Just when I think the phone’s about to cut out I hear someone snatch up the receiver and say hello. It’s the voice I wanted to hear, though she sounds annoyed and she’s breathing heavily, like she just ran for the phone. I get lost in the steady rhythm of her breath, remembering how she used to look when my hands and tongue were the cause of her breathlessness.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” I say and give myself a mental smack-down. Fucking wake up, man! “I didn’t think you’d pick up.”
“Expecting your boyfriend, huh?” she jokes.
I have no idea what to say. This is such a turnaround from the last time we spoke, I feel like I’ve just been bitch slapped. I laugh softly and smile bigger than I have in months.
“It’s good to hear that sound,” she whispers. And fuck me, if there isn’t a whole fucking world of longing in her voice. “It’s been a while.”
“Been a while since I had something to laugh at, baby girl.”
“Are you okay?”
Fucking hell! I feel like I’ve stepped into the twilight zone. Are we really having this conversation? Is she coming around? Has she already forgiven me for the things I did?
“Yeah, I’m alright. I got a parole hearing in a month’s time.”
“Dad told me.”
“Is he there?” I ask cautiously. I don’t want her to quit talking to me, but I hate to think she’s only talking to me because she feels has to.
“You’d really rather talk to my dad than me?”
“Hell no!” I say, too quickly. Fuck I sound desperate. I can’t help it though, it’s driving me crazy hearing her voice and not being able to see her, touch her. “How you been, baby?”
“I’m okay. Holly and Sammy are keeping me pretty busy. Jackson is driving me nuts, though. I’m kinda wishing he’d haul his arse back to Tenterfield. I don’t think the women of Sugartown have been acting this crazy since you rode into town.”
“Who’s Jackson?” I say, and try not to sound like a possessive dick. I have no right to do that, she doesn’t consider herself mine anymore, but no matter what she might think she’ll always belong to me. Fucked up logic, I know, but it is what it is.
“Would you relax? He’s my cousin. My aunt died last year, before you came, and he’s been living in that big old farmhouse by himself. He finally sold it and moved his big oafish butt in here and he’s been helping Dad at the shop ever since.”
“He a mechanic?”
“No. When you get out you’re going to have more cars to fix than you know what to do with. Assuming you want to come back to this backwards hellhole of a town, that is?”
Christ! Is she fishing?
“Well that depends.” I take a risk and flirt. You only live once, right? “Do I have a girl to come back to?”
“Elijah ….”
Fuck! Not fishing. Not fucking fishing!
Even though I’ve more than likely just fucked everything up, I can’t help sinking myself further in. “Yes or no, baby girl?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. It sucks, but that’s all I can give you right now. You’ll have a job when you come back, and I’ll always be here as a friend.”
“You wanna be my goddamn friend, Ana?”
“Elijah—”
“Do you still love me?” There’s a pause, and just when I think she isn’t going to answer the beep that signals the last thirty seconds of our call sounds in my ears. “Do you still love me?”
“I—”
“Yes or no, Ana?”
Frustration seeps from every pore in my body as I wait for the answer that never comes. The phone cuts out and I slam the receiver down and fight against the urge to go postal on the useless piece of shit. If I destroy prison property it’ll go on record. If the parole board see that shit in my file this close to my assessment they’ll knock me back, for sure. The only way I’m getting an answer to that question is if I see it coming from her lips when she’s standing right in front of me, and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to wait another six months to see her and hear those words.
Chapter Thirty Two
Holly
(Yep, Holly)
I heave up the last of the dry crackers I’d shoved down my throat this morning and curse men for all of eternity. When this kid finally claws his way out of me I’m going to celebrate my vagina by purchasing stocks in We-Vibe and drinking myself into a stupor. Then I’m going find every battery-operated boyfriend I can get my mitts on and screw myself into an orgasm coma. I’ll more than likely die alone, crushed by the mountain of falling dildos, but at least I’ll never have to look at a real penis again.
