by S. Van Horne
A sharp stab in my hand jolts me awake. The bright lights above me make my eyes water. I look down to my hand to see a petite blonde pulling the needle out of my IV. She looks up, and her name tag says “Lilly.”
“Welcome back, hun. You had us a bit worried there,” she tells me as she attaches the IV tubing. Within seconds, a salty taste hits the back of my mouth and makes me nauseous.
“Why is she so sick? I’ve never seen her like this,” Ashley asks from behind. I glance up to see her and Jake standing at the head of my bed.
“We’ll know more about her once we get the blood results, but the doc did order a urine test for pregnancy. Just to rule it out,” she kindly explains. I try to laugh, but it comes out as a cough with a dry heave.
“I’m not pregnant! Not a chance. The last time I had sex was over a month and a half ago, and we used protection.” My eyes bug out as my voice raises with each word. I try to crawl out of bed, but a small and large hand pins me back.
“Easy, champ,” Jake’s soothing voice floats over me, “let’s just rule it out then go from there.”
“Ugh…fine, where’s the cup I have to piss in?” I hold my hand out, demanding to get this over with.
Lilly looks to my family and asks them to leave. I hear shuffling and a door quietly closing. I glance up to Lilly. “Okay, now that we are alone, I’ll help you to the toilet so we can get the sample.”
Minutes later, I’m back in bed and completely wiped out. A cold sweat beads across my forehead, and Ash and Jake are back in my room. An older man, in a white coat with graying hair, steps in with papers in his hand.
“Hello, Miss Novak, I’m Dr. Anderson, a pleasure.” He reaches out and shakes everybody’s hands.
“Okay, stop with the suspense and just get on with it,” I tell him curtly. I just want to go home and sleep forever.
He chuckles at me, placing his reading glasses on and then focusing on the top paper. “Well, you are dehydrated, severely, that we already knew. What we didn’t know is that you’re pregnant.”
“Umm…excuse me? Can you repeat that, because I sure as shit can’t be pregnant?” As soon as the words roll out of my mouth, a portly woman with a large machine rolls right in. The doctor steps away and leans against the wall with a smirk on his face.
“Hello, I’m the radiology tech, and I’m here to do a sonogram for dates,” the older, dark-haired woman explains. “My name is Rita, and if you could lift up your gown, we’ll get this over, and you’ll have the first picture of your baby.”
CHAPTER NINE
MARNIE
MY FEET POUND ON THE pavement. My insides shake with each step. Nausea starts to churn, and my mouth waters. I snap my hand to my mouth and dart down a small alley. I vomit all my meager breakfast on the brick building.
“Does it ever end?” I ask the empty alley, and I inhale a couple of deep breaths. I swipe my mouth with my sleeve and spit out the disgusting taste in my mouth. Two weeks ago, I found out I was pregnant, and this morning sickness—which is horse shit, because it happens all the time—has yet to abate. After the initial shock of it all, the denial and wailing, I came to grips that Z is the father, and he deserves to know. He should have a choice of being present or not, but I’m hoping he does because I need all the help I can get.
I lean against the cool building, allowing the despair to build again. How could I let this happen? With a stranger, no less, with somebody who only goes by “Z.”
I allow myself to break down until the tears dry, and I lift my head up to stare down the main street. The Meat Market is two buildings down. I must do this as it’s no longer just me. I turn the corner and head in the direction of the market.
I halt in my steps when I reach the door. I stare up at the large sign. The butterflies are working overtime now. I glance up and down the street, making sure nobody sees me. Then, I wrap my hands around my still-flat belly and head in.
The door opens with a swoosh, and with that, the odor of raw meat and blood assaults me. My stomach instantly revolts, and I cover my mouth with my hand and swallow the waves of bile.
“Ma’am, can I help you?” a man asks from behind the counter. I watch as he wraps meat of some sort in parchment paper, then places it in the display.
I try to respond through my gagging. “Um—” gulp, “I need to speak with the butcher.” My eyes stay glued to the man, not wanting to visualize the raw meat I know is everywhere.
