by Linda Kage
"Aww," she said, smiling my way. "There's nothing more precious than watching a handsome young man taking care of a baby."
As I sent the old gal a flirty little wink, Tristy snorted and plowed past her into the judge's chambers.
Irritated that she hadn't gotten the carrier and diaper bag while my hands were full, I gritted my teeth. "Thanks, honey," I was tempted to call after her. But I sucked it up and tucked Julian back into his car seat, tried to prop the bottle into his mouth so he could keep eating and slung the bag strap over my shoulder before picking up the carrier.
Then I followed the sweet old gal into the small room, where Tristy and I got married.
It was over and done about as soon as it started. Afterward, my stomach churned miserably. Ever since that damn glimpse, or whatever the hell it'd been, I'd always thought of marriage as forever, as love, and happily ever after, sacred and binding. But this had been none of that.
It left me empty and restless. Trapped.
Tristy and I didn't even talk to each other as I dropped her and her son back off at the apartment before I returned to work at the garage. When five o'clock came around, I stamped my time card and drove home, only to find her sitting on the couch, typing away on the laptop I'd gotten her. An afternoon talk show played on the television, barely muting Julian, who fussed in the swing.
I pulled him out and found his diaper almost leaking through it was so full. After carrying him back to my room, I changed him and plunked him onto my hip so he could join me in the kitchen where I whipped up a quick supper.
"I'm making a sandwich," I called over my shoulder while Julian slobbered all over my grease-stained pinstripe shirt and happily pounded his chubby fists against my chest. "You want one?"
"Yes!" Tristy yelled back. "No mustard this time."
I rolled my eyes but repeated to Julian in a playful baby voice, "No mustard, you hear that, Fighter? Your mama's gonna fire us if we don't get it right."
He gurgled and cooed in response, so I spent a moment cooing back, rubbing my nose against his until I got him to smile and wave his arms. He'd only started smiling a week or so ago. Tristy claimed she still hadn't seen one, even though I'd caught it on camera. I had to hold my tongue to keep from telling her she actually had to look at him to notice it.
After we men made the sandwiches, I warmed a bottle for the little guy. Back in the living room, Tristy took her sandwich with a half-hearted grunt, and Julian and I settled into the rocking chair. While we all ate, I watched Tristy madly type, pause every few seconds to read something on the screen, then nibble from her ham and cheese before typing some more.
"What're you doing, anyway?" I asked, mildly interested. "Writing a book?"
She speared me with a short scowl before she went right back to typing. "I'm talking to someone on Facebook."
I lifted my brows. I hadn't known she'd joined the network. I'd never had the time to myself. "Who?" I asked, wondering who the hell else from our neighborhood got into that shit.
With another glare, she muttered, "None of your damn business."
Well. I lifted my eyebrows but let the issue drop. After I finished eating, and Julian was nearing the end of his bottle, I pushed up from the chair and sighed. That was the one break I'd have today. "I'm working at the bar tonight," I reminded Tristy, carrying the baby back to his swing. "So I'm going to take a shower and push off again."
She groaned and sent her son a glance brimming with disgust. "Can't you take him with you while you get ready? I've had him all fucking day."
I clenched my teeth and popped my jaw but acknowledged her request with a strained, "Sure." Picking Julian back up, I carried him down the hall and set up a bouncer seat next to the tub for him to wiggle in while I took a quick shower. As I dried myself afterward, shaved, and ran a quick comb through my hair, I talked nonsense to the kid, telling him about who'd come into the garage today and what was wrong with some of the cars I'd worked on.
Tristy might think it was stupid to talk to someone who didn't understand a word I said, but he responded to me more than anyone else who lived in this apartment, so I kept talking to him. Besides, he was too cute not to talk to him. He watched my mouth when I spoke as if every word was divine; he was mesmerized. Kinda made me feel important.
I slipped on my Forbidden Nightclub uniform—which was actually just a snug black T-shirt and blue jeans—and checked the kiddo's diaper one more time before I carried him back into the front room.
"Here you are," I told Tris. "He's clean and fed and ready to go." I tried to hand Fighter to her directly, but she shot me a dirty look. So I sighed and settled him back into his swing. I bet he hated that damn swing.
