“Auntie Kay, I got to tinkle,” she says softly.
So I open the door and let her come in. I look at myself in the mirror, seeing if maybe you can tell what is going on. Will people be able to tell I’m pregnant by looking at me?
I walk into the kitchen right when I hear my mother saying, “Maybe you caught Kaleigh’s bug.” My head snaps to Lauren as I see frustration on her face.
“I think lunch is ready.” Austin heads to the stove. “Kaleigh, we made you some tofu stuff that Lauren found in the freezer. I made sure to put it in another pan.”
“Awww, so you forgive me for tricking you into drinking breast milk?” I ask him with a smile, trying to act normal when all I want to do is go back upstairs and stare at the tests again.
Lauren grabs the side dishes that have been warming in the oven with the roast, while Austin grabs the roast. My father grabs drinks from the fridge, and my mother calls the kids. Noah walks over to the wine fridge, grabbing two bottles.
We make our way to the dining room. Gabe runs in, while Austin puts the roast down. Rachel comes into the room, banging two white things together. “Tap, tap, tap!” she shouts. “Click, click, click.”
“What is that?” Lauren looks at the white sticks in her hand.
And I think this is what it feels like to have a heart attack. I have a numbness in my arm. I think it’s numbness I don’t really know since I can’t really hear anything over the pounding going on in my ears.
“They’re drum sticks. I found them in the bathroom.” She is still tapping them together. “Like a wand. Bippity boppity bo.”
“Oh my God,” I say in a whisper as my mother grabs one of the sticks from Rachel’s hand.
“Oh my God.” She looks at Lauren. “You’re pregnant!” She sits down at the table.
Lauren’s head snaps back and she grabs the other stick from Rachel. Sure enough, it’s another positive pregnancy test.
She looks at Austin, who has gone paler than a ghost.
“Lauren?” he questions, holding the table with one hand, while he looks like he is going to fall over.
“You have to marry her,” my mother announces with tears in her eyes. “A child out of wedlock is a no-no.” She shakes her head no over and over again
“Lauren.” We hear Austin again, this time his voice quivering.
She looks around the faces at the table. Her eyes searching mine, she knows I know she knows just by looking at me.
“It’s mine,” I say, then I look at Noah. “I’m pregnant.”
Noah places the bottles of wine on the table. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m pregnant,” I repeat, throwing my hands in the air.
“But…but…but,” Noah stutters.
“This is worse than Lauren being pregnant,” my mother groans with tears running down her face.
“Mom,” Lauren snaps at her, walking over to me and hugging me tight, whispering in my ear, “It’s going to be okay.” The tears now run down my cheeks. What if he doesn’t want a baby? What if I have to have a baby by myself? What if my baby hates me for not giving him or her a father?
“Holy shit,” Austin breathes, finally sitting down.
Noah walks over to us, grabbing my face in both his hands. “I love you. So, so much. More than I love me.” He smiles at me and rubs away the tears that are rolling down my cheeks. “Marry me? Be my wife?”
“Are you sure?” I ask him while I put my hands on his.
He just declared his love for me in front of my whole family the same time he found out he is going to be a father.
“More sure than anything I’ve ever done in my whole life.” He pulls me close to him.
“Yes,” I say right before I throw myself at him, kissing him.
“This is wonderful,” my mother squeals. “Frank, we are planning a wedding.”
“Great!” My father looks at Austin. “Open that wine.”
“I’m getting married!” I turn, shouting to everyone in the room.
“Um,” Noah murmurs as we all turn to look at him. “I just need to get divorced first.”
“You need to get divorced?” my sister, Lauren, yells from the other side of the room.
Lunch at my sister’s is usually eventful but not this eventful. Five minutes ago I found out I was pregnant. Four minutes ago everyone else did also. Three minutes ago I agreed to marry Noah, who is my baby daddy. Two minutes ago I found out he’s married and needs a divorce. What the heck just happened?
“Oh my God,” my mother shouts from her chair that she fell into when I declared I was pregnant. “She’s an adulterer.” Her hand goes to her chest. “I think I’m having a heart attack.” She looks at my father.
My father goes to her side, tapping her hand. “Now, now, dear, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m sure there is a logical explanation to all of this, right, Noah?” My father looks over at my soon-to-be fiancé, who just looks back at me, his mouth opening to say something, but my mother cutting him off.
“She will be branded the other woman. We might as well mark her with the red A on her shirt.” My mother continues grabbing hold of my father’s hand with tears in her eyes. She is almost hyperventilating at this point.
“Okay, everyone needs to calm down for a second.” My sister tries to be the reasonable one.
“You’re married?” I turn to Noah, pulling my hand from his. “How did you not tell me this?” I blink away the tears forming. Okay, fine, when we were together we were like rabbits trying to hump each other, but still I think ‘I’m married’ might have come out before now.
“He can explain.” Austin turns to Noah. “Tell them.” He motions to Noah with his hand. “Tell them it’s all a mistake.”