He thumbs behind him. “Straight back and next to the freezer. Door with his name on it. Can’t miss it.”
I mumble a thank you and quickly walk toward the back. I make it there with little incident and spot the freezer, and right next to it, is a door with the name “Jason” on it.
I knock twice and wait. A muffled, “yeah,” answers me. I slowly open the door and step into a small room with a dark desk holding a lap top, plants, and picture of a young boy and an elderly man.
The man coughs, grabbing my attention. “Can I help you?” he asks, raising a brow to me.
“Um…yes, I need to speak with the man who goes by Z.’“ I nibble on my lip and twirl a button on my shirt.
“Okay?” He looks bewildered, but continues, “May I ask why?”
“I just need to talk to him. Is there a way I can get a hold of him, a number or something? Please, it’s very important I speak with him,” I plead, emotion choking out my words.
His eyes soften, seeing my distress. “All right, I’ll give him a call. Maybe he’ll be able to meet us here. Can I have your name?”
I motion my hand to the chair, and he nods his acquiescence. I slowly ease myself into the folding chair, my purse clutched against my tender breasts. “My name is Marnie, Marnie Novak.” Jason’s eyes widen as he freezes with his hand hovering over his phone.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right. Can you repeat your name?”
More clearly, I repeat, “Marnie Novak.”
“Oh shit!” he whispers as if something clicks in his brain.
I pause at the curse word and shift skittishly in my chair.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” I gaze at him intently, scouring my memory for him.
He quickly answers, “No, we’ve never met.” Jason dials on his cell phone, and I hear the echo of the phone ringing.
“Z, I need you in my office now,” he orders over the phone. Jason nods and glances up to me. “No, best in person—” He nods, grunts a few times, and replies, “Two minutes out, okay, see you then.” Jason presses the end button and places his phone back on his desk.
He returns his attention to me. “He’ll be here in two minutes. Can I get you anything, some water?”
I smile for the first time today. “Yes, water sounds heavenly right now.” Jason gets up, and I can’t help but admire the strong body that’s moving around the desk.
He opens the door. “I’ll be back in just a second.” He quietly closes the door behind him. I ease back against the chair, allowing the muscles of my back to release. I need to think of a game plan. How am I going tell this “Z” about his impending fatherhood? Wait, what if he doesn’t want it, or even worse, what if he does but not with me? My breathing and heart rate picks up as I sway from the returning nausea. Muffled male voices come through the door. I can make out Jason’s voice, but the other one, I don’t recognize. They start to escalate in volume, and the door handle jiggles as two men stumble into the room.
I jump out of my chair with a screech, protectively placing my hand on my belly. Jason is the first to correct himself quickly, “Here you go.” He places the cup into my still-shaking hand.
“Tha—” I lose my voice when I turn my attention on the second man who is standing stock-still with wide cobalt blue eyes fixated on me. Those eyes pull me in, and a sense of déjà vu takes over. I know those blue eyes. I’ve loved those eyes for most of my adult life.
The room closes in on me as I slowly move away from the two men. “You’re Z?” I whisper. He nods sharply.
>
“Marnie,” he whispers, with his eyes still fixed to me
Tears well as emotion clogs my throat. A cold sweat breaks across my forehead and pressure builds in my ears. “You’re Z.” I glance to him and watch the mirrored devastated look in his eyes. He closes them and nods.
“You’re Z,” I whisper again, panic restraining my voice, but I hope the answer will be different the second time.
“Yes, Marnie, it’s me,” he answers. My breaths are now nothing more than pants, and I can’t get my eyes to focus on him anymore. I creep back until my back hits the wall and blackness overtakes me.
ZAYNE
I kick the chair out of the way and reach her as her eyes roll back in her head and she topples over. When I met Jason outside, his eyes were wild, and he looked like he ran a mile. I had barely gotten out of the car when he yanked on my wrist, rambling on about a blast from the past and something about shitting my pants. Well, he got one thing right, and I’m gently easing my past to the floor.
