The Surprise (Secret Baby Bad Boy Romance)

by Faye, Amy

  “Good sense of humor, I like that. You’ll want to keep that. This might become tiresome, and I would hate to imagine that you were sitting there in a furious mood.”

  “I do my best,” I say. “So do you want to tell me why I’m here?”

  “Your friend sold you out,” the new guy said.

  “Bill’s no friend of mine,” I say with a low voice. “And now he’s even less of one.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but that doesn’t change anything from my perspective, you know. I just have to get my money. If it’s from him, or from you, I really don’t care. He promises me that you’ll be able to reimburse me for my trouble.”

  “I hear you, but I’m feeling like I hear an implied threat there, too. You want to tell me what happens if I don’t pay?”

  “You disappear, and you don’t go home again. But I’m sure that we’re not going to have that trouble, are we?”

  “If it gets me out of here, then I don’t have any trouble. Two problems.”

  The leader took a seat on the bed and leaned forward. “Okay, I’m listening.”

  “First, I don’t have the money on me. Why would I?”

  “Of course. Why would you? And I can’t accept checks. You’d stop payment as soon as I let you go. Cash is so much easier and cleaner, don’t you think?”

  “I’m glad we agree on that. Now, problem number two. It ties into problem number one a bit.”

  “Okay?”

  “I need a ride.”

  I don’t like losing money. I don’t do it when I can help it, and that’s doubly true when it’s to some scumbag gangster. But I like getting my fingers cut off even less.

  Which is why I swallowed my pride, swallowed my anger, and let him do what he was going to do. After all, I didn’t have time to be worrying about what I was going to do to him. I wasn’t going to do anything if I didn’t get out of those restraints.

  And more than that, I have to keep in mind that my beef isn’t with these guys. If they keep to themselves, I don’t care. They’re in business, and part of their business is, by and large, not pissing off the wrong people.

  Well, this time they pissed me off. But the one who’s really responsible isn’t even in the room. He already left, and apparently, he’s got my ride. So I take Rodrigo’s phone number.

  See, the other thing that I’ve learned is that you can get mad, or you can get even. In this case, I’m going to get even, I think. And as it happens, the sort of men who kidnap a guy to try to take his money, they work for money.

  So I double the output, and I take the number of a burner and a ride back to my house.

  It’s a long drive, but I’m footing the bill, and I guess they’re friendly sorts. The house is empty when I get back. Which was what I was afraid of. There’s a good chance that I can guess where Kate’s gone, but I’d rather know more than less.

  I close my eyes and start thinking. I’ve been on since yesterday morning, and at some point I’m going to lose it I have to hope I don’t start losing it before I can close the book on all this stuff.

  My chest hurts. I have to sit down before I start to lose it completely; at some point, I’m going to, I know that much. But I’m going to keep control. I have to.

  “You sure you’re alright?”

  Jorge is a big guy, and he puts on a tough face. It would be easy to believe that he’s got nothing to him, but I can see through it. Under all that, he’s a big softy.

  “I’m going to be fine,” I say. I hope that I sound believable, because I struggle to believe it myself at this point.

  “As long as you’re sure, man.”

  “I’m going to be fine,” I repeat. “And that’s all that you need to worry about, okay? I just need to sit a minute. You know what you can do for me, man? If you don’t want, you can tell me to fuck off, okay?”

  He raises his eyebrows and waits for me to continue.

  “Can you go put a pot of coffee on for me? I’m dead on my feet here, and we’ve still got a ways to go.”

  “Yeah, sure. Where you keep your coffee?”

  He’s already moving towards the kitchen as I push myself up and start following behind. I drop into a chair sitting around the kitchen table as he goes over to the counter.

  “The pantry, right there. Hey, Jorge. No hard feelings here, but did Rodrigo send some guys around here?”

  “Round here? No, man. You were kind of a surprise to us.”

  I pinch my lips together. That’s not what I had been led to understand from Bill. His story is confusing for me, at this point. What’s his thing?

  “The water’s low, too. Just pull out… yeah, you got it.”

  He fills the water reservoir and hits the button. The coffee maker immediately starts making a hissing noise as it sucks water up from the reservoir. The big guy starts walking around.

  “So we’ve got a minute, and I’ve got to take another look around. But I need some coffee in me first.”

  “Yeah?” Most guys probably wouldn’t want to talk. Then again, our situation, I can’t blame him. Jorge is more than willing to hang out, though. Maybe I could invite him around for Friday nights.

  “How’d you get your lats so damn wide? Maybe it’s just genetics but I just…” I stretch out my body. With the jacket off, I can see muscles flexing under the shirt, and I’m not unimpressed with myself. It’s a lot of work to keep my figure maintained. Work I enjoy.

  That said, there’s plenty I could ask a guy Jorge’s size.

  He shifts his eyes from right to left, halfway amused. “You really want to know?”

  “I’d love that width and thickness, man.”

  “Gear,” he says, and laughs. “You think I got a body like this naturally?”

  He flexes his arms to show it off. You can practically count the fibers in his arms. They’re big, and the amount of separation and clarity is admittedly very impressive. But on size, I’m not even that impressed. His back and shoulders, on the other hand… well, whatever. I’m not here to criticize the guy on his build.

