by Blair Grey
With that, he turned and strode from the restaurant, all the other patrons carefully looking away from him.
“Fuck,” Ray muttered under his breath.
“We’ve got to do the rounds,” I said firmly, shaking my head. “Someone’s got to go around to all of our businesses and see which ones have gone off and paid their dues to the Unknowns.”
“You know we can’t do that,” Ray said, scowling out the window as we watched Lex disappear down the street.
“Why the fuck not?” I asked. “Because the sheriff might find out? Tch. At this rate, there won’t be anything left of Red Eyes even if the sheriff doesn’t find out. We can’t just sit back and do nothing.”
“We’re not going to do nothing,” Ray said peevishly. He finally looked back at me, his gaze sharp and commanding. "We’re going to figure out how to get the sheriff off our backs. And then we’re going to deal with the mess that the Unknowns have created.”
I wanted to shake him. To point out that his plan wasn’t going to work. We didn’t have the time to sit around waiting for the local businesses to complain so that the sheriff would turn his gaze away from us. We needed to act now.
But the only thing I could think of, the only course of action, was to go after the Unknowns with our fists, and that would only get us all locked up in the slammer. No, I needed a better plan than that first.
I just wished that I could think of one.
28
Leila
2 weeks later
Monday
Things were slow at the ER that day, as they often were on Mondays. I took my time filling out the paperwork from each visitor, but there still wasn’t much to do. Fortunately, that was when Rachel showed up. “Hey, I was thinking maybe you could sneak away and we could get some lunch together,” she said. “Gavin’s with his dad today, having ‘guy time’ apparently, so I’m all on my own.” Rachel rolled her eyes at that, but she looked amused.
I laughed. “How’s that going, having him back?” I asked.
“Gosh, it’s great,” Rachel said, but I could tell there was something she wasn’t telling me. When I raised an eyebrow at her, she finally sighed. “We still haven’t talked about him staying home more often,” she admitted. “I want to just enjoy him being home for a little bit first.”
I shook my head. “You know, if you don’t talk to him about it soon, he’s going to have all his trips planned for the next six months and you’re not going to have a chance to argue,” I pointed out.
“I know,” Rachel said quietly. “Can we not talk about it? Can we go for lunch?”
“I already took my lunch break,” I told her. “But there’s nothing going on at the moment, so I could do coffee in the break room if that works for you.”
“Sounds good,” Rachel said. “I just needed to get out of the house, you know? It feels so quiet whenever I don’t have Gavin around.”
I laughed. “I think what that means is you need to find a hobby.”
“But as soon as I find a hobby, I’m going to have to take care of Gavin all the time again,” she sighed.
I hated how down she got about her husband being gone for business all the time. I really wished I could say something, but it needed to come from Rachel herself. And she was too nervous about having that conversation, for whatever reason.
I tried to take her mind off it. “You know, I got my implant taken out so I could get artificially inseminated, and we’re almost done with the final round of bloodwork,” I told her. “I’ve got another meeting with the clinic tomorrow, and I could be inseminated and well on my way to becoming a mother in, like, a week!”
“Oh wow, that’s crazy,” Rachel said, and sure enough, she perked up a little. “So you’ve picked the father and everything by this point?”
“Yeah,” I told her. “Remember that one that I sent you, that Irish guy?”
“Dark curly hair and blue eyes, ooh mama,” Rachel said, smirking at me.
“I’d love for my little angel to have blue eyes,” I said, smiling just thinking about it. “Wouldn’t that be so cute?”
“It would,” Rachel agreed. She shook her head. “I know I was super against the idea of it originally, but I’m glad to see how happy it’s all making you.”
“Yeah, I really am happy. Excited,” I told her. “The thing is, this just feels right. Like, I’m the right age to be doing this, and this is the way that I want to do it. Even if I got married to someone eventually, I wouldn’t want to have to deal with what might happen in the relationship goes south, you know? Call me selfish, but this means my little baby will be mine forever. Or at least until they hit puberty.”
Rachel laughed. “Yeah, I get that,” she said. She shook her head. “I still hope you find the perfect man someday so that you don’t have to worry about any of that stuff anyway, but I’m glad you’re excited about this. And you’re going to make a great mom.”
“I’ve had some good practice,” I joked. “What with Gavin and everything.”
“Hey, anytime you want to take him off my hands and get a little more practice to yourself, you’re welcome to him,” Rachel said.
“But then you would definitely have to have some sort of hobby because you couldn’t just come bother me at work!” I pointed out.
We both laughed. But Rachel still looked serious about something. “How does Marcus feel about all of this?” she finally asked.
I sighed and looked away from her. “We’re not really at that point in our relationship.”
Rachel frowned. “What do you mean? I thought things were going well between the two of you.”
“They are,” I told her. It had been just over two weeks since the fundraiser that he’d helped out at. Three weeks since we had been on our first date. We’d hung out a few more times, and we’d continued sleeping together. I hadn’t brought up the topic of children again, though. It just didn’t seem right.