I glance back to Jason. “Open the door, get some air in here,” I order while I unbutton Marnie’s blouse and grab a stack of paper from the desk and fan her face. I examine her chest, noting how her white tank under her blouse hugs her considerable breasts, much larger breasts than the last time I saw her. Her familiar scent of lilac haunts me, and the memories of that night two months ago come full-force.
I bring my attention back to her face, happy to see some coloring back, and I replace the papers. I caress her cheek with my knuckles. “Marnie, please wake up.” I brush a few stray strands of hair back. I never, in my wildest dreams, thought that I’d ever see her again after we graduated high school. But with some twisted fate, not only did I get an earth-shattering night with her, but she’s laying in my arms again, and I’m scared to death.
A few minutes later, her eyes flutter open. Unfocused green stares through me, “Zayne?” she asks, her voice husky. I nod quickly and slowly sit her up.
“Hi, Marnie.” I can’t help the grin that’s spreading across my face. I peek up to Jason. “Hand me her water, please?” Jason hands me the cup, and I give it to her.
“Slowly now, just take some sips.” She does as I instructed then hands it back to me.
“You’re Z,” she states. I nod. “You’re a prostitute.”
“I prefer male escort and companion, but yes, at times, I do have sex with the women,” I close my eyes, and, with hesitation add, “and get paid for it.” Might as was well lay it all out to her. Hopefully, she’ll give me a chance. She’s still just as beautiful as she was in high school, even more enchanting since that night.
Her eyes dart wildly between Jason and me, the puzzle pieces clicking together. She points a finger at Jason. “So…you’re like his pimp.”
Before I let Jason answer, I palm both her cheeks and redirect her attention back to me. “Marnie, why are you here?”
Her eyes well with tears, making the green a deeper shade. “Need to tell Z…I mean you, something.” She twists and grabs her purse, unzips it, and pulls out a picture. She stares at it, and a lone tear falls.
“Marnie, what is it? Tell me?” I quietly order her, my stomach tensing up. She unfolds her hands and a sonogram picture of a little grape lays in the middle.
“I’m pregnant,” her voice is barely above a whisper.
“Holy…wow,” Jason stammers.
I grab the picture from her hand and run my finger along the glossy silhouette that will become a baby.
“It’s mine,” I mumble, unable to tear my gaze away from my child. But out of the corner of my eye, I see her nod and break down. Again, I catch her in my arms, and her hand locks on my arm, squeezing it.
I glance up to Jason. “Hey, can you give us a minute?” He walks out the room at my request. I cradle her deeper into me. “I haven’t slept with anyone since that night with you. I wasn’t even going to take the date that Jason offered me, because I was done with everything. Done with the nameless fucks. Done with the fake life I was leading. Done with it all. But with a little help from Jack Daniels, Jason, my cocksucker cousin, weaseled one more out of me.” A chuckle escapes through Marnie’s crying. She pulls away from me, her face blotchy and puffy, but a small smile is there. God, I still love her.
I smile back and continue, “Then one night, I walk into a restaurant, find a stunning angel waiting for me at the bar, and I thought to myself, if only I could meet her outside of being an escort. I mean, what are the chances that I meet the love of my life there.”
“I don’t even know you now. All I remember of you is from high school, and we have both grown,” she tells me. Fresh tears well up again and slip down her cheeks.
I take her hand, entwine it with mine, and lay it on her belly where, just below, our child is growing. “Never doubt that I ever stopped loving you. You are it for me Marnie. Past, present, and future.” Her head pops up, bewilderment written on her face. I whisper again, “I love you.”
She nods vehemently. “I never stopped loving you, too. Even when I was married to Tyler, I always wondered what my life would be like if I had married you.”
I grin lopsided at her. “Well, we have about seven months to get reacquainted with each other. We already know that we set the bed on fire. So, what do you say? So far, everything we’ve done together is ass-backwards, but the end result is everything I’ve ever wanted. Let’s give us a chance, to be the family we envisioned when we were eighteen years old.”
She hesitates for a second, and I realize I’m sweating bullets, until she pulls my face into her hands and crashes her lips to mine.