  “Damn,” I say softly. “Well, looks like the coffee’s ready. Don’t be afraid to take a cup for yourself, you hear?”

  He nods vaguely and I start upstairs. The first place to check, I guess, is Kate’s room. Maybe, if I’m lucky, she left a note behind telling me where they’re going, and I can go catch up.

  Otherwise, it’s going to be an interesting couple of hours.

  Eighteen

  Kate

  “Dad, where are we going?”

  I’ve already asked that four or five times now, and I don’t know how many more I’m going to have to ask before I get an answer.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he says. It’s progress. Before, he refused to answer at all. So I guess I should be happy with that, at least.

  “I’m already worried about it,” I tell him. I hope that it gets through to him, but I know better than to actually believe there’s any hope of that. He just stares at the road in front of us and keeps on driving.

  “Well,” he grouses after a long pause. “Don’t.”

  That’s very helpful. I wish I’d thought of it myself. “We’re not going the right way to go home,” I offer.

  “We’re not going home,” he tells me, like it’s not ominous as all hell.

  “Then where are we going?”

  “Away.”

  “In a stolen car? Dad, you’ve got to think!”

  He turns without taking his foot off the gas, his finger pointing at me and leaning in. I can see the anger on his face, but I can’t make myself afraid of it.

  “You think I haven’t been thinking? You think I haven’t thought every single day about what I’m going to do? How I’m going to get you out of there?”

  I let out a long breath. “I know.”

  “If you know, then don’t ask stupid questions,” He says. But I can see that he’s calming down, and that’s at least something, right?

  “I’m just saying. You can’t go o
ff half-cocked, you know? You have to have a plan.”

  “Well, I’ve got a plan. I’ve been working off a plan for a while now.”

  “Why were you rummaging around the house?”

  “Rummaging? I wasn’t rummaging.” There are lies that my dad tells, and then there are lies. When he’s telling such bald-faced lies, I know instinctively that there’s something going wrong.

  He gets these ideas, sometimes, Dad does. He gets it into his head that he has to do things, and he never thinks about the consequences. It’s not like he’s not trying to be reasonable, trying to be rational. I know that.

  But he’s not always thinking straight. Which is what’s going on right now. He’s completely lost track of his own thoughts and what rational even is, and it’s having a very real and very detrimental effect on his mindset. An effect that I wish I knew how to mitigate. But I don’t.

  “Dad, I need you to stop. When was the last time you ate?”

  His eyes dart over to me and then back to the road.

  “It’s been a little while, I guess. Couple hours.”

  I’ve been in the car with him a couple hours. Which means that it’s been at least a little bit longer than that. But in this case, ‘at least’ isn’t the most likely case.

  More likely is that he hasn’t eaten in twelve or eighteen hours, and he’s running on sheer manic energy.

  “Well I’m hungry. Can we just go stop at a McDonald’s or something?”

  He seems to be weighing his options, as if there’s some chance that it would be impossible for us to stop at a fast food place to eat. There’s no way.

  “You’re hungry?”

  “Yeah. I need something to eat, if that’s okay.”

  He weighs that for a moment before nodding his head. “I guess I could eat, too.”

  “Yeah,” I say. I try to sound happy. There are times to fight with him, and times to try to encourage him to make the right decisions as if he were doing me a big favor. He doesn’t listen to me when I try to tell him that he’s not thinking straight. But if I try to frame it some other way, then he can be talked down, sometimes.

  The car eases towards the right-hand side of the road. Ahead of us, a sign shows that at the next turn-off, there’s going to be a half-dozen different fast food establishments, any of which would be good enough to stop and eat for a little bit.

  Once he’s got some food in him, I might be able to talk him down from the episode. I might be able to convince him that he needs to calm down and talk to me about what he’s thinking, about what his plans are.

  With a little bit of luck, I can get him listening to me, maybe even trusting me. When that happens, I can finally start trying to figure out what in the hell is going on with him today. Because at this point, honestly, he’s kind of scaring me.

  “So how have you been lately?”

  He keeps his eyes on the road this time. Which I know means that he’s trying not to look at me.

  “Been fine, I guess.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” he growls. “I’m fine.”

  “You seem a little nervous.”

  “I’ve got nothing to be nervous about.”

  “I know. I’m sure that everything’s fine, I’m just trying to make conversation, you know?”

  He nods and seems to be considering that. I don’t know how much thought it needs, but apparently it needs more than I’d realized because he keeps nodding his head another minute or two after that.

  “I guess that makes sense. I’ve just… I’ve been so worried about you, you know?”

  “Well I’ve been fine, Dad. Is that why you came to get me? You were worried?”

  He nods solemnly. “I was worried.”

  I can’t afford to look saddened by that. Even if I am, I have to keep myself under control.

  “I know you were. But Dad?”

  “What?”

  “You can’t just go around doing whatever, you know?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You broke into Luke’s house.”

  “He should have given you back to me.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. Maybe he should have. It would have been the decent thing to do, I guess. But… something in my gut just doesn’t jive with it.

  “I know, Dad. But it’s fine, okay?”