Falling back against the cold tiled wall, I contemplate jumping off a bridge for the thousandth time since I found out I’m growing a person inside me—which is just wrong, on so many levels, if you really think about it—and then decide my fat arse would probably never make it over the railing. I’d likely get stuck halfway and have to wait for emergency services to come and hoist me down from an embarrassing, half-arsed attempt at offing myself. Plus, once Ana found out she’d likely kill me, and then I would have wasted all the emergency service’s time.
“This is bullshit! I’m taking her arse to the doctor,” I hear Jackson yelling in the hall and panic. He doesn’t know I’m pregnant. I don’t know how he hasn’t figured it out yet. I don’t know why I so badly want to keep this dirty little secret from spilling out. All I know is that I feel alone and confused on an almost hourly basis, but when Jackson’s in the room all that goes away and I can breathe easier and think clearer and forget I’ve got a person inside me, sucking all the joy from my bones.
Sharing a house with him these past three weeks without the buffer of Bob, Sammy and the evil bitch stepmum has been torture of the very best—and worst—kind. It turns out the man is terrible at fixing up cars, so he’s been jobless since Bob locked him out of the garage, meaning he’s been spending an awful lot of time here in this big old farmhouse by himself. Most of the time, I’m torn between wanting to tear off his clothes and pulverise his face with our new magic bullet, but I have to admit that there’s some sort of inner peace I find in watching Friends reruns on the couch with him. Until he opens his great big mouth, that is.
“You don’t need to take her to the doctor,” Ana says, “she’s fine.”
“She needs help, Ana.”
I quickly climb to my feet and brush my teeth. I spray a bit of perfume, which of course makes me dry retch again, and I stand over the sink fighting back the urge to vomit.
Jackson bangs on the bathroom door and I wince. “Holly, get your arse out here. I’m taking you to see someone.”
I pull back the door and a gust of fresh air swirls around me, carrying the acrid scent of vomit and toothpaste toward my nose. For a heartbeat I just stand there, trying not to throw up again, and then I close the door behind me and glare up at him like I’m more annoyed with his overall Jackson-ness than usual.
To look at me, you would never know I was pregnant. There’s no baby bump to speak of, and though I should already be showing, I’ve actually lost weight from the morning sickness. My boobs are definitely bigger, but do guys ever really notice anything past “Oh look, boobs”?
My moods have been kinda crazy, in fact I’ve probably seen days where I’ve looked like less of an escaped mental patient, but outwardly, I guess I seem kind of normal. Or as normal as I get, anyway, so I guess it makes sense he’d jump to the conclusion that I choose to chuck up my guts for kicks.
I stare up into his sky blue eyes and realise this is the moment that I have to come clean. It’s also the moment I stop being the sexy little minx that rocked his world once or twice in our not too distant past, who he might like to bend over the kitchen counter and screw senseless, and instead become a walking womb.
“I don’t need to see a doctor, Jack. I’m pregnant, not bulimic,” I blurt out, and try to edge past him while his face is frozen in shock. He grabs my wrist and pulls me back to face him.
“What?” he whispers, and I’m surprised by the hurt I see in his gaze.
“Jackson, meet Mini Coop.” I wave my arm back and forth between him and my stomach.
He glances back and forth between my flat stomach and my eyes and then at Ana, as if he’s hoping that this is all some fucked up joke. “Tell me you’re shitting me, Hols?”
I don’t know what to say. I wish someone would tell me this is all some kind of joke, and then I’d grab his hand and run off to the nearest available horizontal surface to bang his brains out. Yeah, that ain’t happening, and this shit’s still real.
“It’s true,” Ana confirms, and Jackson swipes his hand over his face. His other hand is balled into a tight fist and I can tell he’s dying to hit something, or someone. I guess it’s a good thing Coop’s nowhere to be found, after all.
“Fuck!”
