The Reason for Me

by Prescott Lane

  Grinning, he leans over and kisses me. “If the book doesn’t work out, you should get a job writing fortunes. Hashtag ‘choose happy’ could be big.”

  I elbow him gently, looking down at my fortune. “Driver? Maybe it’s telling me it’s time to buy a car. I can’t drive Meg’s forever.”

  “And the motorcycle is in permanent time out,” he says, and I just roll my eyes. “I can take you to look at something.”

  “You mean, you want to police my decision.” He’s already pulling out his phone, searching safest SUVs on the road. “I don’t think I want an SUV,” I say. “I really . . .”

  “SUVs are safer in head-on collisions than cars.”

  You can imagine how the rest of that afternoon went. The man grilled each poor salesperson until they were so frazzled, one actually pulled out a bottle of bourbon and poured himself a glass. Holt didn’t ask about gas mileage, price, or warranty. No, all he cared about were airbags, roadside assistance, blind spot indicators, anti-lock brakes, backup cameras, and something called lane departure warning/mitigation, which apparently can even steer the car for you if you venture too far out of your lane. Some women might grow tired of his overprotectiveness, but it doesn’t really bother me. If Holt caring about me to the extreme is his worse trait, then I can live with that. Besides, I know I’m going to do whatever I want, anyway. Why burst his bubble?

  By the time we walked in his house, I couldn’t tell you the difference between a two-door and a four-door, but I couldn’t resist having a little fun at Holt’s expense. “I’m thinking I want one of those little cars. You know, the ones that look like little squares. That would be good for parallel parking, which I’m not very good at.”

  Grinning, he promptly picks me up and drops me on his bed, pouncing on top of me and giving me a little tickle. “You making fun of me?”

  “Yes,” I laugh out.

  “Maybe I went a little overboard,” he admits.

  “Or maybe you just like telling me what to do.”

  “Hmm,” he moans, his fingers slipping under my shirt. “I’ll make it up to you. I’ll let you tell me what to do.”

  “Okay,” I say. “But I’m still buying that hardtop Jeep I liked.”

  He just shakes his head at me, toying with the button of my jeans.

  Maybe it’s my inexperience, but I’ve never had to tell a man what to do before. Holt knows, and Logan always knew how to read me perfectly, so there’s never been any need. And truthfully, I like the man to be in control in bed, but he’s just reversed the roles on me. Nerves or not, this is one game I don’t want to miss. So my first order is for him to undress.

  He reaches behind with one hand and yanks his shirt over his head, the tan, hard edges of his chest and abs coming into view. Sitting up, I run my fingers down his happy trail, planting a little kiss on the spot right where it disappears.

  Smiling down at me, I know he likes our little game. His fingers find the button of his jeans. He slides down his jeans and boxer briefs in one swift motion, standing before me like a fucking god. He doesn’t seem to have one ounce of self-consciousness, but he’s not arrogant, either, just comfortable in his own skin.

  He really is the very definition of what it means to be a man. He’s got some hair on his chest, but not too much, and when he turns around, the muscles of his back flex and roll. And his arms are strong and hard. Some girls like abs; some like eyes; some go weak in the knees for arms. With Holt, you don’t have to choose. He’s got it all, and right now, he’s mine to do with as I please.

  Reaching out for me, he undoes the button and zipper on my jeans. “I didn’t tell you to do that,” I tease.

  He takes hold of my pants, yanking them down and crawls over me, stalking my body. “Tell me what you want,” he growls.

  With my period still hanging around, sex isn’t in the cards tonight. I’ll just have to use some of that creativity Holt talked about. “You,” I whisper, taking hold of him.

  *

  “I’m nervous,” I say as Holt pulls up in front of the airport. It’s really early in the morning. I’m taking the only flight heading to New York from the Little Rock airport today. It’s the only option because the airport isn’t that big, so I do what I have to do to make it to my afternoon appointment with my potential agent. And I’ll do the same thing tomorrow to make it home in time for my first official date with Holt. “Wish you could come with me.”