I would not lose my temper. I would not lose my temper. No matter how much she neglected her own child, I would not yell at her.
That had become my mantra these past few months.
Kissing Fighter on the forehead, I wished him a quiet farewell, then I waved goodbye to my wife of six hours, who remained seated cross-legged in the same spot on the couch she'd been in when I'd walked in the door, and I left to start my second job of the day.
As usual, I was late for work.
"Hey, look who finally decided to join us," my coworker, Noel Gamble, called as I ambled inside. He and the new guy, Mason, were already behind the bar, which meant I got to wait tables tonight. Fine by me. I made more tips working the crowd anyway, especially on Thursdays when it was ladies' night. The ladies loved me.
"I decided you'd miss me too much if I didn't show," I hollered back to Gamble. Sending him an air kiss, I tapped my chest with both hands and then spread my arms wide. "So here I am, baby. Just for you."
He snorted and shook his head. "You'd need bigger boobs to interest me."
Chuckling, I turned to find a complete stranger fumbling to tie a waist apron around his hips but messing up so bad he had to start again.
"Whoa. Wait." I took it from him. "It's like this."
After I showed him how to properly tie the thing on, he looked up and smiled appreciatively. "Thanks."
"No problem." I gave him a nod before adding, "Now who the fuck are you?"
I wasn't rude about the question. I mean, yeah, I might've dropped the f-bomb, but mostly I was just surprised to see another face working tonight. Grateful but surprised.
The guy skittered away from me, though, clearly intimidated, even though he was a good six inches taller than me and twice as wide.
Maybe my tattoos and multiple facial piercings put him off. Who knew?
"Uh . . . I'm Quinn. Quinn Hamilton. This is my first night."
I nodded. "Huh." Chewing on the side of my lip, I studied him from head to toe. "So, where the hell did Jessie find you? Hiding under a pew at church?" He looked like a freaking choirboy, his hair all gelled and styled and his face fresh and pure as if he'd just come from a confessional to blot all his sins away. All two of them.
I was surprised Jessie—our temporary boss—could even find a kid as clean-cut as him.
"Gamble hired him," Ten said, popping up beside Hamilton to pat Hamilton's shoulders from behind. Ten had a purple ring around one eye; I wondered where he'd gotten the shiner. Probably at football practice. "He's on the team with us."
"Really?" A college boy. That figured. But a football player? Ten had to be pulling my leg. "He looks like a fucking virgin." Even if he did have the size to play a mean game of ball.
Ten just laughed and slapped Hamilton's shoulders again as the poor virgin newbie blushed hard. "We don't hold that against him. Kid knows how to tackle like a motherfucker. And he can throw a ball almost as good as Gamble over there."
Kid. That was exactly right. The boy didn't look old enough to work at a bar, but he had to be at least twenty-one, which still made me the old guy. Mason, Gamble, Ten, and apparently Hamilton here were all barely twenty-one while I'd had my twenty-fourth birthday a couple months back.
In truth, I felt decades older than the four college boys I work
ed with.
Oh, well. Being around them made me laugh. Though I never hung out with any of them outside of work, I considered them some of my closest friends. And yet, I didn't bother to tell any of them I'd gotten hitched earlier today. It didn't seem like anything to brag about.
Tying on my own apron, I got to work, and showed Hamilton how to unlock the door to let the masses in. It really did feel like a flood tonight too. Busier than usual, the place exploded with noise and people. My tips went through the roof, and thank God, Hamilton had worked in a pizza parlor before, so he was decent at waiting tables.
I noticed some contention at the bar when Ten was up there trying to get some orders. Gamble sent him a brief glare before completely ignoring him, and Ten had to wait until Mason was free to get his drinks. Ten and Gamble were roommates as well as football players together, so I asked Gamble with my next trip, "You two love birds have a fight, or what?" Hell, maybe Gamble had given Ten the black eye.
Gamble merely pierced his roommate with a glare before refusing to answer me. I let it drop but studiously watched the two for a while until I saw a little brunette I knew Gamble was interested in enter the bar. When Ten spotted her as well, he turned tail and hurried away in the opposite direction.
