by Katy Kaylee
I got up and moved to stand in front of him. The look of anger, hurt, and sadness tore at my heart. He shook his head and walked around me. I spun around just in time to see him walk out the door, slamming it behind him. I stared at the closed door.
“Oh no,” I whispered, covering my mouth with my hand.
I had let him walk out. I could have tried to stop him. I could have said something. Even in that moment I could have chased after him. I didn’t move. Part of me almost felt it would be easier to have him walk out on me. It’s what I had been expecting all along. It would save me a lot of hurt down the road when he walked away. No matter what he said in the hotel room, in the back of my mind, I was still afraid. I didn’t think I could live through him pretending to be happy with me only to find out he wasn’t ready for a baby and leave me when I was fat with his child.
He left now or he left then, I told myself. It was better this way. I would raise the baby on my own. I was strong enough. I could do it. I didn’t need him. I put my hand on my stomach. “We’ll be okay. I’ll make sure you are loved and cared for. Your dad is a good guy, and I hope you get to know him. You’ll like him. He’s funny and smart and crazy good-looking. Don’t talk like him, though. He has a bit of a potty mouth. I hope he can keep the F-bombs to a minimum around your little innocent ears.”
I was going to be okay, I told myself again.
29
JAX
I’d left work early for the day. I couldn’t stand to be in the office where Penny was not. She hadn’t come back to work after our weekend, after I confronted her about being pregnant with our child. Rage had filled me, consumed me. Being around my staff at the office was dangerous. I chose to go home and deal with my anger in private. It wasn’t just anger that had me running at full speed on the treadmill in my home gym. It was old hurts mixed with new ones.
She’d cut me deep. Her deliberate choice to keep the pregnancy from me hurt. It nearly tore my heart in two when she admitted she was pregnant. She’d known for a while. I was convinced she had never intended to tell me about the baby. I wasn’t sure what her plan had been to hide the damn thing, but she wasn’t going to tell me.
My feet pounded against the black conveyer belt I had at a nice flat level. I wanted to run far and fast, but I didn’t want to go uphill. I wanted to escape the demons chasing me. I ran harder, pushing my body beyond its limits. Sweat was pouring down the sides of my face. I could feel it pooling in the small of my back.
I kept going. I couldn’t stop. If I stopped, I had to deal with reality. Running gave me something else to focus on, even if my thoughts were still dominated by her. I had poured out my heart and soul, and she’d said nothing. I bet she had been laughing on the inside. She had gotten her revenge. She was the one holding all the cards. I had played right into her hand.
“Stupid,” I gasped, hitting the button to turn up the speed a little more.
I was still able to think. I wanted to run so hard I couldn’t think. The music from my earbuds pounded away, encouraging me to push harder, run faster. I closed my eyes and saw Penny’s face when I asked her about the pregnancy. It had been guilt and that look of being caught red-handed. I knew, just knew she had planned to keep it a secret. Was she planning to run away and never tell me about my child? Would she have raised the child alone, telling him or her that he didn’t have a father?
“Fuck!” I shouted into the air.
I didn’t want to believe she would do something so cruel and calculating, but I had to acknowledge I didn’t really know her. I knew her a few years ago before I’d fucked her over and damn near destroyed her life. That kind of thing was bound to change a person. She could be devious. She might have very well planned to come back into my life and exact some kind of revenge, and I had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.
She was probably at home right now, laughing her ass off. She and Chance would talk about how they paid me back for what I had done. I had tried to explain to her why I did what I did, but I had a feeling it didn’t matter. The damage was done, and there was no going back. No matter how many times I apologized or how much I tried to make up for the past, it was already done. I had sealed my fate when I opened my big mouth that morning.
I slowed the treadmill, doing a cooldown before jumping off and falling to the mat and starting a round of pushups. I was punishing my body for what my mouth had done. It was the only way I could deal with everything. I heard the doorbell echo through the house and collapsed face-first onto the mat. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I struggled to catch my breath. Whoever it was could go away.
The doorbell rang again. Maybe it was Penny coming to apologize. I jumped to my feet and rushed to the front door. It wasn’t Penny. It was Dakota.
“What the hell? Are you burying a body back there?” he asked with a horrified look, his lip curling with disgust.
“Not yet, just getting the hole ready for a nosey friend that didn’t get the message to leave me the hell alone,” I snapped.
He chuckled, pushing inside and walking into the kitchen. I followed him and watched him open my fridge and pull out a couple bottles of water, tossing one at me. “Drink. You’re cranky and dehydrated.”
I was thirsty. I took a long drink, the water felt good washing down my throat still burning from the grueling run on the treadmill. “Why are you here?”
Dakota looked at me, those blue eyes looking into my very soul. “I happened to overhear a phone call at work today.”
“Do you want a cookie? I’m sure there’s one somewhere if you dig.”
He ignored my snipe. “I heard Carolina on the phone with Penny. Penny quit.”
I narrowed my eyes, fury burning through my soul. I had been right. She’d planned to fuck me over all along. She was probably already back in Wisconsin. “Really? I guess I’m not surprised.”
