by Blair Grey
But that wasn’t what really got to me. No, the part that really bothered me was the fact that she hadn’t even talked to me about it. The fact that she had made all these life-changing decisions without even telling me that she was thinking about any of this. Because sure, we might be relatively new to dating, but I was pretty sure we had both made it clear to the other that we wanted to keep doing this. So her pregnancy wouldn’t just affect her; it would affect me as well.
If I stuck around long enough to let it.
Did she think that little of me? She didn’t think I was going to keep dating her, so she didn’t think it was going to be an issue? It wasn’t something that she needed to talk to me about?
That pissed me off. We might not have figured out all the details of our relationship just yet, but I was pretty sure I had made it clear I cared about her.
Whatever, though. I didn’t have time to think about all of that. I had enough shit on my plate at the moment.
And that was really what it came down to: I just had too much going on already. I couldn’t possibly think of having a kid right now, not when we were still dealing with the Unknowns and with the sheriff sniffing around Red Eyes business. Fortunately, the sheriff seemed to have finally gotten bored and turned his attention to other matters, so the MC was back to work again. It didn’t mean things were back to normal, but it was at least better than it had been for the past couple of weeks.
Speaking of which… I glanced at my watch. Almost time for the newly reinstated weekly meeting at the clubhouse. I was a little early, but I decided to head over there anyway. Otherwise, I might actually go seeking out trouble, just in an attempt to cool my rage.
What the fuck was Leila thinking?
To be honest, though, I felt kind of bad for yelling at her. It was her life and her body. I should have tried to understand why she was so ready to have a baby right now. Why this was the route that she wanted to take, rather than just shouting about how ridiculous it was and storming out of there. But I couldn’t help feeling pissed, even if it meant I had upset her.
The news at the weekly meeting didn’t help. It was eerily silent when I went in there, even though Ray wasn’t even there yet. It was as though we were all waiting in terse silence for him to show up. There was none of the usual joking around or hanging out.
I dropped into a seat on the couch, feeling suddenly exhausted. There was just too much going on already, and now with everything with Leila on top of it, it was starting to get to me. Maybe it was time I pulled a Will. Maybe it was time I drew back from the MC. I didn’t need this shit.
But as tempted as I was to just take off, I knew that I owed something to these guys. There might not be any joking around right now, but these guys were still the closest to family I would probably ever have. I couldn’t turn my back on them, and I especially couldn’t turn my back on Ray.
When Ray came in, he looked just as tired as I felt. “Hate to say it, boys, and I’m sure you already all know this, but our numbers aren’t looking very good,” he said, glancing over at Cameron. “Wish I could tell you that we were meeting all of our objectives and that there was a big fat paycheck coming at each of you, but instead, I’ve got some bad news.” He cleared his throat. “It seems that the other MC is really taking over.”
“Don’t call them an MC,” Braxton said, hot-tempered as ever. “They’re a bunch of fucking pansies, the lot of them.”
Ray rolled his eyes. “Whatever they are, they’ve taken over a lot of our business while the sheriff was messing with us,” he said. “I hate to say it, but I don’t know what to do.”
There was silence in the room. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Well, if you would just quit jerking off over the whole Lex situation, maybe we wouldn’t have this problem,” I snarled. “I don’t know; maybe if you just stood up to Lex, things would be better. Handle that shit.”
Ray fixed me with a cool stare. “And as soon as I go after Lex, what do you think our friend the sheriff does?” he asked. He looked around at each of us. “I know it sucks,” he said. “I know everyone wants to get a piece of those suckers. But I don’t think I have to remind you that the second we swing a fist at the Unknowns, our asses are going to be hauled off to jail. Even if they have to trump up some stupid charges to get the sentence to stick.”
“So, what, we’re just going to continue to sit around with our thumbs up our asses?” I snapped. “That’s a great fucking plan.”
Again, Ray looked like he wanted to box me around the ears. But he held his temper. “Eventually, and I would say sooner rather than later, this all has to blow over,” he said. “Right now, we’re already seeing the sheriff start to focus on other matters. I think he’ll start looking into the Unknowns pretty soon as well. A lot of the local businesses, even though they’ve paid their dues to the Unknowns, aren’t exactly happy about the changeover. We just need to wait for now. Be patient. Don’t get caught out.”
I made a noise of disgust, but when I looked around the room, everyone else was nodding like they understood. Like they agreed. How the hell was I the only person who saw that this plan wasn’t working? Sitting around waiting to see what the Unknowns would do next, that was a recipe for disaster. That was how people got hurt. Innocent people like Leila, who weren’t even involved in the MC.
It was no wonder she wanted nothing to do with me. She must sense that I couldn’t protect her. Apparently Red Eyes couldn’t protect anything anymore, not even the territory we’d held for years now, not even our goddamned clubhouse.
I got up in disgust and walked out. If that was Ray’s plan, to do nothing, then I didn’t need to hear anything else. And the longer I sat there, the more likely it was that I was going to choose to turn all my earlier anger at him. I just couldn’t seem to hold it back.
Cameron caught me when I was halfway down the block. He wasn’t a strong guy, but his grip on my wrist was nearly bruising. “Hey,” he said sharply.