Interesting. I wondered if the two guys were fighting over her. Sticking my nose where it didn't belong, I approached her, even though she'd just turned Hamilton down for a drink. Hey, I needed something more stimulating in my life than conversations with a three-month-old. So I snooped into my coworkers' lives.
At first, I pretended to treat her like any other customer. "Hey there, pretty lady. Can I get you drink?" Then I looked into her eyes and hoped to God my impression of a double take looked genuine as I pointed at her. "Wait, you were here a few weeks back, flirting with Gamble, weren't you? He's working the bar tonight."
I led her up to the bar and called for Gamble to get his attention. When he caught sight of her, his eyes lit up, telling me that if he and Ten had been fighting over her, he'd definitely won the match.
It was like watching a soap opera. Ten avoided the bar while she was there, and Gamble decided flirting with her was a job requirement. Since I didn't know Hamilton yet, I sidled up next to Mason to tip my chin toward Gamble and his woman. "So, what's up with those two?"
I was hoping for a Ten-Gamble fight to the death story, but Lowe shocked the shit out of me when he said, "She's his literature professor."
"Really?" Pretty little thing like her didn't look like any literature professor I'd ever seen before. But then I narrowed my eyes. "He's not doing her for a grade, is he?" I had no patience for men who used, manipulated, disrespected, or in any way hurt a woman.
Mason only smiled and shook his head. "Not that I can tell. I think he really likes her."
"Hmm." That was good, at least. "What's Ten's problem, then? He into her too?"
"I don't think so." Mason gathered up a row of used glasses sitting on the bar. "I'm guessing he just knows more about their relationship than he's supposed to, and that makes Gamble nervous. Big time."
Knowing Ten and his smart-assed, lewd mouth, I figured Lowe had to be right. Ten had no doubt said something offensive enough to rile Gamble into giving him a black eye.
My shoulders slumped now that I knew what was going on. Well, that turned out to be a bummer of a dead end in the entertainment department.
I delivered my drinks, and a couple drunk girls flirted with me, inviting me back to their places. It put a strain on the celibacy pact I'd made with myself, even though I would've turned them down anyway. But then I got a nice, fat tip right before closing that made up for the rest of my dud of a night.
We closed up shop and kicked everyone out, except Gamble's teacher girlfriend. I was a little loath to go home so I took my sweet time sweeping the floor. I had a bad feeling I'd find Julian passed out in his swing, right where I'd left him before leaving for work. And it wouldn't be the first time.
I knew Tristy was having a hard time dealing with being a new mom, but damn, sometimes I wished she'd just hold him, or make nonsense faces at him, or change his damn diaper more than once a day.
I was trying my hardest to help her out and be patient because the moment I said something to piss her off, she was going lose it and probably fall of the wagon, turn to drugs, and then I don't know what. But every damn day, it got harder and harder not to just shove her son in her face and demand that she love him, and coddle him, and spoil him rotten already.
A commotion at the bar jerked me from my thoughts. I stopped sweeping to find some other chick had come in after we'd closed. She was a little older, probably in her mid-forties and looked like the rich, polished type. Definitely not a typical Forbidden college student customer.
The way she paid attention to Mason told me she wasn't here to get her party on. She was here solely to see him.
"Fine," she snarled. "Since you're forcing me to speak out among your friends, then I will. I'm pregnant. And you're the father."
I was about ten yards behind her so I couldn't see what she was revealing when she swept open her coat, but I assumed it was a decent-sized baby bump by the way Mason's mouth dropped open as he stared in horror.
Suddenly, I regretted wanting something a little more exciting to happen tonight because I didn't want to think of Lowe as a cheater. He'd talked sweet about his girlfriend, Reese, as if he were a faithful, dedicated guy. I had liked that about him. But he turned away from the woman, and marched out from behind the bar and then down the hall to the bathroom in a guilty kind of trance. He'd definitely had sex with her.
Abandoning my broom, I followed him, pushing open the bathroom door to see if he was okay, and hopefully to find out he hadn't fucked around on his woman. Maybe all this was a big misunderstanding and—
Shit. He was too busy vomiting to talk to me. I heard the heaving from inside the stall and turned right back around.
