn’t know that many details about the timeline for a pregnancy, but he did remember his own mother bitching about how awful she’d felt.<
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  Was morning sickness supposed to happen all day?

  “Is that normal?” he asked. “How far along are you?”

  He didn’t really want to care, but it was all too easy to imagine how Janis’s baby might feel later, if it had to hear about how hard bringing it into the world had been on its mother.

  “I’m…” Janis trailed off without answering, looking away as she started worrying at her lip again. Then she took a deep breath and straightened in her seat, meeting his eyes as she stiffened her spine. “You can figure out how far along I am, Zach, because, it’s… it’s yours.”

  The absurd statement startled a laugh out of him.

  “No, it’s not,” he said, his stomach doing its best to reject the Italian sub.

  There was no way. He may not be up to speed on certain pregnancy facts, but biology was biology, and he and Janis hadn’t been together in far too long.

  Janis was as white as a sheet, but when he shook his head and repeated a firm “no,” her cheeks flushed, the color rushing back into her face with a vengeance.

  “Don’t be like your father, Zach,” she snapped.

  And now he really did want to throw up. That was fucking low.

  “I think I’d know, Janis,” he said, whatever sympathy he’d had for her gone.

  “I think I’d know,” she huffed. She scanned his face for a moment, then turned her head away, dashing at her eyes again. Waterworks were apparently her new specialty. “You said yourself that you don’t remember what we did that night at the beach, right, Zach?”

  The question sent a hot wave of panic racing through him, immediately followed by a shuddering, cold chill. He shook his head in denial. Black-out drunk or not, there was just no way anything would have happened between the two of them. He hadn’t needed that kind of comfort, and he’d never do that to Micah.

  Never.

  Janis was just staring at him, waiting for him to answer, and Zach took a slow breath, trying to get a grip. Trying to slow his heart rate. Trying to think things through. Trying to remember.

  The smell of the sea, and Janis’s hand, squeezing his thigh.

  The feel of her arms closing around him.

  Shit.

  He couldn’t manage to pull up any more than a few blurry moments, memory fragments that, at the moment, felt more like a bad dream. But even with those… he wouldn’t have slept with her.

  He wouldn’t.

  “No,” Zach said, squaring his shoulders and willing it to be true. “It didn’t happen, Janis.”

  “You needed comfort, and I was there for you,” she said stubbornly, crossing her arms. And then the tears started again. “I can’t deal with this on my own, Zach. I’ve tried, but I… I just want you to do the right thing. You don’t really want this baby, our baby, to grow up without a father like you did, do you? I thought you’d want to help. It’s why I came to you.”

  She ran a hand over her stomach. Still mostly flat, the way he remembered… or was there a hint of a curve? Zach couldn’t tell. He looked away, fighting off a rising tide of panic. What she was saying… it wasn’t the kind of man he was.

  “I’m entitled to whatever spousal benefits the Navy has to offer,” Janis went on, her lip trembling. “You wouldn’t deny me that, right, Zach? Even if that’s all you do for me and the baby?”

  A rushing sound filled Zach’s ears. Janis’s mouth was still moving, but he honestly couldn’t hear her. Couldn’t wrap his mind around any possible way that what she was saying could be true.

  But… what if it was?

  Even before Janis had dropped her bomb, his heart had already hurt for the unborn child, imagining the type of life it might have if its father didn’t do right by it. Now, he felt trapped in some kind of hellish déjà vu. There was no way he could focus on facts when he felt like he was drowning in feelings.

  Janis had stopped talking. She was staring at him, waiting for a response, but his mind stayed blank.

  Denial.

  Overload.

  Shame that his first response had been exactly like his father’s: no. He didn’t want it to be true.

  “I’m getting out of the Navy, Janis,” he finally said, latching onto something concrete. “There aren’t going to be any insurance benefits.”

  “Maybe you need to reenlist then,” she snapped, her face going red again. Her hands were resting on the table next to her uneaten salad, trembling, and she tucked them away on her lap. She took a breath, then offered a contrite smile. “I’m sorry, Zach. I just meant that maybe you need to think about what’s best for the child. That’s all I’m trying to do here. I just want to take care of my baby.”

  A crushing weight settled on Zach’s chest. Reenlist? He knew what he wanted, and it wasn’t to be career Navy. He wanted to go to medical school. He wanted a family, yes, but one based on love. Children he’d planned for. A future with Micah. He opened his mouth to tell Janis that, but then closed it again as a wave of nausea hit him with the realization of what he’d been about to say.