“I’m not really married, married. Per say.” Noah’s voice is soft while he grabs my hand.
“You’re either married or you’re not married.” Lauren glares at him, folding her arms over her chest. I’m sure she is planning her revenge as we speak.
“I’m married, but not.” He speaks with his hands.
“Are you fucking married or not?” I yell, getting up. How can this be happening to me?
“Dear, the stress isn’t good for the baby,” my father speaks quietly.
“I got married to help a friend out.” Noah gets up, coming to me, his hands rubbing my arms up and down. “She was Canadian and needed a green card.”
“Idiot,” Austin says from behind my sister, shaking his head.
“It was Sabrina.” Noah looks at Austin like the name should ring a bell.
“Sabrina, college Sabrina? The Sabrina you chased for nine months? The one you tried to have sex with? But then found out she was a lesbian Sabrina?” Austin asks.
“I didn’t try to have sex with her or chase her for nine months. It was more like nine weeks,” Noah says, shaking his head.
“You snuck into her dorm room and lay on her bed naked with a can of whipped cream,” Austin reminds him. “You asked her if she wanted cream in her coffee while lathering yourself with said whipped cream.”
“Okay, fine, I tried to sleep with her once.” Noah finally looks over at him.
“Didn’t she try to get a restraining order against you?” Austin asks, slamming his hand on his pants, laughing. “You sent her a dick pic and she sent you a picture of a knife with a carrot cut in two.”
“Okay, that’s enough.” Noah points to him. “She needed help, so she came to me because she knew I would help her.”
“How would you help a lesbian Canadian?” Lauren asks the question everyone is dying to ask.
“Sabrina and her girlfriend, Tonya, came to me and asked for help. You see, Sabrina’s student visa was running out and the only way for her to stay in the country was to get a green card. Well, back then, lesbian weddings were not legal, so they came to me.” Noah tells us his side of the story.
“So you just helped them out, no strings attached?” Lauren asks him with her eyes going into slits.
“Well, not really.” Noah looks down and then up. “I had to watch them have sex.” He puts his hands up when my mother gasps and my father closes his lips together to stop from laughing.
“You had to?” Austin tries to hide his smirk.
“It was one time and I wasn’t allowed to join in. They tied me to a chair. I couldn’t even.” He motions to his hand moving up and down. “You know.”
“He has lost his mind.” Austin looks at him, then at me.
“It’s okay. It’ll be okay. I’ll just get the papers drawn up, and then we can get it signed. We can be married right away.” He pushes my hair behind my ears. “I just have to find her.”
I look up into the eyes of the man who is going to be the father of my child. Into the blue eyes of the man who literally swept me off my feet. Only for me to find out that he’s married. “You’re married.” I pull away from him, looking at everyone in the room. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I go into the kitchen to get a knife.
Dad jumps into action, coming to me while Austin pushes Lauren behind him and Mom shouts in horror.
“You son of a bitch, I’m going to cut off your small ass pecker.” I lash out with the knife, but Dad takes it from me. “After everything that I told you, after I poured my heart out to you, you would think this would have been brought up. Like ‘hey, funny story, I got married,’ or ‘I’m a fucking moron and did something so stupid’ but nothing, not a fucking word.” My hands go up and I slap them down. “You’re an asshole and you’re just like them.” My voice gets quiet. “I need some alone time.” I start walking out of the room, feeling all eyes on me, and feeling Noah’s body heat right behind me. I turn to face him and he almost crashes into me. “That means from you, too.” I turn to walk up the stairs, zoning out the arguing that is coming from the living room. Closing the door behind me, I turn the lock closed. I fall onto my bed, making some of the throw pillows fall on the floor.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Noah
“I know you fucked up before, but this is the biggest fuck up of your life,” Austin says to the room.
I just watched the love of my life—that is right, the love of my fucking life—walk away from me with our child. I turn, watching everyone watching me. “I’m going to fix this and then we are going to get married and we are going to be married forever,” I tell her mother, who looks at me with half murder in her eyes while Lauren is straight out planning my death and from the look on her face it’s going to be painful.
“Everyone needs to simmer down now,” Frank says from behind Dede, where he has one hand on her shoulder. “He was helping a friend, so now he finds that friend and gets divorced. No one has to know anything.” He nods at me, giving me the moral support a father should give.
“Exactly. No one has to know anything. Tomorrow morning we go in there and we get the cavalry ready and we find Sabrina and by the end of the week we could be divorced.” I look back up the stairs, the need to run upstairs itching my legs. I feel a hand on my arm and look down to see Lauren.
“I’ll go and check on her.”
I nod to her and watch her walk up the stairs to my girl and child. My family.
She comes down right away. “She’s sleeping, so I didn’t bother waking her. Why don’t we eat? She’ll come down later,” she says as we sit down and eat. I barely touch anything. My feet bounce up and down as I wait for Kaleigh to come back downstairs.
