by Katy Kaylee
The silence in the room was deafening loud as Hollie looked from me to her father, then back to me again.
“You’re kidding, right?” Hollie asked with a nervous giggle. “I mean, Dad, it’s August. Not April. Not the best time for a practical joke.”
I cleared my throat. “It’s true,” I told her. “Harrison is the father of my baby.”
Hollie’s eyes bulged and she swallowed audibly. “Um ...”
“I know,” I said quickly. “I know it’s totally crazy.”
“And Paris and I are going to be married,” Harrison said.
“When?” Hollie asked in a hushed whisper. “How ... how long has this been going on?”
“Only since the beginning of the summer,” I said. I felt miserably guilty as I looked at the hurt and betrayal and confusion on the face of my best friend and she began piecing the puzzle together.
Hollie gulped.
“And as soon as possible,” Harrison said, looking at me. “If that’s what Paris wants, at least.”
I nodded. I may not have been all that traditional, but I definitely wanted to be Harrison’s wife before the baby came.
“I can’t believe it,” Hollie said softly. She looked so hurt that I felt my heart ache, and I went to her and dropped to my knees before taking her hand in my own.
“Hollie, I never, ever wanted to hurt you,” I said quickly. “But I can’t help loving your father. I’ve loved him ever since he saved me a decade ago. And I love him even more now.”
“And I love Paris very, very much,” Harrison said seriously. “And Hollie, I hope you can understand how much she means to me. I never meant for it to happen, and I tried to hide my feelings for a long time, but now that it has, I wouldn’t trade it or give it up for anything.”
Hollie was quiet for a long moment as she processed what we had just told her. I watched her face as a wide range of emotions passed through her eyes.
“I understand,” Hollie said. She bit her lip. “I ... I guess when it comes down to it, I just want the people I love to be happy.”
Tears came to my eyes and I blinked them away quickly. I could tell that Hollie was still hurt, and that she’d take a long time to fully understand, but the fact that she was willing to try meant the world to me.
“I’d love for you to be my maid of honor,” I said. “That is, if you want to.”
Hollie’s face broke out into a slow smile. “Of course,” she said, reaching for me and pulling me into a hug. When we pulled apart, she put her hand on my belly.
“Crazy, right?” I teased.
Hollie nodded faintly. “Looks like I’m about to finally get that sibling huh, Dad? Good thing I love kids.”
Harrison and I both laughed. He pulled Hollie into a hug, then me, and I finally realized that everything in my life wasn’t just okay.
It was perfect.
Epilogue
Paris – Six Months Later
“Suck in!” Hollie said. She giggled as she tugged the zipper of my wedding dress. It was fitted – probably not one of my better ideas – and I gasped and strained and clutched the wall as Hollie fumbled with the zipper.
I was nine months pregnant, and due in just a couple of weeks. After a rushed couple of moths planning our wedding, Harrison and I were all set to become man and wife.
I was so happy that I couldn’t believe it.
Finally, Hollie got the zipper all the way up. “You look beautiful,” she said. “Like a Madonna.”
I flushed as she spun me around to look in the mirror. My face was radiant and glowing, and my thick auburn hair was piled on top of my head. My breasts were bigger than they’d ever been, but they were nothing compared to my belly. The dress was long-sleeved and fitted, with a princess skirt and a tight bodice that ended with my hips. The whole thing was sequined and lace, and I felt like royalty wearing such a beautiful gown.
I hugged Hollie. “I’m so happy that we’re about to become family forever,” I confessed to her.
Hollie nodded. “It’s not exactly how I expected things to end up, but I couldn’t be happier now,” she said. Then she wrinkled her nose. “Especially after all the stuff I found about Mom and her asshole husband, Mitchell.”
I frowned.
“He refused to write me a recommendation,” Hollie said flatly. “But whatever. Water under the bridge, right?”
I nodded. Only good times now.