  It was all about what he wanted.

  Fucking Christ. He was turning into his father.

  Janis’s eyes spilled over with tears again, but she dashed at her cheeks impatiently, as if she really wasn’t crying on purpose.

  “Sorry. Pregnancy hormones,” she said, looking embarrassed. “I can’t seem to stop it sometimes. And… Zach, I really can’t do this alone. I don’t know how. If I’m going to keep this baby, I need help. I need you. You’re so good at taking care of people. You’re the one person I knew I could count on. You’re not going to let me down, are you?”

  “You actually want it?” he asked, still feeling a little too shell-shocked to actually think about “it” as his.

  As a child.

  His child.

  “Yes,” Janis said, her voice small and a little tender and nothing at all like he was used to hearing from her. She picked at her salad, not meeting his eyes. “I mean, I didn’t at first. I did a pregnancy test as soon as I missed my period, and I was already thinking no. But then, when the test came back positive, I just… I don’t know. I was a little terrified, but… does it sound weird to say that I also loved the baby already, even then?”

  He swallowed. The whole thing was still too overwhelming for him to feel anything but a kind of numb terror, but at least Janis seemed sincere about wanting it. That was… good.

  She smiled for a second, fleeting and private, and then she finally looked up at him again. The softness in her face faded away, and she straightened in her seat.

  “I do want it,” she said, her voice firm. “I just don’t really know how to handle it on my own. I want to do right by the baby, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen, Zach. And right now? It’s too much. I’m tired all the time, and I constantly feel sick, and as fun as bartending is, it’s really not going to work out once I actually have the baby. I want this child to have a better life than what I can give it on my own.”

  Zach’s hand tightened around the empty drink cup in his hands, the chill of the ice inside confirming that this was real. It was hard to believe. The whole thing felt like a bad dream, but he was going to have to get over that, wasn’t he?

  This was actually happening, and he had to do something about it.

  He cleared his throat, doing his best to push aside the overwhelming tide of emotion threatening to swamp him—it would demand a reckoning later, but now was not the time—and focus on practical things.

  “Look, Janis, the truth is that I don’t remember being with you that night. So even if you’re sure it’s mine, I’m not.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t interrupt.

  “If it is, of course I’ll do the right thing.” Zach clenched his jaw, the promise bringing up another wave of nausea… because if it was, it meant he’d betrayed Micah. He cleared his throat again, pushing forward with what had to be done. “So if you’re asking me to take a paternity test, yes, I will, and after that, we can—”


  “Really?” she snapped, cutting him off. Any softness that he’d thought he’d seen was gone, her words colored by indignation. “You’re going to pull that on me? You’re going to doubt me? Treat me the way your dad treated your mom? I thought you were better than that, Zach. I thought I could count on you.”

  “You know this is a different situation,” Zach said through gritted teeth. “My mother’s pregnancy was intentional. She wanted to force him into marriage. My father never wanted a child. Neither one of them did.”

  “But you do, don’t you?” she pressed, leaning across the table with a hint of desperation on her face. “You always talked about having a family one day.” She started crying again. “And I wasn’t trying to trap you. I didn’t mean for this to happen, it just did.”

  “Janis…” He rubbed the back of his neck. What a fucking mess. She may not have been trying to trap him, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d never felt so trapped in his life.

  An overwhelming feeling of hopelessness filled him, and he honestly didn’t know what to say.

  Janis didn’t seem to have that problem.

  “I thought you were someone who would step up to your responsibilities,” she said, her voice going hard. “Someone who would take care of me. Don’t tell me you’re actually going to turn your back on this baby. I thought you were a better man that that. It’s why I came to you.”

  “I’m not saying that.” Of course he wasn’t.

  She stared at him for a moment, then leaned back in her seat with a calculating look.

  “Is this about your boyfriend?”

  He couldn’t answer. Because no, it was about so much more than Micah… but also, yes.

  Jesus.

  Micah.

  One way or another, Zach had the sinking feeling that he was going to lose him over this—that he deserved to, if he’d actually been unfaithful—and thinking about it fucking hurt.

  “I don’t get the bisexuality thing, Zach,” Janis said after a moment, shaking her head. “I really don’t. But, I mean, as long as you take care of me and the baby, honestly? I don’t care if you fuck your boyfriend on the side, too. At least for now. I don’t know if that’s really a good example once the kid is old enough to get it, but as long as it doesn’t interfere with me getting spousal benefits—”