  “Are you sure it’s fine?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He lets out a long breath. “I’m real sorry, you know.”

  “I know you are.” I relax in my seat as he pulls off the interstate and onto a ramp. I can already see two-dozen signs, high over everything else, telling us every place where we might want to go. There’s even a strip club. “But I’m alright. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Dad deflates visibly in front of me. “I just… I’m sorry, you know? I’m sorry I’m a terrible father.”

  I set my jaw. I’m watching a down-spiral, and I’m not really ready to deal with it. This isn’t a little thing, like when he finally decided to come down after he’d been dressing like every day was a renaissance fair when I was seven. He’d patently refused to explain anything about what he was thinking or what was going on for hours now, and all I knew about what was happening was that I was on the roller coaster.

  “Dad, it’s fine. Just get some food, okay? We’ll talk about this once we’ve both had time to eat some food and feel a little better, okay?”

  He sounds like a kicked puppy when he mutters the word “Okay” under his breath. But he keeps his grip on the steering wheel and the car keeps on moving either way. And to my very great pleasure, he doesn’t crash us right into the center divider.

  That said, I don’t know if this is going to be a quick stop like I’d asked for. Not that I mind, but by the time that we’re in a parking spot, Dad’s gone from bad to worse and now he’s moving like old sludge. I wouldn’t be surprised if he sinks so deep into this that we’re at this McDonald’s for the rest of the day.

  I let out a long breath and feel for my phone in my pocket. I try to let it look accidental.

  “Come on, Dad. We’re going to go eat, okay?”

  He looks at me, confused. “Huh? Yeah. Okay.”

  His hands move in slow motion across his body to the belt buckle, and he unsnaps it. Then, still in slow motion, he reaches across and opens his door.

  One foot after the other. If that’s all you can do, then it’s all you can do. My therapist’s words repeat in my head. It’s the closest that I’ve been to feeling normal in weeks. I just wish that I wasn’t sitting here in the middle of a hurricane, adrift on the seas of a bunch of trouble I never asked for.

  I know that I shouldn’t do it, because it can only make things worse, but I grip the phone in my pocket and tell myself that if things get any worse, I know who to call.

  Luke may not like my father, but I can’t afford to babysit him forever. Sometimes, I need someone who can solve a problem, and Luke is that man.

  Nineteen

  Luke

  I don’t like rental cars. They never feel like ‘yours.’ Part of that, perhaps a big part, perhaps all of it, is that it’s not yours.

  But a library book, it feels like for two weeks, it’s your book. You get to live with it, and it feels lived-in. It feels like you’ve got someone’s old book, and for a brief span of time, it’s yours.

  A rental car feels like you’re living out of a hotel room. Everything is sterile and every time you come back at the end of the day you find that it’s been re-sterilized to make sure that you’re never leaving your mark on it.

  But at least this once, it’s not a frustrating experience on its own. I’m just frustrated by the fact that I need one at all. Because this time, I bothered to drop the money to get something nice.

  The car roars out below me, and I look at the passenger seat. There’s a notebook there, spiral bound and thick. The paper is old and feels unpleasant to the touch; no doubt, whoever had this noteboo
k cared for it a great deal because there’s no way that someone would keep a notebook long enough for it to be in this kind of condition if they didn’t.

  I’ve had a lot of notebooks in my time. Some were cherished. They were hard-bound and hand-stitched and had heavy paper that was a joy to write on. I’ve got an entire shelf of them back home; they’re still important to me, even the ones that are long-since put on the shelf permanently.

  This isn’t a case like that. This is a five-star ring-bound thing that you can get at any big box store for five dollars. Five subjects. And to my very great surprise, it’s very nearly full, in spite of all that.

  “Where did you go?” I don’t know who I’m talking to. Or at least, I don’t know who I expect to answer me. Somewhere quite a ways behind me, Jorge is probably listening to the same crappy samba that he listened to driving me to my house, waiting for a call on the phone I’ve got the number to. I hope I won’t have to call it except to tell him to have a nice day and drive safe on the way home.

  My phone is heavy in my pocket. I usually forget that it’s there, to the point that I have to tap my side to make sure that it’s still in my pocket at all. But right now, I’m almost painfully conscious of it, because it isn’t ringing.

  Someone should have called me. Bill could have called to gloat, or Kate could call to tell me that everything is fine. Or she could call to tell me that everything isn’t fine. But either way, at least then I would know.

  I pull it out again. You shouldn’t call anyone on the interstate. It’s not safe. But I do it anyways. The voice commands react easily and accurately, and a moment later I can hear the gentle ringing of the phone. My thumb reaches just a little way to tap the ‘speaker’ button and the ringing is louder this time.

  With the third ring, my foot unconsciously presses down on the gas pedal more firmly. With the fourth, it relaxes again. There’s no reason to lose my head, here. I’ve got to think about this as a long-term situation. If she doesn’t answer, then I just wait for her to call back, or I try a fourth time. It’s no reason to freak out.

  The voicemail box message is simple and uncustomized. A robotic voice says ‘We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed cannot come to the phone right now. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message after the beep.’ A moment later, a tone sounds out.