“I think I’m going to love having you for a stepmother,” Hollie teased. “Despite the fact that I’m six months older than you. You’d better give me a good allowance,” she added, winking at me.
I flushed.
The ceremony was perfect, but to be honest, I was hardly paying attention. I couldn’t pay attention to anything other than the look in Harrison’s eyes as he watched me walk down the aisle and take my place at his side. His hand in mine was warm and strong, and the words of the officiant filled my heart with joy. This was real. This was forever. Harrison, the man whom I had always loved, was about to become my husband and I his wife.
I knew that he loved me – that he’d always love me, and take care of me, and protect me and our child together. We were perfect for each other, and that was that. There was nothing else to it, we were soulmates.
When it came time for the vows, I was nearly crying. As Harrison said, ‘I do,’ I felt my heart swell to three times its size.
“I do,” I repeated.
And just like that, we were man and wife.
As we were in the back of a limo on the way to the reception, I felt a pang in my belly. It was sharp and short and left me heaving for breath.
“It’s too early,” I said, gasping.
“What?” Harrison gave me a confused look. “What’s too early?”
Before I could say anything else, I felt a rush of warm, wet fluid between my legs and I gasped again.
“Go to the hospital,” Harrison barked. “My wife is having our baby!”
The driver turned the limo with a vicious yank of the steering wheel and we were suddenly on the way to the hospital as my labor pains began in earnest. I began to sweat and cry, worried that I was about to have my baby in the back of a limo. As we arrived at the hospital, a nurse rushed out with a wheelchair and helped me into it, wheeling me inside. Everyone was staring at me, the pregnant redhead stuffed into a wedding dress, but I hardly noticed as they wheeled me into the emergency room and helped me onto a bed. A doctor arrived and lifted my skirt, his eyes growing wide.
“She’s crowning already,” he cried loudly. The room became a blur and a rush of doctors and nurses as the doctor began ordering me to push. I couldn’t believe it – I’d always heard that labor took painful hour after hour, but this wasn’t bad at all. It just felt like I had a bad stitch in my side, like after running, and I gasped and grunted and heaved and pushed.
“One more push!” The doctor yelled. “And then we’ll be there!”
The pain started for real, white-hot pain that left me gasping and screaming. I clutched Harrison’s hand and pushed harder than ever, until I felt like I was about to split in two.
Seconds later, the air was filled with the sound of a shrieking baby and the doctor lifted a bloody, mewling infant into the air. Harrison cut the cord, and the doctor handed the baby to a nurse. When the nurse handed me our baby, cleaned and wrapped in a pink towel, I gasped with happiness.
“She’s completely healthy, you’re very lucky,” the nurse said, beaming.
Harrison leaned in and gave me a kiss. “She’s perfect,” he said. “Don’t you think?”
I was exhausted, but I reached for his hand and squeezed it.
“You’ve made me the happiest man alive,” Harrison said. He leaned down and kissed my forehead.
“I’m happy that this baby is going to have two parents who love her,” I said softly, looking down at our daughter. “And that we’ll be there for her, no matter what. She’ll have the childhood that I always wanted.”
When I looke
d at Harrison, I was surprised to see that he was blinking back tears.
“I swear,” he said in a husky voice. “I’ll make our lives together everything that you’ve ever wanted.”
I felt tears of my own spring to my eyes as I shook my head.
“No,” I said softly. “Everything that we’ve wanted.”
As I held our baby girl in my arms, rocking her back and forth and looking down at her sweet face, Harrison stood by us. He put his hand on my shoulder and smiled down at his family.
I was filled with love. I’d been through hell and back, and I finally had the happiness and peace that I’d always wanted.
And with Harrison, Hollie, and my new baby girl, I knew that my life would be perfect forever.
***The End***
Ex-Boyfriend’s Dad
Description
What do you do when you are seeking an escape via a dating site and the man you meet…
Well, he’s your ex boyfriend’s dad!