  “Me, too,” he says. “That would be a pretty great first date.”

  Taking a deep breath, I check my bag one more time then examine my outfit. Luckily, the airport isn’t crowded, so no one is honking or trying to hurry us along. He leans over, taking my hand. He looks so damn cute in his scrubs, showing off the muscles in his arms. “Remember, you are checking them out as much as they are checking you out. They should be the ones trying to impress you.” He’s delusional. Agents reject thousands of people a month, but it’s sweet to hear him say it, with such conviction in his voice. “You packed your medicine?” he asks. “Remember, you are just getting over . . .” I nod my head forcefully to stop him, but he keeps going. “It’s cold there, so stay bundled up.”

  “And I’ll call you when I land,” I say, beating him to the punch.

  “I’ll miss you,” he says tenderly, his fingers caressing my face. “Can I read your blog while you’re gone?”

  Giving him a little nod, I say, “I’ll be back for our date.” I wrap my arms around him, burying my face in his neck. The smile on my face won’t go away. I never thought I’d have anyone to miss me again. It feels good to be missed, to have someone to miss, someone waiting for me to come home.

  He doesn’t say anything, but he must be feeling the same way I am, choosing to show me how he feels in his actions. He still uses his mouth to communicate, but it’s just not with words. Pulling me to him, his hand winds in my hair. Our tongues battle as he kisses me with such force, like he’s trying to tattoo this feeling into my memory. But he doesn’t need to worry; my heart is incapable of forgetting.

  The Dirty Truth Blog

  November 18

  Your heart has a memory

  Your heart has a memory, and it’s stronger and longer lasting than your brain will ever be. Have you ever noticed how you can have trouble remembering certain things, details? But you can always remember how you felt at a certain moment, in a certain situation. When your mind is fuzzy, your heart stays clear. It remembers.

  You may not remember the specifics about a person, but you’ll always remember how that person made you feel. It’s like emotions are burned into your heart, even if the details aren’t. Works for people, places, and events. It doesn’t matter. If it sparked an emotion in you, it burned itself onto your heart and won’t ever leave.

  *

  HOLT

  “I swear, it’s like you want me to break up with you!” Celeste screamed.

  She and Brent were standing outside the bar where we always hung out, but we could hear her plain as day from inside. And she made a good point. Brent was flirting with other women in front of her. She’s six months pregnant with his child—I’m not sure what he’s thinking.

  Unless Celeste was right, and he’s trying to make her end it, so he doesn’t look like a jerk for bolting after knocking her up. We were fourth year residents, so he’d be finished soon enough and things would get easier. Jason had finished up his residency in anesthesia, and we had one-too-many shots celebrating. I mean, Jason was living proof there’s a life waiting on the other side.

  Celeste had been very careful about what she told me about Brent. I wished Brent was the same way. Dude complained constantly about her cravings, her desire to discuss every detail of her pregnancy, buying things for their daughter. I tried to explain to him that those are all normal things, but he just couldn’t see past how fucking scared he was.

  “Holt?” Brent yelled, opening up the door to the bar. My eyes darted up, seeing Celeste doubled over. Jason and I both bolted for the
door. “Shit, we were arguing. What’s going on?” Brent asked me, his hands moving around wildly, but not touching or comforting her in any way.

  I kneeled down, placing my hands on her belly, her stomach a hard, tight ball. “It hurts, Holt. It really hurts,” she cried, her eyes filled with tears.

  “I know it does,” I said, rubbing her belly gently. “Jason, go get a huge glass of water and hurry.”

  “Is she going to be alright?” Brent asked.

  Celeste’s eyes zeroed in on him. “Me or the baby? Or do you not care about her?”

  “Hey,” I said, directing her eyes to me. “Only me. I just want you to focus on me, on my voice, what I’m saying. Okay?” She nodded a little. “I think everything is fine, but I want to take you to the hospital to be sure. Can you walk?”

  “My car’s right there,” Brent said, reaching out to put his arm around her.