When all of the plates are washed and put away I sit on the couch, the whole time watching the stairs, waiting to see her bounce downstairs. “How is she still sleeping?” I ask Lauren, who is sitting with Rachel doing homework.
“Her body is going through changes,” Lauren says. “It is normal, trust me.”
I nod at her then look back at the stairs.
“I should go,” I say, getting up. “I don’t want to go, but I want her to feel safe.” I look at them both. “Can you just text me after to tell me she is okay?”
They both nod at me as I walk out.
“And tell her that I love her.”
I make my way home. Walking into the house without her seems strange. There are all little things everywhere that shows you she lives here. Her yoga mat in the corner rolled up with her weights in a basket. Her yoga magazines are on the coffee table. Her empty glass of water is beside it. Her flip-flops are in the kitchen. Every time I turn around I see something of hers. I close off the lights, going upstairs into our room, because it isn’t mine anymore. It’s ours. I collapse on the bed, her smell all around me. I grab her pillow, bringing it to my face. I turn, looking out the window. I get up, bringing the pillow with me, going downstairs to the couch. I look up at the ceiling, making a list of everything I have to do. When I hear something at the door, I turn my head, wondering if maybe it was all in my head when all of a sudden I see her walking in.
She sees me on the couch and comes over. “What are you doing on the couch?” she asks, sitting on the table in front of me.
“The bed felt empty without you,” I say, sitting up, facing her.
“So you came down with my pillow?” She points to the pillow still in my arms.
“It smelled like you,” I say, putting it aside, leaning forward to grab her hands in mine. “Babycakes, you have to know I honestly didn’t think about Sabrina till I was in the moment and, well, then I had no choice but to tell you.”
“I know,” she says softly, looking down at our hands. “I didn’t do this on purpose.” She again stops talking. “I know people will say I did.” She shrugs her shoulders. “But I didn’t. It must have been the medication when I had strep.”
“I don’t give a shit when it was or who says what. The fact is I know and you know and that is all that matters,” I reassure her. “Now how are you feeling? Are you okay?” I ask her, putting her hair behind her ear.
“Yeah, I slept like a baby actually and when I woke all I wanted was you, so I got up and came here. But this is the last straw. If there is anything that you are hiding and I find out, I will slit off you penis the next time.”
I get up, picking her up in my arms. “I have no doubt. Now let’s go to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow. I need to get myself divorced.”
The next day I jump out of bed and put on my power suit. A suit I know I’m going to kick ass with. I walk out of the elevator. “Round up the cavalry. We have a big client. Board room in ten,” I tell the receptionist, who picks up her phone and places an intercom announcement. Walking to my desk, I see that Lauren is already in.
“Hey, good, you’re here,” she says, getting up. “We need to get working,” she says with her no nonsense bullshit. “I will not let my niece or nephew down.”
“It’s a boy,” I say to her as we walk down the hall to the conference room.
“How do you know?” She looks over with a smirk.
“Because according to an article online, the sex is determined on who the dominant one in bed is. So therefore we are having a boy. Now don’t get me wrong, your sister can ride the shit out of me, but—”
She puts her hand up. “Can we not discuss my sister and your sex life?” She shakes her head, opening the door, going in and seeing the whole room full.
I nod to Harvey, who looks at me funny. “Okay, people, we have a code red.”
“What the fuck is a code red?” Harvey asks, confused.
“So as some of you know I’m off the market.” I look around to see everyone staring at me. “As in I’m in love with one person and one person only.”
“This is what this meeting is for?” says Fred, another criminal case lawyer. “I mean, I’m happy for you, but—”
I put my hand up to stop him from talking. “I need to find my wife and get divorced before I can marry the one I really, really love.”
“You’re married?”
I hear someone shriek out. I look up and see that it was a third year associate who kept bringing me doughnuts last year.
“I am, but now we n
eed to find my fake wife and get a divorce. Her name is Sabrina Collins. Last I heard she was somewhere on the east coast. She was majoring in pediatrics. She is also a lesbian.”
“Why is that an issue?” someone asks.
I look over and see a new face. “Who are you?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, my name is Luca. I’m the new associate who just graduated Harvard,” he says, his voice sure of himself.
I look him over, perfect suit, perfect hair, pretty face. I like him.
“It’s important because if you find her on Facebook she will probably be in a relationship with a woman.”
“Now I want everyone on this. I would like for this to be over by Friday,” I say, looking at everyone as they all nod their heads. “Let’s go, people.”
Everyone gets up to leave except Harvey, who sits back in his chair.
Once everyone is gone but Harvey, Lauren, and me he finally talks, “You committed fraud.” He throws his pen down. “Seriously, Noah. You’re a lawyer.”
“It wasn’t fraud.” I look at Lauren, who crosses her arms. “Per se.” When Lauren pffts I continue, “Okay, fine, I knew she was a lesbian, but you never know, people can change.”
“I agree,” he says, now sitting up, crossing his arms in front of him. “People change all the time, but sexual orientation doesn’t change. Did she make you think she would change?”
Tempt The Playboy Page 19