In my defense, I did not know it.
I just fell for his… charm…and… his toned abs, and s$xy eyes, and strong arms...
I could go on and on.
Everything’s working out well until my ex shows up…again.
But this time, there are secrets and repercussions.
And a baby too.
OMG…how am I going to handle so much!
Prologue: Christina
Tears began to fall from my eyes. Each one landed on my stained pillow. Every tear was heavier and saltier than the one before. I tried my best to hold each one back. Somehow more tears fell helplessly from my eyes. I restlessly tossed back and forth inside my bed of crumpled sheets and cookie crumbs. The sound of my heart breaking pierced my eardrums. The tone of my mother’s stern voice playing loudly inside my head repeated, “Christina, you’re making a big mistake with your life. You’re going to live to regret it, trust me.”
I hated to admit it that my mother was right. I was a fool to trust and believe in all the dreams Macon sold me about our life together. He promised me we could make it out on our own in the world. Be a power couple and travel the world as all our friends envied us from their pathetic day jobs. I loved Macon! Perhaps I loved his promised dreams more.
His boyish good looks, dazzlingly blue eyes, washboard abs, dimpled chin, deep baritone, edgy bad-boy persona, and wanderlust attitude about life set my loins on fire. Macon was everything I wasn’t in a lot of ways. I was soft-spoken and quirky at times. Macon was boisterous and assertive when he wanted to be. I could fall asleep easily inside his arms as his soft lips caressed mine. Macon believed in me. He saw something inside of me that I sometimes didn’t see within myself. He was everything I wanted in a partner, lover, and a friend. No other man could ever love me as deeply and passionately as Macon has in my life. That’s why I promised to save myself for him on our wedding night. I knew in my heart that Macon was the one for me. Period.
I promised myself that I would go wherever his heart desired in this world. If we were together, we could do anything. The world was truly ours, and nothing or no one could stop us. Except Macon.
Shortly after I finished college, Macon and I moved into a trailer home. It was supposed to be fun and adventurous.
“This is awesome,” he proclaimed and I looked at the retro-era trailer parked at the end of an alley near the docks with doubt.
“You sure? Looks sort of dismal and depressing.”
He pulled me to him. “Not when we get in the bed,” he promised with a wink. “How much space does a bed need?”
Naturally, it was what he wanted, so I fell in with the plan. At the time the trailer seemed like a good idea. We planned to save money for a place and a car. During the day, I put in applications at youth developmental centers as a counselor. I knew Milwaukee would be a great place for me to start my career and use my psychology degree. It was rough in the beginning, especially for Macon. I’d come home dragging after a day of scouring the city for an appropriate job. As soon as I’d open the door to the trailer, I knew what I’d find. I could hear the gun blasts and annoying dance club music in the background from one of his favorite video games.
“Hi!” I tried to remain cheerful, even though I knew where things were headed; the same place as every other day.
Macon quickly waved a hand and it flashed back to the controller as if it operated his bodily functions. “Any luck?” he’d call out if I happened to arrive as he waited for the game to advance a level.
“Did I get any phone calls?”
“Nope.”
“Then I guess not.” We shared one cell phone between us—mine. “How about you?”
“Huh? Oh, didn’t feel up to getting out today. Maybe tomorrow,” he’d bribe me to not give him a hard time. I’d heard it so many times, it had become as normal as, “Would you pass the salt?”
“Oh, really? This place is a disaster, Macon. There’s nothing to eat; the cupboard is literally bare! You can’t even shut the refrigerator door.” I grabbed a bag of cookies I’d squirreled away at the back of the lowest shelf in the kitchen. I knew Macon would never find them. He wouldn’t waste the energy to stoop. Lugging the bag, along with a glass of water, I settled onto the end of the sofa where he was playing his games.
Macon was darting sidelong looks at me as he played. “Where’d you get those?”
“Had them.”
“Are there more?”
“Nope.”
