I frown. “I don’t know…I didn’t get his number.”
“You didn’t? But you gave him yours…right?”
I shake my head, my heart sinking in my chest.
“No,” I say. “I—I guess I forgot…and he left really early this morning. I think he had to get to work or something.” I don’t say that he left while it was still dark out…while I was still sleeping.
“It’s Sunday,” Liz says.
“I know. I don’t think criminal justice is nine-to-five work,” I snap. I can’t hide the frustration in my voice.
Once again, Liz backs off. “Well, don’t worry about it. He knows where to find you.” She laughs, clearly trying to lighten the mood, but I feel like a wet blanket has been thrown over my little campfire of happiness.
I would love to be heading to Verve tonight as Garrett’s date. I would love to be going anywhere with Garrett. Verve is one of the newest, hottest restaurants in San Antonio, and it can take months to get a reservation. The casual way that Liz mentioned it really rubbed me the wrong way. And the way she’s acting like she and this guy—Charlie—are a couple is making me even more upset.
I need to calm down.
I know I’m just jealous because she’s going to see her guy again and Garrett has disappeared without a trace. It’s not her fault. But if I stay on the phone with her, I’m going to say something snippy. I can just feel it.
“Listen, I have to run,” I say. “Einstein is throwing a fit over here—he’s demanding food.” I look down at my grey cat, who has now settled into a little ball on my lap. Not quite a fit, but I just want to get off of the phone.
“Okay, honey,” Liz says. And then, “Don’t feel bad, Val. Things like this happen all the time.”
The redness in my cheeks is no longer a blush. The blood rushing to my face is a mixture of pain and anger.
“I don’t feel bad,” I say defensively. “I had an amazing night.”
“Good,” Liz says, her voice dripping with pity. “Oh! Before you go…one more thing. I know this is crazy, but I mentioned Chrissy’s wedding to Charlie, and he said that he would go with me.”
“Really?”
One of our girlfriends, Chrissy, is going to be married in about a month—early September. She’s the fourth girl from our high school group to tie the knot. Liz and I were going to go together, as the two single girls in our group. I was looking forward to it.
“Liz, you just met this guy! You already invited him to a wedding?”
“I know!” Liz squeals, clearly happy about it. “It’s so insane, right? But we just started talking about how all of our friends are getting married, and it just came out! Please don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad,” I say, but of course I’m mad. I can’t help it. I hold the phone away from my face a little, as if it’s toxic. “Gotta go! I’ll call you tomorrow to see how your date went,” I promise.
When I hang up, my shoulders slump down, and I let my head fall forward onto the table. I’m curled over Einstein, who's still lying in my lap. I hear him start to purr.
“What am I going to do, Einstein?” I whisper. I start to pet him, and his purring grows louder. “I don’t even know his last name. If he wanted to see me again, he would have asked for my number.”
He would have. It’s the truth. But he didn’t. He disappeared in the middle of the night, and I’m probably never going to see him again.
I let my head rest on the table, and my eyes close. Once again, my mind is flooded with memories of the night before.
The way we he kissed me, taking my breath away, practically before we made it in the door. The feel of him pinning me against the wall, in the entryway. The sensation of his lips on mine…his hands roaming over my body…
Instead of making me feel worse, the memories actually make me feel better. I open my eyes and lift my head up off of the table. I reach for my coffee cup with one hand, and with the other, I give Einstein a few more pets.
I feel my lips curl into a smile.
“You know what?” I whisper to my cat. “It’s okay. It was worth it.” I think of the way my body writhed under his kisses, his touch, his thrusts. My smile grows broader. “Totally worth it. Now, let’s get you some breakfast.”
Chapter 5
Valerie
“No phones in class.” I walk up to Alex and give him my best impression of the evil eye.
He smiles. I guess my evil eye isn’t that evil. Alex knows that I love him dearly.
It’s his second time going through my class. Before the school year started, I met with him to go over our strategy for getting him to pass. Now that it’s early September, we’ve had class for two weeks. I’m determined that he won’t slip into his old behaviors so early in the semester.
“Miss B., I forgot my calculator! My phone has one,” he says.
I hold out my hand, palm up, and Alex sheepishly holds his phone out. I see a game on the screen; a grid of different colored bubbles wait to be popped as a timer ticks down.
“Then why is Bubble Blast up?” I ask. “Put it away, Alex, it’s distracting.”
I hand it back to him, and he sighs heavily as he shoves it into his backpack.
I continue. “Besides, you don’t need a calculator for this problem. I’ve seen you do stuff harder than this in your head.”
I slide into the empty seat by Alex’s side and look across the desk at the nearly blank page in his notebook.
He’s copied down the problem from the board, but that’s about it.
“What do you think?” I ask, pointing to the equation.
He frowns. “It’s too early to do math,” he grumbles.
“Alex, you can do this. Just focus. Remember what we talked about? This is all about attitude.”
He hunches forward, examining the problem.
“I guess I could factor it?” he says.
I nod and give him a smile. “Yes!” I say. “Good job! Exactly. Factor it. You remember how to set that up?”
