Cocky Baby Daddy (Cock of the Walk Duet Book 2)

by Rose Harper

“You have to get out of this apartment,” Alex said, slapping me on the ass.

  “Nope,” I replied, no emotions in my voice.

  It’d been a month since I came back from my mother’s wedding. The only thing I did nowadays was go to work and come home. That was better than what I did when we first arrived home. It took Alex two weeks to get me to return to work. I wouldn’t leave my bed, much less the apartment.

  All my work had been forwarded to me, and she went to all of my meetings. I was surprised that I hadn’t been fired yet. Amazingly, Alex explained my situation, and my kick-ass boss understood it all. Told me to take off as long as I wanted, only stipulation was I needed to get my work completed. I was happy for that, because even if my job had been threatened, no one would have been able to get me out of this apartment.

  I missed meals, missed showers, and above all missed Brad. He’d treated me like shit, but I still loved the bastard. I knew from the moment Cherish’s eyes met mine that she was fucking lying about the child being his. However, being the good man that Brad is, he fucking believed her. But I’d gotten that bitch back. It may have taken me a decade to grow some balls, but I finally did and smacked that bitch across the face.

  Some people would probably say that I was hurting the baby. Well I say boo fucking hoo; her face wasn’t pregnant. I didn’t wish ill on the child because it wasn’t the baby’s fault. The mother, however, was a trashy gutter slut.

  Damn, I still burn with rage just thinking about her. The way she manipulated Brad just to get back into his life. That was a low even for her. There was no need to get a child involved when you wanted a man. No frigging excuse at all. That was petty, as well as spiteful. However, you never put anything past a person like Cherish. She’s done some pretty crazy things to get what she wants, including lying about said child currently baking in her womb.

  I tried my hardest to see from Brad’s point of view. I debated day in and day out if I was the one that took things too far. But the more I thought about it, the more I stood behind my decision. He was making an ass of himself, and it would all come out in due time.

  My mother called me every other day and kept me updated. Turns out they were pregnant—well, she was pregnant—with a baby boy. She was five months pregnant now, and that meant they had four months left before the truth came out. Then I would make a special trip to laugh in all their faces.

  I may be acting like a scorned lover, but dammit, I wasn’t only scorned once, but twice. The second time was my fault because I knew how Brad was. But, dammit, was it too much to want happiness? Too much to want a house, children, and a husband to call my own? I didn’t think so, but fate had other plans, or so it seemed.

  She’d let me know that Cherish had moved back in with Brad, and they were determined to make it work with the baby on the way. I said my fake congratulations and ended that call. I wasn’t happy for the tramp trapping Brad in a loveless relationship. I was sad because he was going along with it.

  I sincerely doubted that I was going to be happy for a really long time. There is just so much a person can take before they’re broken and can’t be repaired. My bullshit meter had officially broken a month ago. There was nothing that he could say or do that could make me think otherwise. Especially with the way I was feeling right now.

  I turned over in my bed, facing the wall, eyes filling up with tears. It just wasn’t fair. I’d waited a decade to have Brad all to myself. To have him away from all the other girls at school. But I guess no matter how long you wait, things always come back to bite you in the ass. I was just thankful that I had Alex by my side during all of this. Having her here gave me a little comfort in my storm of denial and betrayal.

  “Hello, Earth to Claire.” Alex lie down behind me, putting an arm around me.

  I gripped her arm to me tightly as the tears fell down my face. Love was not supposed to be all sunshine and rainbows, this I knew. But was it supposed to hurt this damn bad? I wanted to say no, that everything in this life was perfect and I would get everything I had ever asked for. But that just wasn’t the case. Life was a cruel little bitch. She pulled the strings of everyone in my life, laughing the entire time because she knew I would never get what I’d wanted with every fiber of my being—a chance to call Brad Titan my husband and the father of my babies.

  What life needs to do is go suck a dick, because the bitch wasn’t funny. Not in the least.

  I wiped my tears on my pillow, sighing before I replied, “I’m not leaving the apartment. I like it just fine in my own little bubble of misery.”

  She chuckled. “Claire, you can’t let one man dictate how you see men in general. It’s one guy. So, put on your big girl panties and buck up buttercup, it’s a new day.”

  Fuck! Was this woman always so cheery? She needed to tone it down a bit and come slum it with us depressed people. Alex let her mistakes roll off her back as if they never happened. I wasn’t the same as her. I couldn’t just let what Brad did to me roll off my back. Not when he pierced me through the heart.

  “You’re too damn cheery, Alex,” I grumbled into the pillow.

  “You’re too damn depressed,” she retorted.

  I groaned, turning in her arms. “Alex, he fucking broke me. I can’t just snap my fingers and have everything be okay. It takes time.”

  She sighed, hugging me tighter. “Okay, I get it. What about if we stayed in with our two main men and pigged out in front of the TV all night?”

  I forced a sad giggle. “Ben and Jerry are welcome here anytime. At least I can always count on those two men.”

  She tried to get me to run to the store with her, but just like all the other times, I refused. I had no drive to leave the apartment. Everything had been taken out of me when I was visiting my mother for her wedding. Even if nothing happened down there I would still need some downtime from all the crazy that was going on. My mother had been a force to be reckoned with the days before her wedding.

