“Only if there’s something to tell.”
I’ll have to tell him. Peter has proven his willingness to stalk me and he left bruises on my ass the last time we were in the same room together. I ran away from him with the knowledge that he would find me again and this time… he won’t let me escape that easily. Like I said, he has me curled up on the couch with a sore ache between my thighs like I’m a young adult who just discovered sex.
“Okay,” Rana says, nodding supportively. “Your body, your choice. Take the test and I’ll be here watchingRock The Block.”
If I hadn’t already seen those accusatory, annoying, absolutelyignoranttwo pink lines on the pregnancy test earlier, I would have screamed at the juxtaposition of discovering such serious news with a fun and light-hearted HGTV show. Rana turns up the volume to give me privacy, knowing enough of my personality that I’m not the sappy handholding sort… but I’m still human and appreciate her support out there.
I dip into my powder room with the backup pregnancy test. Five painful minutes pass before I’m sure, but I must have known deep in my heart that the test this morningwas tellingthe truth.I walk out of the bathroom, trying not to look defeated. This should be good news. I walk back into the living room and Rana mutes the show, right as the judges pan to a flashy, modern looking kitchen on the TV show.
“Are you ready to tell me?” she asks. “I can’t read your mind at all and it’s scaring me.”
You get a pretty good handle of your poker face working with judges, lawyers and the types of people you encounter in a courtroom. If you allow your feathers to become easily ruffled, you won’t last long in this career. It’s no surprise Rana can’t read my reactions…
“I’m pregnant.” I have to say it out loud to believe it, but when I say it, I almost want to throw up straight away. This wasn’t supposed to happen with an Italian mobster.
“Holy fucking airball,” Rana says in response, like I have a damn clue what that Gen Z slang means outside of having heard it a hundred times.
“It’s Peter’s?!” she follows up with, ready to plunge into this new reality where I’m somehow pregnant with a white mobster’s baby.
I still don’t want this to be real.
If I wasn’t ready with Kennard, my husband of twenty years, how the hell can I be ready to go through this with a dangerous white man who doesn’t share my culture, or anything with me aside from explosive physical desire?
And a desire to care for you, Aricia. He seems to have that.
But I quiet the thought, because women like me were taught that men won’t ever take care of you and if any man suggests that he might, it’s only because he wants to hurt and control you. I can’t give away any ounce of my independence to Peter just because I’m pregnant. This news might become very real, but I can’t let it break me.
Chapter Fourteen
Peter
Idon’t like not knowing, but Flora texted me that Michael showed up at my place and he was red in the face wondering where I was because he had left Myra and Gianna Rae all night to track down the bartender we suspect drugged us. I hastily scribbled a note to Aricia, which hopefully she didn’t interpret as an avoidance of the intensity that erupted between the two of us.
When I get to my place, Flora managed to calm Michael down, so he’s chuckling like fucking Santa Claus when I get there. Flora gives me a look that tells me she’ll be demanding payment for that later. I suspect she just wants the heat off her and I still won’t trust her until this little search tonight yields results.
“Flora said you found the bartender.”
“Yeah,” Michael says. “Crazy, 20-year-old biracial chick from downtown with green hair, a nose piercing and lots of tattoos.”
“So, she’s trouble.”
“I’m surprised I don’t remember someone that distinct,” Flora muses, as if a heavy dose of drugs wouldn’t wipe any memory out of our heads. “But I wore mom’s old Juicy Couture jumpsuit with the zipper down here and the manager gave me all the footage on a hard drive. You’re welcome.”
She touches the middle of her chest, clearly proud at the results of her cleavage. Michael and I couldn’t be more uncomfortable. Times like this, I see why he appreciates the tomboy twin.
“I’m the one who had to sift through the damn footage,” Michael snarls, easily returning to the prickly mood Flora met him with when he showed up at my place. Flora doesn’t appear bothered. I hope Michael gets his moodiness under control.
“What do we know about her?”
“Her name is Lorena Ramos, and she lives with three roommates close to the University of Buffalo student housing.”
“Why the fuck would she be a part of this?”
“She works at a bar, has a nose ring and a bunch of tattoos. I’m assuming drug addiction.”
Flora clucks her teeth and calls us both ignorant and backwards, but she doesn’t provide an alternate explanation for this bartender’s connection to us. Michael traced her apartment building and he’s pretty sure she has an early morning class at the university, so we can corner her outside her apartment before there are any witnesses and get the answers we need aboutwhyshe did this.
I don’t relish the idea of torturing a chick in her early twenties, but I don’t want to face Aricia again without getting answers about what happens to us. It hurts me not to have answers about her pregnancy. I want her pregnant…