I watch as he writes a new line of numbers, right below the equation he’s copied from the board. As I watch him write, my stomach does a turn, and I feel a wave of nausea wash over me. I press one hand to my stomach and hold it there, frozen, until the feeling passes.
Alex glances over at me. “You okay, Miss B.?”
The wave of nausea has passed, and I manage to stand up.
“Yes, thanks. I’m fine. I’m just going to—keep working on that problem, Alex. You’re on the right track. You can do it.”
He grins.
I spin on my heel and head for my desk. Maybe I’m dehydrated. I’ve had a cup of coffee already this morning, but little water. I know that’s not the best way to start the day. Luckily, I have a water bottle on my desk, and I lift it now and take a healthy swig. Once again, my stomach turns.
Instinctively, I look for the nearest trash can. I really might vomit.
The rolling sensation leaves me, but a cloying nausea remains.
I stand again. “Class, keep working on this problem. In five minutes, I’m going to pick one of you to show us your work on the board. I’ll be right back.”
My students are quiet, their heads bent over their notebooks. I escape and hustle to the nearest ladies’ room.
I’m sitting on the closed toilet seat in the stall when it hits me. First of all, my period is a week late. Sure, it’s sometimes a few days late…but a week? Never. Secondly, this nausea…it’s unreal. Unexpected. It doesn’t make sense.
Unless…
Unless, I’m pregnant.
I feel numb. I force myself to stand, wash my hands, and walk towards my classroom. I did say that I’d return in five minutes, and I don’t want to go back on my word, especially this early in the semester. This is a time for building rapport with my students, not flaking out on them and disappearing while I have my own personal breakdown.
Even though I force myself to step through the door, smile, and chose a student to present the problem to
the class, inwardly I am having a breakdown.
Because the pieces are coming together. That night, three weeks back. That crazy night.
Everything happened so fast. I still remember moving the shoes in my entryway so that I could kneel—right there, a foot from the doorway!—in front of him. My clothes were off practically as soon as I hit the bed. Neither of us had been thinking in terms of protection.
He didn’t wear a condom. Garrett. That sexy, dark, mysterious guy that I haven’t heard from since…
Could I be pregnant with his child?
The possibility gnaws at me, to the point that I’m barely able to conduct the rest of the class. By the time my students leave, some of my nausea has passed, but my head is a mess.
Briefly, I consider going home for the day. Except I’ve graded my Algebra II class’s quiz, and I want to be the one to deliver the results. It would be easy to pass it off to a sub, but it would have less impact on the class that way, and I know how important this first month of school is; it sets the stage for the whole year.
I’m going to stick it out.
I just hope the nausea stays at bay, and I don’t puke in front of my students. Yes, that would leave quite the impression, but it’s not exactly the impression that I want to make.
My hope that the nausea is gone turns out to be futile. An hour later, it returns, and it lasts until lunch time. Thankfully, I make it till three without vomiting.
I have a list of tasks that I want to accomplish in my afternoon hours, but as soon as the school bell rings, I know that I’m not going to even attempt them. Not today. I can barely think.
There’s no way I can sit here and complete lesson plans. The thought of a possible pregnancy keeps running through my head, and now, I can no longer ignore it.
I gather my things and head for my car. Howard Public School is located in east San Antonio, in one of the rougher neighborhoods. The teacher’s lot is past the basketball courts. I see Alex shooting hoops with his friends. He catches my eye, smiles, and waves.
“You outta here, Miss B.?” he shouts.
“Yeah, I am.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Kind of. Thanks, Alex.” I might as well be honest. Yes, the nausea is gone, but my world still feels upside-down.
Alex passes the ball to another kid, then jogs towards me. “Hey…Miss B. I was thinking about my attitude this morning. Sorry for giving you lip. It won’t happen again.”
I nod. “I understand,” I say. “Alex, don’t forget about after-school math help this week. Tuesday and Thursday, three to four. If you have trouble with the homework assignment tonight, you should think about going.”
“I will,” he says.
“Who’s winning?” I ask, motioning to the court.
“Shirts,” he says, then grabs the front of his T-shirt and snaps the fabric proudly.
“Nice. Good luck.”
“See ya, Miss B.”
Alex jogs off and I stand and watch the game for a minute. Alex joins his team, and one of his friends passes him the ball. Alex shoots from the three-point line and the ball sails through the chain net of the hoop with a rattling sound instead of a swish.
If Alex was living on the other side of town, he’d be on a division-one basketball team. He’d have the support he needed at home and at school, as well as organized after-school practices.
Howard does have a team, but Alex was cut last year because he’s working practically full-time at a fast food restaurant in his neighborhood, just to help his mother pay rent. His father’s not around, so he and his mother put food on the table for his four younger brothers and sisters.
I slide into the front seat of my car, trying not to get overly upset about the inequality of it all. However, my drive home is like a movie playing out the wealth disparity. As I emerge from the Eastside of San Antonio and pass into the wealthier neighborhoods, the grass literally becomes greener. The roads are smoother; the sidewalks are cleaner; the buildings are larger, shinier, and newer. I pass by a public school that looks more like a mall than the prison-like building I work in.
