Page 66 of Room Service

26

Trent

“Are you sure you don’t mind it?” Jessi asked, her voice small and muffled as she curled up against my chest.

I pursed my lips, feeling a slight ache in my chest. I’d never thought much about having children of my own but knowing Jessi could have been pregnant was having a strange effect on me.

“You don’t have to feel bad about it,” I told her gently. “You did what you thought was best for you at that time. You’re allowed to think of yourself, Jessi.”

Besides, back then I was still in a lot of denial about how I felt towards Jessi. If she’d come up to me to ask what to do, I felt afraid I might have told her to do exactly what she did. And the scare might have been enough to stop me from looking for her anymore, and I would have missed out on so much because of my pride and stupidity.

“Besides,” I added, “there’s no way to know that anything came from it. You might not have got pregnant anyway, you were just taking precautions.”

She sighed and finally lifted her head to look up at me. “I’m not exactly young anymore, you know. I’ll be hitting thirty soon, so it’s a race against biology, and if we’re going to have any kids, I’d like it to be before I’m so old I get tired trying to take care of them.”

I grinned down at her. “You’ve thought of having children before? With me?”

That had her blushing and ducking her head back down, and I let out a chuckle as I held her close again.

“I have,” she admitted after a minute, voice small. “Ever since I was a teenager. Probably long before that, but let’s say since I was a teen because that’s when I knew how babies are made and born.”

I hummed. “How many did you wish we’d have?”

She didn’t answer me, and I chuckled again.

“Anyway,” she said, a little wildly. “I had my period while I was at the beach, so I know I’m not. But… we always have the future, right?”

The words were stated tentatively, and she’d pulled back to look at me again. I noticed some traces of guilt lingering in her eyes, her expression, and I pecked a small kiss on her forehead.

“There’s always the future,” I reiterated. “So don’t worry so much about what happened in the past, okay? I’m happy that you took the initiative, that you were thinking of protecting yourself. Let it go and we’ll have ourselves a nice, bright future to try again, all right?”

The smile she gave me was a little shaky at the corners, but it was genuine.

“Do you mean it?” she asked.

I gave a serious nod. “Definitely. If it’s what you want, we can try. We could see a doctor, just to make sure nothing is wrong first. Although I would have loved to have you all to myself, at least for a little while,” I added with a sigh.

“You can have me as much as you want, Trent,” she reassured. “In fact, you can have me right now.”

My eyes widened in shock as she suddenly shoved my chest. Then she threw a leg over my lap and straddled me, her arms going around my neck. I relaxed against the couch, looking up at her with a growing smile. Her eyes practically sparkled at me, and I thought to myself again just how beautiful she was.

“You’re beautiful,” I told her because where was the fun in just keeping that to myself?

She grinned bashfully down at me, her arms circling my neck.

Before we could start anything, my phone rang. We both sighed in disappointment as I pulled it out of my pants pocket. I frowned at the number that I didn’t recognize but was pretty sure came from the hotel.

“Hello?” I said cautiously.

“Mr. Thompson? My name is Margaret Jones. I’m head of the cleaning department at the hotel.”

I frowned. “How did you get my number?”

There was a short silence, then came the tentative answer, “I called the office to talk to Matthew Thompson, but the secretary let me know he would be out of the office for the day. She gave me your phone number instead.”

I rolled my eyes. Dad should have been back to work, not taking days off. And if he’d only done it so he could visit me, I was going to get mad. Besides, he’d left my place a long time ago, and even with the detour, I’d arrived back at the hotel already. So where was he?

And also, if the secretary was handing out my phone number, it was probably for something serious. My eyes narrowed as it sunk in that she said she was the head of the cleaning department, and I got a suspicion.