  I got up only because I knew there would be ice cream and takeout food involved. Instead of opting to stand around and do absolutely nothing, I got into the shower. Feeling the hot water running down my body brought me out of my funk for all of two minutes. It was always like this. When I started doing something for me, I would end up thinking about him. It was an endless cycle of torture—one I couldn’t handle right now.

  Turning off the shower, I wrapped a robe around my body. I was combing through my hair, when I heard my phone going off in the other room. Thinking that it could be Alex, I rushed to answer without looking at the caller ID.

  “What’s wrong, Alex? You forget where the apartment was?” I forced a chuckle through the line.

  A deep, gravelly voice, which was so not Alex’s rumbled through the phone. “It’s not Alex, and no I can’t forget where your apartment is if I’ve never been there.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Brad,” I gasped, sitting on the couch when my legs failed me.

  Instant tears. I ended the phone call right then and there. Pulling my legs up, I began rocking. That was the way Alex found me a few minutes later. Her worried voice echoed through my apartment, but I couldn’t voice what had gone wrong. It was like every cell in my body had frozen by just hearing his voice.

  “Claire … Claire, what the fuck? Claire, can you hear me?” Her worried voice started slipping through the fog in my mind.

  I grunted, still rocking. “Brad ... Brad … Brad …” I mumbled over and over.

  “Brad what, sweetie?” she asked.

  “Brad … Brad … Brad …” I kept repeating, still frozen in shock.

  She grabbed me by my shoulders, hauling me to her. She rocked me back and forth as I cried in her arms. The only thing she was doing was cooing over me and shushing my tears away. I was dazed and confused as to why Brad was calling me. It had been a month since I left Cedar Grove. A month since I’d heard his deep voice.

  As my tears eased, she sat me back up. I looked into her eyes with mine now swollen from c
rying. I leaned back against the couch trying to dull the pain that crying left behind. I didn’t think I would ever be able to hear Brad’s voice again without going postal. But I was glad that Alex was so patient and waited for me to come back to her.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled, putting my hand over my eyes.

  “Sweetie, it’s no problem. Can you explain why you were rocking back and forth mumbling Brad’s name over and over like some mental patient?”

  I cleared my throat, fearing my words would crack otherwise. “He just called. Hearing his voice kind of upset me a bit.”

  “He called?” she roared with anger, jumping up from the couch to pace.

  I sat there watching her, my eyes beginning to hurt from crying so much. She didn’t seem to mind that she now looked like she was the mental patient. I giggled, because if I looked that crazy I was sure I was one hell of a sight. She was chewing on her lips with everything that she had, hands on her hips, her eyes filled with a whole bunch of crazy.

  “It’s okay. I’m fine now,” I promised, sitting up on the couch.

  She shook her head. “It’s not fine, Claire. He does all he did and has the gall to call you a month later. That fucking bastard!” she screeched, pacing even faster now.

  I looked at the bags that were forgotten at the door. Standing up, I retrieved them and began putting them away. Gathering two plates, I scooped out the takeout and got two beers from the fridge. Upon entering the living room, I saw that she was talking to someone on my phone. I hadn’t even heard the damn thing ring while I’d been gone. I caught the last of her conversation as I set the food down on the coffee table.

  “How dare you call her phone? She wants nothing to do with you and your assholey ways. You need to leave her the hell alone and go back to your whore of a girlfriend. Let her heal in peace. You didn’t just break her heart, you completely fucked her up. Now grow a set and take responsibility for your actions. You chose Cherish, now go live a happy fucking life with the tramp you let trap you,” she growled into the phone, before snapping it shut.

  Why did her telling him off not hurt me? Better yet, why did her telling him off make me feel a bit giddy? Was I a horrible person for thinking Brad deserved everything Alex said to him?

  I snickered when she turned around and saw me standing there, a blush creeping on her cheeks. “Your bitchy side kind of turns me on,” I joked, giggling when she doubled over in side-splitting laughter.

  “Aw babe, you say such the nicest things,” she replied, holding her side.

  “All things aside, how did he sound to you?” I asked, sitting down.

  She released a huff of air. “To be honest, if I didn’t know what he did, I’d say his fucking puppy died. He sounded completely miserable.”

  “He freaking deserves it,” I snorted.

  We picked up our plates and dug in. The silence around us became deafening. I wanted nothing more than to forget that he called me, but it was eating away at me. I wanted to know what he said, more than that I wanted to know if he was sorry for the way he treated me. I knew it was asking for trouble thinking about those things, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to know. Having it go around in my head on a timeless clock, over and over was driving me crazy.

  It had hurt the first time I left him. But this time was different. It wasn’t because of a lie that tore us apart this time. It wasn’t because of something that I supposedly did. It was because Cherish showed back up in his life and told him she was pregnant with his child. I kept trying to figure out how a woman that was four months pregnant, five now, could just keep that kind of information away for so long.