  I stepped aside, giving Brent his rightful place. The door to the bar opened up, and Jason handed me the glass of water.

  “Ugh!”

  My head flipped around, as Celeste doubled over again. “Christ!” I cried. Without thinking, I handed her the glass then scooped her up, carrying her the rest of the way, laying her down in the back seat. Brent hurried around to the driver’s seat, and I patted her leg. “I’ll be right behind you guys. I’ll meet . . .”

  “No,” she cried out, reaching for my hand. “Don’t leave me, Holt. Please.”

  “Go,” Jason said, pushing me inside. “I’ll take care of our tab and meet you guys at the hospital.”

  I’m well over six feet. I don’t know how I crammed myself into the back seat, wedged between the front seat and where she was laying, but I’d have stuffed myself inside a shoe box if I had to. I knew I wasn’t more uncomfortable than she was. Encouraging her to drink by lifting the glass to her mouth, I said, “I think part of the problem is that you might be dehydrated.”

  She glanced at the back of Brent’s head, a reminder that we weren’t alone. “Talk to me,” she said. “Tell me about your mom. How is she?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Celeste. Now’s not the time,” Brent said.

  She grimaced as she was hit with another pain. I reached my hand to her belly and started to rub again. “You got any names picked out yet?” I asked.

  “A few,” she said. “Well, I have a list of about ten.”

  “Tell me.”

  She leaned her head back, her hand finding mine on top of her belly. “I really like things that are different.”

  “Weird,” Brent chimed in on our moment.

  She rolled her eyes. “Gigi,” she said. She must’ve read my expression. “What? You don’t like it?”

  “It’s pretty,” I said. “But isn’t that the name of a popular women’s vibrator?”

  She giggled and playfully smacked me. “You would think of that. Okay, scratch that. How about Kennedy?”

  “But that’s your last name.”

  “I know, but I think it’s really pretty,” she said.

  “It is.” As far as I could tell, Brent wasn’t going to marry her, so that meant her baby’s name would be Kennedy Kennedy. She gave me a sad smile, then squeezed my hand, still rubbing her belly, and moved it under her shirt. I could feel her belly button poking out as I rubbed my hand over her skin. “What else you got?”

  “Well, probably my most normal name is Hannah.”

  “My mom was going to name me Hannah if I was a girl.”

  She started to giggle, filling the car with her sweet sound.

  “We’re here,” Brent said.

  “To be continued,” I told her, doing some Matrix moves to get myself out of the car. Brent ran in and got a wheelchair, and we hustled her right up to the Woman and Child floor. There was no way I was exposing her to the germs of the emergency room.

  “I’m not staying the night, am I?” she asked.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “But . . .”

  “You’re staying,” I say firmly.

  “But I’ve got work tomorrow and . . .”

  “Brent, help me out here,” I said.

  “She won’t listen to me,” Brent said.

  Wheeling her into a room, I wanted to punch Brent. A man is supposed to take care of his girl. “You aren’t working tomorrow,” I said. “You will stay the night. You will stay here in bed all day tomorrow where Brent and I can check on you. Then, if everything is alright, you can go home tomorrow afternoon.”

  “But . . . I . . .”

  I bent down, my hands on the side of her wheelchair. “I’m not your friend right now. I’m your doctor. And I’m telling you the way it is—that you need to rest.”

  I know I can come across as a hard ass, barking orders, but it’s always with the best of intentions, to try to help, to protect.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  I turned to Brent. “Help her into a gown then into bed. I’m going to let the nurses know that I’m admitting her, and grab an ultrasound machine. I’ll be right back.”

  I swear, I wasn’t gone ten minutes when I walked back in the room, and they were fighting all over again. “Brent,” I barked. His eyes closed, his hands clenched into fists. “Why don’t you go to Celeste’s apartment and get her some stuff to stay the night? I’m sure she’ll need a few things, and you will, too.”

  “I’m not staying,” Brent said. “I’ve got to be up in like six hours, and we’ll just end up fighting all night anyway.”