“No? Because I sure as hell was,” Dakota growled angrily.
I raised my eyebrows, wondering why he was mad. Penny wasn’t having his baby and running away. I shrugged a shoulder. “We took a chance. We got burned.”
“Bullshit. I picked up on some other parts of the conversation. When I demanded Carolina tell me what was going on, she told me Penny was pregnant. It didn’t take me long to figure out who the baby daddy was. Carolina confirmed my suspicion. What the fuck did you do?” he shouted.
I was surprised by his anger. “Nothing!”
“Bullshit! You got her pregnant and then did something to her that made her up and quit just before a huge launch.”
I threw the bottle of water across the room. It hit the wall, water spraying out and covering the wall and floor. I walked over to where it had hit and slammed my fist into the same spot. “Fuck!” I shouted.
I had no words to express myself.
“Woah, man, calm down. I didn’t realize. Let’s talk this out,” Dakota said in a much calmer voice.
I stomped back to the kitchen counter and flopped down on one of the cushioned barstools. My legs were toast. The adrenaline was slowing, and my body was feeling the results of the grueling workout I had put it through.
“Penny and I hooked up once in college. She gave me her virginity. She asked me to take it. I had been crushing on her for years, and when she came to me that night, I couldn’t resist. I’d wanted her for a long time. Once I had her, I realized I could never be with another woman. Penny was it for me. Unfortunately, she made it clear she only wanted me for that one night. I couldn’t stand the thought of her being with anyone else. The next day, people that had been at the party figured out we had hooked up. I told everyone she was the worst lay ever. I said all kinds of horrible things with the hopes no other guy on campus would want to touch her. I stopped just short of saying she had some horrible STD,” I told him, looking down at the glossy, black marble countertop.
Dakota sat beside me. “Shit. That’s heavy. What happened after that?”
I smirked, pointing to my nose. “That happened. She broke my nose.”
Dakota burst into laughter. “No shit? Little Penny?”
“She’s not so little. I lost her and my best friend that day. When Carolina hired her, it gave me a second chance. I had thought we were making progress. I thought we were going to have something real,” I said.
It was his turn to smirk. “A baby is about as real as it gets.”
“She didn’t tell me about the baby. I don’t think she was going to,” I confessed.
“Harsh. I’m sorry. What are you going to do now?”
I shrugged. “What can I do? I ruined her life almost four years ago, and this is how she is repaying me. I ruined her life and walked away. I guess it’s her turn. The tables have been turned. I don’t know what to do or say to prove to her I’m a changed man. I poured my heart out and she just stood there, never mentioning the baby or anything.”
“Are you in love with her?” Dakota asked in a solemn voice.
I nodded my head. “Absolutely, unequivocally, 100 percent in love with her. It’s only been her since that night. You know my relationship with Lydia is bullshit. I only want Penny, and I can’t seem to make her mine. Everything I do seems to push her away.”
“Look, I’m not a relationship expert, but I saw the way she looked at you that first day. I saw the way you looked at her. It was as if you had been hit with a bolt of lightning. I’ve seen the change in you the past couple months since she’s been working with us. You’re different in a good way. She’s good for you. You can’t let her walk away from you a second time,” he stated.
I let out a defeated sigh. “I don’t have the choice. This is her choice, and she’s made up her mind. Penny is strong-willed and fiercely independent. It’s one of the many things I love about her. Unfortunately, it’s probably going to be the very thing that keeps me from ever being able to call her truly mine.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe that for a second. You have to make her see that you two are meant to be together. Anybody that has waited nearly four years for a woman deserves to have her. You fucked up for sure, but you can fix it. Obviously, you managed to get close enough to her to knock her up,” he added with a laugh.
“It was more than sex,” I retorted.
“I believe you, but does she know that? I’ve been burned before. It makes you think twice about everything. Hell, I can’t even flirt with a woman for fear she’s going to turn on me. When you’ve lived through something traumatic, it changes you. It makes you see things differently. You see shit that isn’t even there. It will take work, but you can do it.”
I scoffed, rubbing a hand over my face. “It’s not that easy.”
“Good. It isn’t supposed to be easy. If you want this woman in your life, you need to walk through fire to make her understand how committed you are. You have to grovel and apologize until you are blue in the face. You hurt her bad and changed the course of her life. That doesn’t go away with a few rounds of good sex,” he said with a coy smile.
“It was more than a few rounds,” I replied.
“Sex is one part of the equation. Considering she’s having your baby, I’d say you got that part figured out. Now you need to work on the other parts, the healing that needs to happen in order for you guys to start fresh.”
“I tried. I thought we’d moved past it all. I told her how I felt, and it didn’t matter.”
“Then say it again. Say it until it matters. Say it until she believes you.”
I let his words sink in. I wanted to believe it was possible, but I didn’t think it would be quite so simple. It could take years before I managed to convince her. I didn’t know if I could wait again.
30
PENNY
I was a hot mess—heavy on the mess and light on the hot. I’d been a mixture of vomiting in the morning and crying all afternoon. I had made a complete disaster of things and had no idea how to fix any of it. Calling Carolina and quitting a job I loved had easily been one of the hardest things I had to do in my life. I was knocked up, jobless, and had no baby daddy in the picture. I had seriously made a disaster of my life.
