It’s not real.
Except that wasn’t entirely true.
It was a nightmare, and it wasn’t real right then in my bedroom, but it had been. Once.
I hadn’t been planning to leave my house tonight, but the decision had been made for me. There was a cold beer—severalbeers, with my name on them.
Pulling my phone out, I texted my buddy Harrison.
Me:Hey. You free tonight? Beers at the Quill?
Harrison knew me better than anyone. He was the one person who knew about itall, but that had more to do with him being stubborn than it did with me trusting him with all of my dirty secrets. Of course, I trusted him now, but back then, when I was getting a degree in fire science, my sights locked fully on the fire academy, I didn’t trust anybody. My goal was to do exactly what I did in high school—keep my nose down, mind my own business, and get shit done. But then Harrison took the seat next to mine in our chemistry class, and never shut up long enough for me to tell him to fuck off. By the end of the first day, I knew more about him than I’d ever wanted to. His name was Harrison, he was going to school for business, he had a twin sister, and he was a huge car guy. Somehow his ramblings, which would’ve usually pissed me off, had me going from wanting him to shut up, to grabbing drinks with him after class. We’d been friends ever since, and while I still didn’t trust people, Ididtrust him.
Harrison:I’m down. 6pm?
Me:Sounds good.
The nightmares weren’t always so bad; sometimes, I could brush them off pretty easily. Other times, like right now, I had to stand in front of the mirror and see with my own eyes thatI was fine. Because, sometimes, I could feel the bruises, the cracked ribs, the burns, as if they had only happened yesterday. Sometimes, I could hear his voice so clearly, like he was right there in the bedroom with me, that I’d wake up swinging.
SIX
DARCY
I was getting nervous that my life was becoming a never-ending series of sitting in waiting rooms. One after another, listening to various versions of crappy elevator-esque music while avoiding eye-contact with everyone else in the chairs around me.
Today’s waiting room had me more on edge than the OB’s office. In fact, I think I’d rather sit in the OB’s office with a thousand pregnant women, and be forced to talk about all things baby with each of them.
“Darcy Adler?” a woman in a grey pencil skirt called from the end of a hallway. Her hair was pulled back so tightly into a chignon that she probably had chronic migraines.
I stood, feeling like I left my insides behind me in the chair, and walked toward her.
“Mr. Peters can see you now.” Her tight-lipped smile was professional, giving nothing away of what her boss thought of my impromptu meeting request.
But this was stage one of Linnea’s plan for me. Well, technically stage one was making a decision on what I was going to do with the baby. After our conversation, she’d graciously let me ruminate on it, which had taken the better part of last week. My initial instinct was to terminate it. For many reasons—namely that I was a single woman who had no idea who the father was—but mainly because I wasn’t motherhood material. I didn’t know the first thing about being a mom or how to take care of a baby. Being a personal trainer provided me with a decent income, but kids were undeniably expensive, and while I could always pick up more clients, that meant more hours away from home, which meant more money in childcare.
But when I had picked up the phone to make the appointment, the image of my baby in the ultrasound room came to the forefront of my mind, and I couldn’t press the call button.
There was a living being inside me whoneededme. Who was defenseless without me. I was the only one standing between it and all of the dangers this world possessed. Some day, this baby would need me to tuck it in at night, to help it with the homework that was due the next morning, or tell it how proud I was and how much I loved it. This baby neededme.
And a part of me wondered if maybe I didn’t need all of that too. If having someone I could care for, and support, and love unconditionally, wouldn’t help me too.
So here I was, at the second stage: Inform the Father. Or potential fathers, as it were. Stage three was to get a paternity test done, but in order to do that, I had to get their consent, which required informing both of them.
I hated this stage.
Liam’s office was not one of those all-glass offices where you could see in from the outside, but I wished more than anything in that instant that it was. I could’ve mentally prepared myself better if I’d been able to see his body language or facial expression before being trapped in a room with him.
His assistant knocked on his door and poked her head in. “Mr. Peters? I have Miss Adler here to see you.” With that, she stepped aside and motioned me through.
I sent her what I hoped was a kind smile, but knowing my face and how it felt, was definitely more grimace than smile.
A giant mahogany desk sat in the center of the room, several towering, matching bookcases lining the wall behind it. Dual computer screens blocked my view of him, until he pushed away from the desk to stand.
Well, shit, go former Darcy, because he was as good looking now as he was two months ago. I knew he would be from the online stalking I did with Linnea, but seeing him in person was different.
His sandy blond hair was on the longer side of what was deemed professional, but when the law firm you worked for was your father’s, it probably didn’t matter too much. Inside, his brown eyes didn’t have the same glow, but his height and breadth of his chest remained the same, even hidden under a suit.
Then I remembered the fact that he was currently engaged, and had neglected to tell me he had a girlfriend when we hooked up after that concert. Most likely, he neglected to tell his fiancée about me too. I sobered instantly. What a douche.