“No thanks, that’s kinda what landed me in this position in the first place,” I deadpan, but that just makes him angrier. Jackson’s really not taking this news well. I know we flirt and fight and carry on like an old married couple, but I didn’t know he’d be this affected by finding out I was pregnant with someone else’s baby. When he narrows his gaze and pens me in against the wall, my breathing becomes heavier. Wetness pools between my legs and my nipples harden into stiff peaks beneath my singlet top. Holy crap, I have a total lady boner for Jackson Rowe right now.
“How could you be so fucking stupid, Hols?” he’s seething as he says it, but there’s not just anger and disappointment in his tone—there’s hurt, too.
Aaaand the happy feeling’s gone.
“Jackson!” Ana chides.
“You know what, Jack? I ask myself that on a daily basis.”
“But you’re always careful?”
“Yeah, except for that one time where I wasn’t, and I trusted my boyfriend enough to believe that the condom we were using wasn’t centuries old, but then: surprise! Turns out you can’t trust any man these days, even the ones that claim they love you. Who knew, right? Now, if you’re done with your caveman bullshit, I have to get ready for work.”
“Who is he? Where the fuck is he?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? He’s gonna take care of this shit, isn’t he?”
Why the hell does he care so much? I know there’s this out of control chemical pull between the two of us, but I have no idea why he’d be acting like some jealous tool. This is Jackson Rowe we’re talking about. Jack doesn’t form emotional ties to anyone, that’s what makes him so freaking fantastic in bed. There are no inhibitions when it comes to sex with Jackson, only intense animal heat and multiple orgasms.
“I really hope you didn’t just refer to my baby as this shit. Because pregnant or not, I will take your arse down. And no, Coop won’t be taking care of this baby. He won’t even know about it.”
“What do you mean he won’t know? You’re not telling him he has a kid?”
“No. I’m not telling him shit.”
“What the fuck, Hols?”
“Jackson, lay off,” Ana butts in.
“Don’t tell me you’re alright with this shit?” Jackson shoots Ana an incredulous look before turning back to me. “The man has a right to know about his kid.”
“As far as I’m concerned, he gave up any rights he had when he left me here with his demon seed to go become a rock star.”
“Did you just call your baby demon seed?” Jackson says.
“Hey, I’m allowed to call him whatever the hell I like, he’s my baby. Just like the decision to tell his father is mine and no one else’s.”
“Oh yeah? Well, when the hell were you going to tell me about this? When I’m giving up my room for a nursery, and kissing my sex life goodbye because there’s a baby screaming into all hours of the night?”
“As if that would ever stop you. The entire house could be on fire, and you wouldn’t notice a thing until you’d blown your load.”
“Are you fucking serious right now?”
“Oh, I’m deadly serious. What I’d like to know is why you think you’re so fucking important that you deserve to know what goes on in my life? You’re my roommate, Jackson, nothing more.”
Jack flinches like he’s just been slapped. I didn’t mean for that to come out the way it did, and though I don’t know why, I know I’ve managed to hurt him badly. I also feel like complete and utter crap. I didn’t mean any of the things I just said to him and—oh, how wonderful, now I’m acting like a complete and utter girl and tears are springing into my eyes. God, I’m so damn mad I could choke him and yet all I want to do is wrap my arms around his middle and beg him to forgive me.
These pregnancy hormones suck arse!
“Both of you shut up!” Ana yells and points at Jackson. “You need to back the fuck off,” she says and then turns on me, “and you need to chill the fuck out. This kind of stress is not good for the baby.”
Just as she says that I feel a sharp pang in my abdomen. I cry out and bend over, breathing rapidly through my nose. Ana’s by my side in a heartbeat, taking my arm in hers and leading me to the bedroom. “Holly, are you okay?”