I couldn’t go to work. After calling in sick for two days, I realized I was never going to be able to go in there and face Jax. Not after the hurt I had seen on his face. I hated that I had done that to him. I had hated him for a long time, but even on my worst day, I would have never intentionally caused him any pain—beyond the broken nose. He’d definitely deserved that.
The guilt I felt for hurting Jax was nothing compared to the guilt I felt for ruining my relationship with my baby’s father. I wished there was a way for us to pick up the pieces and put everything back together again, but that wasn’t meant to be. Every time I looked at him and saw the bump in his nose, I was reminded of what happened between us. There was so much pain, anger, and secrets clogging the path to each other. I didn’t want to put our child through a turbulent relationship between his parents. Jax and I could both be parents, but not parents together, if that was even what he wanted.
“I’m sorry, little one. I promise we’ll always be good to you, but your mommy and daddy just can’t be together,” I said, holding a hand over my stomach.
There was a knock on the door, pulling me from the conversation I was having with my unborn child. I opened it to find my big brother standing there. I immediately covered my stomach as if I could hide the bump with my hand. Chance was going to kill me when he found out.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, skipping right over the hellos and nice to see yous.
“What the fuck is going on down here?” he snapped, pushing inside the apartment.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, not ready to divulge any information if I didn’t have to.
He fired off the questions. “I saw the video, Penny. What the hell is going on? Are you back with him? Do I need to go kick the shit out of him? Did he hurt you?”
I looked at him and burst into tears. It was all so much. Chance’s face immediately changed. He pulled me into his arms and hugged me close, his hand on my back while I sobbed like a big baby. I finally managed to pull myself together and pulled away from him, wiping away my tears with the back of my hand.
“Penny, what happened?” he asked.
I told him everything. I told him about hooking up with Jax, our weekends away, and then I dropped my bombshell. His face paled, and he looked absolutely shell-shocked.
“Pregnant?” he repeated the word.
“Yes. It was an accident, but I don’t regret it,” I assured him.
“I don’t understand how you managed to get back together with him after what he did,” he said, running a hand through his hair, causing it to stand on end in places.
I sighed, sitting down on the couch. “I’ve never really stopped caring for him. I hated him, but I also cared for him. He told me he loved me, that he’d loved me for a long time. He says he spread the rumor because he didn’t want anyone else to be with me. I had told him it would only be a one-night thing. The funny thing is, I had told him that thinking that would convince him to be with me once and then he would fall in love with me and tell me he wanted to be with me for real. All the pieces were there, but it was a puzzle that never got put together.”
“Wow. I knew he had a thing for you, and I knew you had a crush on him, but I never thought anything about it. He’s older than you, and I just assumed both of you would go to college and find someone new,” he said.
I smiled. “I thought so too.”
“What are you going to do? I mean, with the baby and Jax. Where do the two of you stand?”
“I didn’t tell him I was pregnant. He found out and he’s hurt and angry that I kept it from him. I don’t think we stand anywhere. I think there’s too much between us. I’m on my own with this. I quit my job. I couldn’t face him,” I mumbled.
“What? Why would you quit?” he asked.
“I can’t see him every day. He wouldn’t want to see me either. That was made very clear. He walked out and
I didn’t even try to stop him. He’s made no attempt to call me, and I haven’t called him. It’s over,” I said, fighting back the tears.
“Penny, you’re pregnant. You’re going to have a baby, and you need a roof over your head and a way to feed and clothe that baby. You need a job,” he pointed out.
“I’ll get one, but not with him.”
“Jax will help support the child.” Chance said it as a statement.
“I don’t know. He could walk away and never look back. He didn’t ask me if it was his, but maybe he isn’t sure.”
Chance shook his head. “I’ve known Jax for a long time. He isn’t going to walk out on his child. I may not like what he’s done in the past, but I do know that about him.”
“What do I do, Chance? Tell me what to do! I’m so lost and confused right now,” I whined.
“Do you love him?”
I let out a long sigh. “I do. I always have. Ever since he came over that first time, I had a crush on him. I know it was a schoolgirl crush, but it never went away. It only got stronger and stronger. He was the only one I ever imagined myself with. He has always been the only man in my life. Even when I hated him, I still thought about him. I wondered how he was doing and if he was okay. I followed him in the media. It made me feel like I was still part of his life, albeit from a safe distance.”
“If you want something, you have to fight for it. You know that. You had to fight to get into school and fight to get through everything. You’re a fighter, and I know you well enough to know that when you want something, you will move heaven and earth to get it. I don’t see you doing much of anything but whining about your situation. That tells me you don’t really want him. If you did, you’d be trying a lot harder.”
I scowled at him. “Chance Logan! How dare you say that! I’m hurting here.”
“And you need a little tough love. I’m telling you to pull on your big-girl panties and kick some ass. You are not the kind of girl who lets stuff happen. You make it happen, and when it doesn’t happen the way you want, you get out there and kick butt until it does,” he insisted.