The problem was, I could tell Marcus wasn’t interested in having children. It wasn’t the way he had pictured his life going; I had to respect that. He had left open the possibility that maybe someday he would want to have children, but I wanted to have children now. I felt like I had been waiting ages already, focusing on my career. It was time to make some changes. To start that next chapter. If he wasn’t ready for his own next chapter, I couldn’t force it on him.
“So if things are going well between the two of you, don’t you think that this is something that you need to talk to him about?” Rachel prodded. “It’s not exactly going to be something that he can ignore. And what if he’s not on board with it? What if he wants to break up with you over this?”
“Then he wasn’t the right guy for me,” I said, shrugging one shoulder. I paused. “I am going to talk to him about it. But I wanted to make sure I knew what I wanted to do first. I didn’t want him to talk me out of it. As much as I like him, I’m not ready to start planning my future based on what he wants.”
“Why not?” Rachel asked.
“We don’t know one another well enough, first of all,” I pointed out. “We’ve only been dating for a couple weeks now, and it’s been strictly casual. I like him, a lot actually, but I don’t know what kinds of things he’s got going on in his real life.”
“And you’re not going to find out about those things unless you guys start trusting each other and maybe making some sort of commitment to one another. Have you even had the conversation yet about whether you’re boyfriend and girlfriend or whatever?”
“Do we really have to have that conversation?” I groaned. “I thought that was something that only high schoolers, or maybe college students, did.”
Rachel shook her head sadly. “If you haven’t defined your relationship yet, then it’s not going to ever be a real relationship.”
I wanted to get angry with the way that she said that as if she was the wisest sage in the universe. But deep down, I knew she was right.
The truth was I wanted to define things with Mar
cus. I wanted to sit down and have all of those long talks. But he seemed determined to keep me at arm’s length. I couldn’t help feeling like we were just having fun together and that was it. He seemed to like me, but he also seemed distracted every time we were out in public together. Like his mind was always on other things.
So I supposed that part of why I didn’t want to sit down and talk to him about the serious, long-term things that might be happening to me was… I didn’t believe he was actually going to be there for any of them. Why stir things up? Why not just enjoy what I had right now? By the time I started to show, he probably wouldn’t be around anymore.
That wouldn’t be fair to him, though. Even if I didn’t think he was going to stick around, I owed it to him to at least have that conversation. If nothing else than so that he wouldn’t assume that the baby was his if he ever found out about it. The last thing I needed was for him to suddenly decide he wanted to have kids and try to sue me for custody. It would just be embarrassing to have to explain in a courtroom that I had been artificially inseminated while I was dating someone else.
“You really don’t think things are going to last with him, do you?” Rachel asked.
“No, honestly,” I sighed. “I mean, what are the odds anyway? Not everyone can find their soul mate. And besides, I always pictured my soul mate to be, I don’t know, different. Less like my father.”
“Look, I don’t know the guy very well, but I knew your father, remember?” Rachel said. “Marcus doesn’t really remind me of him. And he definitely didn’t treat Gavin the way your father used to treat you.”
I wished I could laugh, but instead, I just shook my head. “He has a motorcycle, though,” I reminded Rachel. “I know that’s a stupid thing to say, but he showed up here at the hospital with a knife cut to the arm, and he drives a motorcycle. What conclusions do you want me to draw?”
Rachel didn’t have an answer for that. “Do you need someone to go with you?” she asked. “When you go back to the clinic for your, you know. Insemination.” She said the word in a low voice like she was afraid of who might overhear.
I grinned at her. “Thanks, but I think I can handle it,” I told her. “And I know you don’t like hospitals anyway. Speaking of which…”
“Yeah, I should probably go,” Rachel sighed. “Let you get back to work. I guess I’ll do some grocery shopping or something. We don’t really need anything, but maybe I’ll make something nice for dinner. Do you want to come over?”
“I’ll let you have a few more days of private family time,” I said, giving her a hug since I could tell she was still feeling a little down. “But I’ll see you soon, okay? We’ll have another girls’ day if the guys are going to do ‘manly things’ for whole days.”
Rachel snorted. “That sounds like a plan,” she said.
As I was walking her out, who should walk in those doors but Marcus himself. Rachel grinned and waved at him, then gave me a look. “What was that about?” Marcus asked, watching as Rachel disappeared.
I sighed. As much as I loved Rachel, sometimes I wished she didn’t have to be quite so pushy. I’d meant what I had said before. I didn’t want Marcus to talk me out of this. This wasn’t his decision to make. I had been trying to put this off until I was absolutely sure, which I supposed I was, but I still just wasn’t ready to talk to him about it.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, hoping I could distract him. “Not another knife fight, I hope.”
“No, no knife fights and no injuries,” Marcus said, grinning at me and displaying both arms like he was trying to show me the proof of his statement. “I just came by to check up on you. You’ve been pretty quiet for the last few days, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you think I would tell you if things weren’t okay?” I asked. “I’m not exactly subtle.”