“Yeah I …” I begin, and then pivot on my heels and run for the bathroom. I barely manage to get the lid on the toilet seat up before the vomit comes gushing out of me. My stomach cramps down on itself over and over again as I empty it into the bowl. Ana’s beside me holding back my hair, which is just about the sweetest thing she could ever do because she’s one of those people that loses her shit just seeing someone dry-retching. Jackson stays over by the door, which is typical Jackson, but when I ease back from the toilet and finally rise to my feet my eyes meet his, and he’s clearly stricken. Either that, or he’s just fighting the urge throw up now, too.
“Do you want me to call your doctor?” Ana asks as she steers me over to the sink and preps my toothbrush for me.
“No. I’ll be fine. I may have to call my boss though,” I kid.
Ana smiles and heads over to the door as I freshen up. “Well, good luck. I heard she was a raving bitch.”
“Nah, she’s okay. I think she mostly just needs a good lay,” I mutter back and Ana laughs.
Out in the hall she grabs her handbag and keys with a promise to call me at lunch to make sure I’m okay. Then she turns on Jackson. “You. Take care of her today. If she wants something, go get it for her. Do not let her get out of bed unless it’s to pee.”
“Yes ma’am.”
She points at me then. “And you, keep your bloody temper on a leash.”
“Okay, Mum,” I reply and then she’s gone, leaving Jackson and I to stare at one another, our earlier argument abandoned. Though I know the world hasn’t changed within these last few minutes of fighting, everything in our world has. Silence fills up the space between us until I finally turn away and trek back to my bedroom to hide beneath the covers and wish like hell that the zomb-ocalypse was upon us. At least that way I’d have a legitimate excuse to punch his lights out.
Chapter Thirty Three
Elijah
There’s nothing like the rush of endorphins you feel when the gate slams closed behind you and your feet touch the bitumen of the world ‘outside’. I close my eyes and inhale the country air. It’s no different than the stuff we feel and breathe in the yard everyday, but somehow it always feels different, more, free.
I open my eyes and look around. The prison sits pretty much in the town’s centre, so it’s only a short walk from here to the bus station. I don’t know how I’ll get to Sugartown from there—maybe get off on the highway and hitch, maybe walk the whole damn way, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I can walk anywhere at any time for the rest of my life, ‘cause I ain’t ever planning on going back inside.
A prison supply van pulls out of the parking space in front of me and my heart just about leaps outta my fucking chest when I see the hot blonde leaning up against my bike. Fuck me, is that a sight for sore eyes! I h
ave an image of bending her over that bike and taking her sweet pussy with my mouth, of making her open to me and cry my name as her thighs squeeze the sides of my head and her heels dig into my back. My cock twitches in my pants and I take a deep breath and think about nuns again to calm myself down.
“Easy tiger,” I mutter as I run my hand over my freshly buzzed hair, and then cross the parking lot towards her.
“Whatcha doing here, Ana?” I ask as I come to a stop in front of her. I’m careful not to touch her, though it takes a fuck-load of restraint. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, or my bike, for that matter.”
“I thought you could use a ride.”
“How she handling?” I say, pointing to my baby, though to be honest, the thought of Ana riding my bike is causing blood to pump and flow to places it shouldn’t be right now.
“Good. Dad and I have been starting her up every few days. I know how precious you are about her, so I’m the only one taking her out.”
“And how are you holding up?”
She gives me a wistful smile. “I’m okay. I don’t get a lot of sleep on account of the nightmares, but I’m dealing with it.”
Fuck! I’d give my left nut to touch her right now, to hold her, to kiss her. I’d squeeze her tight enough that another bad dream would never enter her mind again. I’d keep all the bad thoughts away, forever, or for as long she’d let me. Christ, I sound like a fucking pussy.
“What about you?” she asks.
“Today’s a good day.” I wink at her and the sweetest blush of colour floods her cheeks. “A very good day.”
“Listen, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here, but Holly and I have our own place now. It’s a big four bedroom farmhouse outside Sugartown. It’s not much, but we’ve already talked it over and you’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”
Welcome to Sugartown Page 21