“Share? You’ll get fat.”
“Good. Maybe I’ll have better luck finding a job.” I knew he hated when I ate cookies. I smacked them loudly, slurping the water down after each one.
“You’re being a bitch,” he commented with rancor. I flew off the sofa with the last cookie in hand and getting down into his face, I popped it into my mouth. He tried to grab it away, but dropped the controller and cursed. I took advantage of the moment to walk around him and head for the bedroom, such as it was. I began stuffing things in a bag.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he interrogated me.
“Leaving you.”
“Cool, but you should probably know that the trailer rent renewal notice came in the mail yesterday. I signed your name to renew and mailed it back. Looks like you’re stuck here for another year.”
I glared for long moments at him and then shoved him aside as I walked to the front part of the trailer where he kept his cycle, a gift from his father. Pulling the only butcher knife we owned from its place in the drawer, I madly stabbed both tires.
Macon turned and began unplugging his game console, throwing it into a plastic grocery bag. He shouldered the bike and left on foot down the alley.
At first, I felt the rush of triumph. Then came the realization that I was alone again and had no way to support myself. I was always doing odd jobs that would pay enough for maybe one bill. No matter how many applications I completed, my phone was not ringing. At the first sight of trouble, things between Macon and me had begun to change significantly. Something as small as taking out the trash led to an argument. Some days we’d go to bed mad and then tried again the next day. But, somehow after a while, the flame that Macon and I once had for each other gradually went out. After he’d left, I’d cleaned out what he hadn’t taken with him from his drawer. I found a picture of a man about our age, longish hair, one earring and an inscription on the back. “To Macon, Love Always, Matt.” The photo was dog-eared and crusty. I sniffed it and it smelled of cum. That answered the reason Macon had paid little attention to me once he’d moved into the trailer. On one side I was crushed; but on the other, I was relieved that I’d discovered the truth.
I’d always tried to have a positive attitude about most things. But Macon always complained that I was nagging and being unappreciative of all the things he did. His idea of picking up was stacking his Marvel comics and wiping down his keyboard with alcohol to clean the pizza grease from its keys. He didn’t understand that I wasn’t his mother. He just didn’t understand being
an adult in general. At some point, we began to become less than lovers and more like roommates.
Finally, Macon was gone. He’d moved on to an “easier” life somewhere and I was left with the full load of bills, and still no job. I felt overwhelmed and alone. Every thought in my mind led to a problem with no solutions. A part of me wanted to go back home to my parent’s house and deal with the backlash of my mistakes. Meanwhile, the other part of me, the part of me that I loved the most wanted to keep fighting and believing. I knew my parents loved me and wanted the best for me. But I felt like I needed to figure it out on my own first. I grieved for a full day, baking cookies—and eating them. Then the dough was gone, in both senses of the word and I had to find life again, on my own.
The alarm on my cell phone began to chime. Tempted to hit the snooze button, I crawled out of bed. I stepped over dingy clothes in a pile on the floor, stale chips, and a pair of my running shoes from college. Everywhere I turned inside the tiny trailer, I was reminded of just how disgusting and pathetic my life was that day. I did my best to block out the horrors of my living arrangement and stumbled inside the bathroom. The chilly toilet seat greeted my backside as my chipped toenail polish stared back at me. With only half a roll of tissue left in the trailer, I ripped off a few sheets and flushed. I pushed my long blonde strands from my face and stared at my reflection in the grimy mirror. I splashed some lukewarm water across my face and dried my eyes with the back of my hand. My freckled cheeks and sparkly blue eyes gleamed in the bathroom lights. My father’s chin and thin pink lips caused me to laugh on the inside. No matter how much older I became, my father’s facial features would always be more distinct to me. My charming eyes and long blonde tresses were all my mother. I saw a glimmer of my former self staring back at me. I smiled confidently knowing that everything will be okay. Sooner or later, everything would be okay.