“What?” I snarled. “Does Ray have some stupid message for me about how my behavior is uncalled for? Because if so, you can tell him where to shove it.”
Cameron stared at me for a long moment and then took a step back, holding his hands out to either side. “Dude, are you okay?” he asked. “Should we go for a drink?”
I could see the concern on his face, and that just made me even angrier, irrationally. We were all like a family, and I knew that my outburst back in the clubhouse had been uncalled for. As pissed as I was about this whole situation with the Unknowns, about the lack of action, I didn’t really want to challenge Ray.
He wasn’t really the one that I was mad at. I was just so sick of feeling helpless, like I couldn’t do anything right, and like everything was just piling on.
But I didn’t want to talk to Cameron about it, even though I definitely did need that drink. “I have to go,” I said, turning away from him and walking quickly down the street.
30
Leila
Tuesday
I headed over to the clinic on Tuesday morning for that last round of bloodwork. “Good news,” the consultant said when she came back into the room. “Everything looks like it’s perfect for you. All that’s left is to schedule the insemination appointment. If you’re sure that you want to do this.”
“I’m sure,” I said, smiling at her in an attempt to cover up how nervous I really was.
I hadn’t slept well the previous night. I couldn’t seem to quit thinking about Marcus’s reaction to my news. I didn’t know what I had expected. But I guess in part of my mind, I’d hoped that he would find it in himself to be excited for me. I wanted to share this big news with him. I wanted someone to be as excited about this as I was.
That wasn’t fair to him, and I knew it. I should never have expected that. It was just that Rachel—although she had mostly come around to the idea of it—still wasn’t excited for me. She wanted me to do exactly what she’d done: find a man, get married, have kids. Have that normal
sort of life. She didn’t understand why I didn’t want that for myself. Or rather, she understood why, but she didn’t necessarily support it. She still kept reminding me that not everyone was going to be like my father was.
And I knew that, but that didn’t change things. I wanted a child. I was ready to take that next step in my life, and I wanted a child who would never have to worry about who his biological father was. Who could have all the good from his father without learning any of the man’s bad traits.
Or something like that.
I supposed what it really came down to was that I wanted to talk to Marcus about this. He was a smart guy. I wanted to discuss my reasons; I wanted for him to help me understand why I had such a conviction that this was the right thing to do. I didn’t really understand it, myself. I just knew that this felt right. But Marcus clearly didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want anything more to do with me.
The consultant clicked through some things on her computer. “Oh, wow, you’re actually in luck,” she said. “If you want, we’ve got an appointment slot that opened up this afternoon. We could have you hopefully on your way to pregnancy today.”
“Oh wow,” I echoed. “That soon.” But it wasn’t that I didn’t like the sound of that. In fact, it only made me even more excited.
“I do have to warn you again that it might not take the first time,” the woman reminded me. “We’ve checked you out, though, and you are fertile right now. And the great thing about that implant is that you can get pregnant pretty much right away afterward, without having to worry about your hormones being all wonky like with other types of birth control. I’d say there’s a pretty good chance that you could conceive this afternoon. Otherwise, we can wait until your next cycle.”
“No, that sounds good,” I told her. “This afternoon.”
“Okay, perfect,” the woman said, clicking a few buttons on the screen. “You’re all set, then. Come back at one-thirty p.m. and we’ll work our magic.”
I laughed. “All right.”
I headed outside and immediately called Rachel. “Can you meet me for lunch?” I asked her.
“Uh oh, what’s going on?” she asked, but she sounded distracted.
“Are you busy?”
“Yeah, sort of,” Rachel said. “Sorry, I’m driving. What’s up?”
I didn’t want to tell her about it over the phone, but I didn’t want to drag her away from whatever she was doing as well. I took a deep breath. “They’ve got me in an appointment for this afternoon.”
“I thought you were supposed to have all the bloodwork done this morning,” Rachel said. I could hear the frown in her voice.
“I did,” I told her. “And all of that looked good, and we went to schedule an appointment for the actual insemination, and they said I’m ovulating right now and that they could fit me in for this afternoon.”
“Yikes,” she said, which wasn’t exactly the reaction that I had been going for. “I mean, that’s awesome, congratulations. Just, wow, that came up fast.”
“It did,” I agreed. “But I still am just so certain about this.”
Rachel was silent for a moment, and I knew exactly what she was going to ask next. “Did you tell Marcus about it?”
“Yeah, I did,” I admitted. “Yesterday.”
“And?”
I sighed. “He’s not happy about it.”
Rachel sighed as well. “Don’t you think that maybe that’s a sign that you should wait, then?” she asked. “I know it’s your body and your life and your decision and everything. But what if you waited just a month or two? Figured out this thing with Marcus first. Or at least had a little more fun with him before you sign yourself up for motherhood.”
“But if I do that, there might not be any of this guy’s sperm left,” I protested. “I might have to choose a different donor.” That wasn’t the real problem, and I knew that. And I knew that Rachel knew that as well. I paused. “I don’t want to give him this,” I finally admitted. “I don’t want to let him have control over my life. I don’t want him to tell me that I can’t do this.”
