BARON: Did you find her?
The text comes in like a stroke of telepathy, the moment I step outside Amara’s room.
Visiting hours are over. They want to hold her overnight, monitor her vitals. I am both glad and annoyed. On one hand, I’d love to yank the tubes out of her arms and shove her on my jet so we can run all these tests back at a hospital I know and trust.
But since I can’t do that, I suppose at least they’re taking adequate precautions.
RANSOME: Yeah.
BARON: And?
RANSOME: She’s pregnant.
BARON: No offense, cuz, but we been knew.
BARON: Is it yours, though?
RANSOME: I don’t know yet.
The texts are repetitive enough to make my jaw tighten. I’m not in the mood for any of this. It was one thing to see her again. Seeing her pregnant was another. Confirming that she could be carrying around my child sets off a whole different storm of feelings inside me.
The idea that she may be pregnant by another man bumps that storm up to a category five.
I need to know. And I need to know as soon as possible. Which means that Amara is getting on my plane as soon as she is released from the hospital whether she likes it or not.
My bones ache and my head is worse. It occurs to me that I am probably jet lagged. There’s a two-hour time difference here that is very much not working in my favor, because I just want this day to be over.
That said, I bite the bullet and head to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee. My skin crawls at the very idea of it—not just the coffee, but the cafeteria in general. I am only slightly comforted when I see they serve Starbucks. I’m sure by ‘serve’ they mean it’s purchased in bulk at Costco and brewed here.
As I suck down the first sip, reminding myself that I am only doing this for the caffeine and so that I have something in my stomach other than acid, my phone rings.
It’s Baron.
“So, what’s the plan?” he asks as soon as I answer.
“I need to figure out if she was unfaithful.” I take another sip and walk outside. Getting a cup of coffee in a Styrofoam cup from a hospital is one thing. Drinking it around sick, sobbing,panicky people is another. I may be in Montana, but I still have standards.
“I guess that’s the obvious place to start,” he agrees with me. “So, worst-case scenario, the kid isn’t yours. Then what?”
I feel my skin burn at the suggestion. “I find out who the fucker is that touched her and drag him along the highway until he’s nothing more than a three-mile grease stain.”
“Oh, is that all?”
Baron laughs, but I’m not joking. The idea of another man coming within ten feet of her with the intention of getting under her clothes makes me homicidal in a way I haven’t been before. Which is saying a lot, considering some of the sins I’ve committed in my adult years.
“And then I write her off forever,” I add.
“Fair enough, boss. And if the baby is yours?”
“Then I see to it she gets what she needs to deliver him safe and sound and drag her ass back to New York. I can’t have a future Rozanovpakhanliving in Fuckballs, Montana. He has a legacy to meet up to.”
“He?” Baron asks.
“Yeah,” I let out. “That’s what she says anyway. The baby is a boy.”
“Wow. A son.”
Son.The word stings. I don’t know if it's a good sting or a bad sting, but it’s a sting either way.