  If it were me, I wouldn’t have been able to last a week without telling the father I was carrying his child. That was if the father and I were on speaking terms, which he and she obviously were. You cannot get pregnant without being with someone. I’d run it through my head more times than just one. Wondering how she could do that to him; if the child was his, that is... I had a sneaky suspicion that it wasn’t, but who was I to say anything?

  The only thing I did know was Cherish planned this whole thing. She knew that Brad and I wouldn’t be able to withstand not being together. From the way we were in high school, we were inseparable. It made her so fucking jealous to see us walking through the halls in school and not be able to tell Brad how she felt for him.

  She was treating this as if it were a game. Life was no joking matter. Getting in between two people that love each other was no joking matter. But Brad wouldn’t see what I’d been trying to tell him. I saw the real person she was in school. A tiger can’t change its strips and Cherish couldn’t change who she was. She was still the jealous little girl from school, and she always would be.

  Alex’s voice brought me from my thoughts. “You’re right. He does deserve it. Fucking douchebag.”

  I sighed. “I just don’t get it. How can he spout that he loves me one second, then the next he just tosses me into the trash for her?”

  “It doesn’t matter now, babe. You’re free of him. You will never have to see him again if you don’t want to,” she stated, taking our plates to the kitchen.

  When she returned carrying the pints of ice cream and two spoons, my spirits lifted a little. If there was one thing that could make me feel somewhat better, it was junk food. I didn’t care if I gained a hundred pounds. The food is what kept me from murdering several people a day.

  Before too long I started to get sleepy. Having not been able to sleep well since I got back, I jumped on the offer to get at least a few hours. I saw Alex to the door, and she said if I needed her that she was only a call away. I already knew that she would be there, but it made me feel better when she voiced it to me. I turned off all the lights and settled into bed, hoping that for just one night the dreams would stay at bay.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” I whined, sitting down at the table.

  “Oh hush, you’ll like it,” she said, dancing back and forth next to the table.

  Alex had been on my back for weeks now to come out and enjoy life with her, but until now I didn’t take her up on it. God, I was so stupid. I was still nursing my broken heart and here I was in a club with Alex patrolling for men. I didn’t want to tell her there would be a fat chance in hell for me to pick up a guy, but that was the truth.

  However, she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She had chased me around the apartment with a cup of water threatening to drench me if I didn’t go. More than once I told her no, but then she would go around chasing me with that damn cup again. It was a little hilarious seeing her trip and fall all over the place, drenching herself more than she was getting on me.

  So I took pity on her and decided to come out. It felt wrong to be out on the town when I was still healing from heartbreak, like I was cheating in some way. I knew that was crazy. That I was not cheating on him, but I couldn’t help the way I felt. I should be pissed at the way he treated me. At the time I had been. But the more time I spent away from him and from our home, I found I felt the opposite. Empty, emotionless, dead.

  The more we sat there, the more I tried to get into the spirit. I’d watched Alex scamper off with a new guy each time she went to dance. Some had asked me if I wanted to, but I just couldn’t. Rather than dancing I decided to nurse a margarita the whole night. I’ve been feeling queasy for a good number of days, and I didn’t want to drink too much of the margarita. Instead of this being a good time out, it would turn into me running to the bathroom.

  When I couldn’t handle anymore, I told Alex I was leaving. Like the good friend that she is, she left the guy she was currently dancing with and came home. At least she got his number first. After catching a cab and getting back to the house, I found that nothing was knocking out this sickness.

  I’d tried ginger ale and crackers, nausea medicine, and just lying down in a dark room with a cold cloth on my head. Nothing. If anything, it seemed like I was getting worse. Alex stayed with
me through the entire night. She was constantly walking up and down the hallway like an old momma hen. Coming in to check on me, seeing if I needed anything. Hell, she sometimes came in just to watch me while I lie in bed.

  Her actions were warranted, of course. In all the time that she’d known me, she’d never seen me sick. Hell, the last time I’d been sick was in college, and that was when I first started. I always made it a point to take care of myself. It didn’t matter if it was fifteen degrees outside, you would see me outside in jogging clothes getting my workout in.

  Instead of eating all the wrong foods, I was on a low carb diet, staying away from sweets as much as possible. Every now and then I would offer myself a treat such as ice cream or desserts, something like that. But rarely ever did I not take care of myself, which was what made me think of being at home during my mother’s wedding.

  That could very well be the reason right there. I hadn’t been used to eating all the different types of food all the time, not caring if it was high in carbs or anything like that. That must be why I was paying the piper now. My body was trying to work overtime to get rid of the toxins I had built up.

  I groaned. A second later Alex was in the room. “You need anything?”

  I shook my head. “No, but I think I know what’s going on.”

  “What?”

  I chuckled. “My body is paying me back for not taking care of her back at home. You know I usually don’t eat like that normally. I bet that’s what all this is. I built up toxins and now I’m sick.”

  She cocked her head, seeming to weigh what I said. “You know, I bet that’s it. Maybe you need to go to the doctor and get one of those five-day cleansing packets. It could get your system back up and running.”

  I lie there for a minute. She was probably right. I just needed a good cleanse, and then I’d be good as new. There were some people that didn’t think changing a mere eating habit would rock your world, but I could tell them different. Not only had it knock me on my ass, it had made me sicker than a dog.