Where’s Garrett from? I find myself wondering. Did he have to support brothers and sisters and a widowed mother, like Alex does? Did he deal with violence, gangs, and crime like my students do, every day of their lives?
I remember the way his eyes looked. I remember the pain that I saw there. People who look like that—wise beyond their years—have usually seen many things. Much more than a sheltered woman like me.
What has he seen? What has he experienced?
I turn left towards my subdivision and steer the car into a drugstore parking lot. A few minutes later, I’m back in the car, with a plastic bag filled with pregnancy tests in hand. I stuff the shopping bag into my purse and continue on my way.
When I pass my mother's house, just a street over from my own apartment, I’m tempted to stop in. It’s a habit—I often visit her on my way home from work. We’ll go for a walk, have a glass of wine, and discuss our days. But the urge to take the tests in my bag drives me forward. I just want to know.
I wouldn’t be good company for my mother in this distracted state. On top of that, what would I say if she offered me a glass of wine? I couldn’t accept it, and she’d immediately surmise what’s going on with me.
My mind is spinning as I park and take my stairs two at a time. I unlock the apartment door and Einstein greets me with a yowl. He’s a needy cat. I pick him up and pet him as I walk right into the bathroom.
“Okay, Einstein, this is it,” I say.
I set him down and he moves to the water dish that I have by my shower. He begins lapping at the water, and I envy his blissful ignorance. He has no idea that I’m about to learn whether my life is going to be forever changed.
My hands are shaking.
I take a box out of the plastic bag. I bought doubles of three different kinds of tests—there are six total in the bag. Overboard, I know. But I want to be sure.
I read the instructions and follow them, staring blankly at Einstein as I wait for the minutes to pass. He’s jumped into the shower and is sitting under the leaky faucet. When I first noticed the leak, I wanted to fix it. Then, I noticed that Einstein seems to like the drip of the water on his head, so I left it.
My eyes wander to his litter tray, which I have tucked into a corner of the small bathroom. I remember hearing something about cat litter and pregnancy…some kind of toxin which could be harmful to a pregnant woman.
Am I a pregnant woman?
How am I going to clean the cat litter box? Will I have to keep it outside, on the balcony or something? Thinking of the balcony brings me to a new concern. This apartment is small. It’s a one-bedroom. Where would a baby sleep?
Beep, beep, beep. My phone alarm goes off. It’s been three minutes.
I take a deep breath, then stand up off of the floor where I’ve been sitting. I walk to the sink, pick up the test, and look down at it.
There’s a little pink plus sign. Positive!
My heart leaps in my chest. It swells, and this warm, fuzzy feeling fills me to the very core.
Positive…I’m pregnant!
Whoa. This is not how I expected to feel. There’s this overwhelming surge of happiness coursing through me. Warmth. Joy. Excitement. Love.
I expected to sink to my knees, sick with worry and concern. But that doesn’t happen. Not at all. The logistical facts, like the cat litter toxins and the size of my apartment, feel completely irrelevant. I’m carrying a life inside of me.
The warm, joyful feeling wells up and spills out of me as I laugh.
I cover my mouth with my hand, surprised at the bubbling laughter. I feel tears well up in my eyes.
“Einstein!” I exclaim. “I’m going to have a baby!”
He stares at me and blinks twice.
“You’re right. I should take another test, just to be sure.”
I take two more, and both are positive.
Ha
lf an hour later, I’m still sitting on the bathroom floor. My head is tilted up. I’m looking at the ceiling, but not really seeing it. My mind is a million miles away.
I’m thinking about my baby. The baby growing inside of me, as I sit here. The life I’m going to usher into the world, in a few months’ time. It feels surreal. I don’t know what to do, what to think, or what to say. Should I call my mother? Liz?
Though a part of me wants to speak the words, “I’m pregnant” to someone other than my cat, I don’t feel like calling Liz or my mom.
They’re not the ones I want to tell.
I want to tell Garrett.
I want to look into his eyes as I tell him.
Because a part of me wonders if he would feel it, too—if he would feel this magic that is flowing inside of me, lighting me up from the inside. This life inside of me—it isn’t just mine. Garrett and I created it, together. He deserves to feel the same sensation of bliss and surreal calm that I’m experiencing right now.
I get up from the floor and move to my bedroom. My laptop is on my nightstand, since I often do work late into the night. It’s a terrible habit, but one I’ve gotten into since becoming a teacher. With my computer in my lap, I settle onto the bed with my legs crossed.
I’ve tried to find Garrett before, online. For the first few days after our night together, I was pretty much obsessed. I spent every spare minute sorting through social media sites and search engines, searching for his face. But days turned into weeks, and I found nothing.
Now, with my news burning in my heart, I have a new sense of motivation.
I have to find him.
I have to tell him about our baby.
But all I have to go on is a name. A first name, and a list of tattoos that I’ve written in my journal, so that the details don’t fade with time.
The problem is, that information is pretty much useless when it comes to searching online.
I sigh and start exactly where I left off last time. With the cursor blinking in my search bar, I type out his name. Hopefully, this time, I’ll get some useful results.
Secret Daddy Surprise - A Secret Baby Romance (Once a SEAL, Always a SEAL Book 4) Page 4