  “Fine, just go,” Celeste cried. “Don’t even wait around to see if your daughter is alright. Just go!”

  “I wasn’t going this exact minute,” he said. “Fuck, I can’t keep doing this.”

  I pulled him towards the doorway. I didn’t want to pull him in the hallway—no privacy there. “Man, what’re you doing?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But all this fighting isn’t good for her or the baby.”

  “Do you love her?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I thought I did. I mean, in the beginning, it was so fun and easy. Sex all the time, and . . .”

  I tuned out for a moment. I didn’t want to hear any of that. “And now?”

  “Now it’s like this all the time. Nothing I do or say is good enough. Everything I do upsets her. Maybe she’d be better off without me.”

  She probably would have been, but it wasn’t my place to say so. And no matter how much I felt like Celeste would be better off with me, I wouldn’t sabotage their relationship. I looked Brent in the eye. “Do you know how many soon-to-be fathers have said that to me? This is your job right now, to love her no matter what. She needs to know that.”

  He nodded a little, and my chest constricted. I might have just saved their relationship. That’s what a friend would do. I was being a good friend to them both, but damn if I didn’t feel like I just got kicked in the balls.

  He turned back and walked to the edge of her bed. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Celeste looked over at me. “It’s alright, let’s just . . .”

  “No,” he said. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore.”

  What the fuck, Brent? What the hell is he doing?

  “You’re breaking up with me right now?” she cried. “When I’m laying in a hospital bed?”

  He looked up at her. “I’m sorry. We can figure out some sort of child support and . . .”

  “What? Money? You want to talk about money?”

  “I just don’t want you to think I won’t support the baby. I know that’s my responsibility and . . .”

  She looked at me in complete disbelief. “You can keep your damn child support, and I’ll keep my daughter. How’s that? You can pretend this never happened, go off to your bar, and stick your dick wherever you want.” She leaned up on her elbows and locked eyes with him. “But know this. You will never be a father to this baby.”

  He gave a nod and walked out. “Brent,” I called out, starting towards him.

  “Let him go,” Celeste said.
>
  “Celeste, I swear to you I was telling him . . .”

  “I heard everything you said to him,” she said.

  She didn’t cry like I expected. She just lay in the hospital bed taking deep breaths. And I just stood there in the awkwardness, searching for something to say or do. “Okay, how about we check on our little girl?”

  She lifted up her shirt and said, “Look at my belly.”

  I placed my hand down on the sides of her bump. “It’s not tight anymore.”

  She looked up at me with those eyes of hers. “It stopped hurting when he said he was leaving.”

  “Let’s take a look anyway,” I said.

  I did a whole gamut of tests on her. I wasn’t going to leave a single stone unturned. It turned out that she and the baby were both fine. I stayed with her all night, sleeping in a chair to make sure. It didn’t matter that I had work the next day. I wasn’t going to leave her alone.

  Morning came with a little knock on the door. Jason’s head popped in. He glanced at me, my sleeping place, then gave her a platonic kiss on the cheek, handing her some flowers.

  “Thank you,” she said, leaning up to give him a hug. “Did you happen to bring me a candy bar, too?”

  I busted out laughing and said, “The baby likes nougat.”

  Jason smiled a little, then waved me out into the hallway. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure,” I said, patting her leg. “I’ll check on you a little later. I’ve got to get started, but you’ve got my number if you need anything.”

  Jason closed the door behind us. “Fuck man, what’re you doing?”

  “I’m not sure . . .”

  “They broke up,” he said.

  “I know. I saw the whole damn thing.”

  “Brent went back to the bar last night,” Jason said, and he didn’t need to go into any more detail. We both know what happened next. “He was our friend first.”

  “What do you expect me to do?” I asked. “Just abandon her like Brent? Because I’ll tell you, the way he’s acting, I’m not sure I want to hang out with that kind of guy.”

  “Maybe more so because you’re in love with his girlfriend,” Jason said.