“Yes.”
THE END…FOR NOW.
CHAPTER ONE
DAMIAN
WALKING INTO WORK, I DID what I did every morning and thanked fucking God that I had the life that I had now. It seemed like yesterday that my parents were sitting me down in the study in their freaking ugly mansion, laying out that I was going to marry Kayla fucking Samson, a mess from hell or they’d stop paying my little sister, Penny’s, tuition. If I had the money that I was meant to have from the inheritance from my uncle, then I’d have paid it, but no, they’d used that to try and dig themselves out of the debt that a lifetime of bullshit and debauchery had brought them. After arguing for hours, I realized that I was never going to win, so I gave in and married the bitch.
Eighteen months I’d spent putting up with her shit. The drugs, the parties, the orgies, the DUI’s...all in my home, the home that I’d actually gotten in my inheritance because it was too small for them and my uncle had the sense to put in my name before he died. He knew what immoral pieces of shit my parents were and I’d always loved that house and considered it my home. Kayla had ruined that for me. Eighteen months of hell later and I was woken up at three am by the police telling me that she was dead. Her flavor of the night had been driving her, no my, car while she sucked him off and had wrapped them around the tree-dead on impact. I packed up that night and left the house empty and didn’t look back.
I headed to Chicago and was settling in when I bumped into Jax who told me he was looking for someone to work at his butcher shop, the Meat Market. Two months in and he asked me to join the actual Meat Market and the life I led now would have every man alive eating his heart out. We got hired for whatever the woman wanted, all she had to do was ask for our cut of meat off the menu.
Whistling, I walked into work, nodding at Jax and the guys who were already there, I went through to the back to get my work shit on.
“Yo, Damian, you’re up,” Jax said handing over the familiar piece of paper with my ‘date’ on it. Looking at the details I saw what the client had written and then the added details that Jax always added for me on the back.
Tabitha Dixon, age twenty-three, weekend away for a family wedding. Needs a date to act as her boyfriend for the family. It’s important that it’s believable and totally over-the-top.
The only problem was that it was on a weekend during some vacay time that I’d alre
ady booked. I wasn’t going away, but I needed some down time because I was exhausted. The Meat Market was doing well, with both types of meat, and it was taking its toll.
I was considering requesting that the date be given to one of the other guys, when I turned it over and in Jax’s familiar scrawl on the back, I read the details about her that he’d scribbled out. Around five-foot five, long hair which was a weakness for me, brunette, hazel eyes, stacked.
Shit, she was just my type.
TABITHA
I’d stared at that damn invitation like it was a poisonous snake since it had arrived a couple of days ago. I loved my brother, Grant, but my parents’ inability to actually give a shit about the hell my ex put me through, meant that cutting them out of my life meant only speaking to him once every three months, if not more. He understood my reasons for doing what I’d done, but he was so heavily involved in working with my dad that he just bent over and took the bullshit that he dished out. I couldn’t do it.
I’d been with Brett since we were sixteen and when we’d gone to college thirty minutes away from each other, we’d been planning our wedding after our graduation. Two years into college, I decided to surprise him for our fourth anniversary and had gone all out with the cliché lingerie under a long jacket. Walking into his apartment, I was the one who was surprised when I saw him already celebrating…with two sluts. Walking straight back out again, I drove home, ignoring his calls the whole time. I packed up what I could take, got changed and headed home. Thankfully, I’d decided to call my parents before I’d arrived at theirs and their reaction hadn’t been what I’d expected, so it saved me a face-to-face version of the bullshit that they’d spewed down the phone to me. According to them, Brett was just blowing off steam after his exams, of which he’d had none, and that it was good for him to do that now instead of after we got married.
I’d changed direction and had gone to stay with an old friend to decide what I wanted to do. During that time, my parents, Grant and Brett had called me constantly trying to convince me to come home and drop the drama. The final straw was Brett saying that I’d pushed him to it by not going to the same college as him and that he was a young guy with needs. The fact that I’d been with him just days before obviously meant jack.