The virgin was opening the front door for Mason's baby mama to leave as I returned to the big room.
"Well, he's puking his guts out," I told Gamble, thinking the cheating bastard Lowe deserved it. "Impending fatherhood must not suit him."
Gamble's teacher girlfriend made a sound as if she wanted to disagree with me, but she ended up holding her tongue. Gam glanced her way. "What?"
She gave a small shake of her head and sent him a tight smile. "Nothing."
They stared at each other a couple seconds, and had some kind of silent conversation that only a couple in a committed relationship could have, which made me want to gag because today was not the day I wanted to invest in true love, and soul mates, and happily fucking ever after.
A cell phone by the cash register started to ring, jerking me from my bitter thoughts.
Ten tipped his chin toward it. "Is that Lowe's phone?"
Everyone left in the club glanced at each other. We all knew Mason's shit was hitting the fan right now. Nothing on the other end of the line could be good news.
Gamble, the leader of our merry little crew, stepped toward it. "It's Reese."
Fuck. "That's his girlfriend's name."
Hamilton glanced at me, then at Gamble. "Should we answer it for him?"
Snorting out a dry laugh, Gamble lifted his hands. "And say what? Sorry, but your man can't come to the phone right now; he just found out he's going to be a daddy . . . to another woman's kid."
So no one answered the phone. Its ring seemed to echo through my chest, telling me with each vibration that Mason's woman knew exactly what had just happened.
I wondered if she was raging mad, or hurt so bad her spirit felt crushed. Poor girl. I wanted to kick Lowe's ass for her.
When the ringing stopped, it continued to ricochet through my head, making me feel evening guiltier. Shit. She deserved to know what had happened.
When the phone started up again, I couldn't take it. "I have a feeling she's going to keep calling," I told Gamble. "She must know something's up." If he didn't answer it, I would.
He sent me a scowl, and then looked at his woman for another one of their silent conversations.
I was about to hop behind the counter and grab the fucking phone myself when Gamble finally acted.
But as soon as he answered it, fucking Ten yelped, "Shit! Are you really going to tell her some old chick just came in, claiming Lowe knocked her up?"
Gamble sent Ten a death glare and promptly hung up the phone.
"You moron." I slapped Ten on the back of the head. "He'd already answered the phone; she probably heard everything you said."
"Oh . . . fuck." Ten glanced at Gamble. "My bad."
"You mean, Lowe's bad," Gamble muttered. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Damn it."
I ran my hands through my hair. This was going to end badly. And I could only picture one person getting hurt: Mason's girlfriend.
When Mason finally came out of the bathroom, I was ready to pin him to the wall by the throat and demand answers.
When we all turned to him, he jerked to a halt and rasped, "What?" Then his face went sheet white. "Jesus, she's not gone, is she?"
"Um." Gamble sent him a guilty cringe. "No, she's gone, but . . . uh, we might've just . . . accidentally told your girlfriend what happened." When Mason only stared at him, Gamble cleared his throat. "Your phone rang . . . and then it rang again. I was only going to let her know you were away for a minute, but . . . yeah . . . sorry, man."
Mason rushed to his phone like some kind of prick who was about to spill every excuse in the book to his unsuspecting girlfriend. But as soon as he said, "Reese?" the front doors of the club banged opened.
"Let me guess," a girl with straight, long dark hair said as she stormed into Forbidden. "Mrs. Garrison just showed up to announce you'd put a baby in her."
I was so busy gaping at Mason's girlfriend I didn't notice someone had come in with her. And when I did, I didn't immediately glance at the second person because I was too busy trying to gauge Reese's reaction. Surprisingly, she didn't look as pissed or hurt I as thought she would. She looked more resigned, as if she'd expected this to happen all along.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed the person following her had a huge stomach. Wondering if the pregnant cougar had followed Reese inside, I lifted my face to see a blonde wearing a bright pink shirt with Disney's Tinker Bell on it, instead of the older, dark-headed woman. I started to look away, dismissing her, when I did a double take, studying her shirt.