“Oh honey,” Rachel said. “You’re not giving him control over your life by not getting pregnant today. You’re just hitting the pause button. Thinking things over. Maybe doing a little bit of compromising. That’s what relationships are all about.”
“I don’t want that, though,” I said impatiently. “I want a child. Even if that means that Marcus won’t be a part of my life any longer.”
I could tell that Rachel had a lot more to say, but I could hear honking in the background. “I should let you go,” I told her. “You shouldn’t be on the phone while you’re driving anyway.” I hung up before she had a chance to respond.
I felt kind of petty, cutting her off like that. But she just didn’t understand where I was coming from. The perfect guy wasn’t just going to fall out of the sky in front of me. Marcus was far from the perfect guy for me. As much as I liked him, maybe his refusal to accept that I wanted to have a kid was a good thing. Maybe it meant that we would break things off now when it was still relatively easy to break things off.
It still hurt, but not as much as it would if I knew him for even longer. If I had been on even more dates with him.
Because even though I knew he wasn’t right for me, even though he was the kind of guy I could never have imagined myself with, there was absolutely nothing wrong with our dates. He was charming, he was funny, he was adventurous, and he was sexy. He hadn’t balked when I had taken him to one of my favorite ethnic-food places, even though as he said, the only food he had ever eaten with his hands before was tacos, burgers, or pizza.
We had fun together. And I knew that the more time I spent with him, the more difficult it was going to be to disentangle my life from his.
This gave us a clean break. He didn’t want to be around while I was pregnant. He didn’t want to have a kid with me. He thought it was—in his words—ridiculous. He thought this was ridiculous. He wasn’t ready to settle down yet.
And that was part of the appeal to him. The wild side, the adventure. It was part of what I liked. Maybe once he had a kid, I wouldn’t like him as much anyway. Now, I wouldn’t have to find out. Now, I could just look back on all of this with fond memories of that one time I had dated the biker dude.
I was looking ahead as well, though. I was going to have a kid. A little boy or a little girl. Someone that Gavin could look out for. Someone he could play with. He or she would be like a little cousin for him.
This felt like the best decision I could possibly make. I felt some mild regret, knowing that things were surely over with Marcus. But I was so busy looking ahead, and I knew I was going to have plenty to occupy me.
I went back to the clinic for my afternoon’s appointment and was shown back to one of the rooms. The same consultant from earlier came in, but she had a weird look on her face. “It’s a good thing that you’re already sitting, because I have some news for you,” she said.
I frowned at her. “Is something wrong?” I asked. Maybe they had run out of sperm for the donor I had chosen. Or maybe there had been a glitch in the system, and they had actually double-booked this appointment? They wouldn’t be able to inseminate me that afternoon after all?
“There’s nothing wrong. But unfortunately, it turns out that when we sent your blood sample to the lab earlier, one of the technicians accidentally ran the tests on some of the old blood draws that we did, rather than the one we did this morning,” she said.
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. It was a simple enough mistake, I was sure. They were probably all kept in the same tray. The person should have checked the date on the sample a little more closely, maybe, but that wasn’t the end of the world. “So what you’re saying is I have to wait half an hour or whatever for them to run the tests again?” I asked. “I don’t mind waiting. I don’t have anything else that I need to do this afternoon.”
“It’s not exactly that,” the consultant said, lo
oking awkward. “I know this isn’t exactly the news you want to hear, but we can’t do the insemination.”
I felt panic grip my chest. “Is there something wrong?” I was good about getting all my checkups, and theoretically, if there was something wrong with me, it should have shown up in my earlier bloodwork, I would think. Unless it was something, some disease that was just showing up now. God, what could it be? Was it terminal?
What would I do if it was?
“We can’t do the insemination because you’re already pregnant,” the woman said.
I stared at her as if she had grown two heads. “What?” I asked blankly. Already pregnant?
“Congratulations. It looks like you don’t need us after all,” the consultant said, as though it were some great thing.
I wanted to ask how this was possible, but I already knew. I had had the implant in my arm for so long, replacing it whenever I needed to, that I hadn’t even thought to tell Marcus when I’d had it removed. I’d known that theoretically, I could get pregnant pretty soon thereafter. But I’d expected that my cycle would have to normalize first, before I could get pregnant. Was it possible that that wasn’t the case?
What were the chances, though?
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Why don’t I give you a minute?” the consultant suggested kindly.
I nodded absently, but I barely heard her. What the hell was I going to tell Marcus? He hadn’t been excited by the idea of having children already. Would he even believe that it was his, or would he think that I was trying to trick him into believing that it was his, when really, I’d been artificially inseminated?
And did I really want him to know?
I felt like I had to tell him. I felt like I was obligated to. But at the same time, that would open up all the complications I didn’t want. What if Marcus wanted to have a say in the kid’s upbringing, even if he and I didn’t stay together? What if one day he wanted to take the kid away from me? If he knew that the kid was his, he would have every right to custody. Especially since with the hours I worked at the hospital, it would be easy enough for a court to rule that I couldn’t provide a stable upbringing for my child.