Marcus laughed. “I know,” he said. “And I like that about you.” He glanced toward the doors, clearly still thinking of that look from Rachel. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about, though?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “But I don’t know if this is the place for it.”
I didn’t really know where would be the place, on the other hand. Where was an appropriate place to tell your sort-of-boyfriend that you were getting artificially inseminated?
“I saw the pamphlets,” Marcus said suddenly.
“What pamphlets?” I asked in surprise, even though I had a feeling I knew exactly which pamphlets he was talking about.
“It’s okay, you know. That you’re going to be working for the sperm bank as well.” He paused. “I don’t know why you feel like you need to pick up work since it seems like you’re pretty busy here already. But I don’t mind that you’re going to be handling other guys’ spunk. Or are you quitting this job and going over there permanently?”
Oh god, of course he would think that I was going to be working for them. Because he wouldn’t suspect that I was going to actually try to get pregnant at the clinic, no. That would just be weird, wouldn’t it?
I sighed and led him into one of the examination rooms, not wanting everyone else in the hospital to overhear us. “I’m not quitting this job,” I said. “I’m not going to work for the clinic.”
“Oh. Okay,” Marcus said, his brow furrowing.
I took a deep breath. “I’m trying to get artificially inseminated,” I told him. “I’m going to have a baby. I hope."
Marcus simply stared at me for a long moment. “That’s ridiculous,” he finally said.
“How is that ridiculous?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. Don’t let him talk you out of it, I reminded myself. Rachel hadn’t been able to talk me out of it, and she was my best friend. If she couldn’t talk me out of it, Marcus shouldn’t be able to, either.
But I knew that even though Rachel was my best friend, there were certain things that she couldn’t promise me. Things that Marcus could. Things that might change my mind, even though I didn’t want them to.
Sure enough: “Look, I know I said I hadn’t thought about having kids, not yet. But I never said I didn’t want kids,” Marcus said peevishly. “Are you expecting me to propose to you right now or something? Is this some kind of weird leveraging thing?”
“No!” I said. “I’ve met with the clinic a few times now, and I got the birth control taken out of my arm. I’ve got just a little more bloodwork to go, and then it’s all going to be sorted out.”
“What the hell is the hurry?” Marcus snapped. “And why do you feel like you need to get artificially inseminated? We can get pregnant when we’re good and ready. There’s no damned hurry.”
“Marcus,” I said, trying to figure out a way to explain. Jesus, how did I tell him that as much as I liked him, I just didn’t want to get pregnant by him? It had nothing to do with him at all.
Marcus shook my hand off his arm. “You seemed pretty interested in the sex,” he said, as though that might even somehow be the problem.
“I am!” I insisted.
“Then why the hell are you doing this?” Marcus snarled.
“Because I want to,” I said helplessly, shrugging. I paused. “Look, I’m not asking for your permission. I’m sorry, but I’ve already made my decision.”
Marcus stared at me for a long moment, and I thought he was going to shout at me some more or else try to persuade me not to do it. And at that moment, I knew that I could be persuaded. If he wanted to have kids with me, if he wanted me to wait, if that was the only way I could keep him in my life? I might just do it. I might just wait.
But instead, he just gave me a look of disgust and turned around, stalking out of the room and letting the door slam shut behind him.
I felt my whole body deflate, and I leaned back against the counter as my legs suddenly went weak. I knew I should have just been honest with him from the beginning. Before we had gotten all of our feelings tangled up in this. I had been thinking about artificial insemination since before he
came on the scene. It wasn’t my fault that I hadn’t wanted to change my plans just because things were going well between us.
I never should have gotten so involved with him, though. I had known he wasn’t going to stick around. That he wasn’t going to be there for me forever. But I had let myself hope that maybe I was reading the situation wrong. That maybe he wasn’t just who I thought he was.
It wasn’t fair to say that this was his fault, though. No, if I never saw him again, I knew exactly where the blame lay. This was my fault for springing that on him. A pregnancy. Who wanted to date someone who was pregnant with someone else’s kid? Even if I hadn’t actually slept with that other guy. It was just weird.
I swallowed hard, feeling as though I had just lost something. But that was ridiculous. We had never defined our relationship to begin with. I had never had him to begin with. No matter what I might have wanted.
29
Marcus
Monday
As I stalked out of the hospital, I couldn’t deny how badly I want to hit something. Put any of the Unknowns in front of me right then, or hell, the sheriff, and I would have beaten that guy to a fucking pulp.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what Leila had said. Artificial insemination. Was she fucking serious? But she had been—that was the thing. I had seen the pamphlets, and I had assumed it was some sort of work thing. Or maybe something to do with Rachel. Maybe Rachel wanted to have another kid, a sibling for Gavin, and things just weren’t working out. Or something.
What a shock to find out it wasn’t. What a shock to find out that it was for Leila.
I still didn’t understand, and that pissed me off. There was no hurry, was there? We were both still relatively young. We had time to figure things out.
