"Then you need to make an effort to get to know Stephanie. If you're going to share custody of a child, you've got to have some type of established means of communication."
I don't like it, but I admit this is good advice. While Max is the romantic and would probably offer to marry a woman he got pregnant, he knows that's not me. I would never shirk my responsibility to a child, but I don't believe marriage is necessary to raise one.
"And she definitely wants to keep the child?" Max asks me, which causes my stomach to turn sour with fear.
"We didn't talk about that," I tell him in a panic. "She said she has a doctor's appointment next month. You don't think she would have an abortion, do you?"
"I don't know, man," Max says empathetically. "Is that even a possible choice for you?"
I mutter a string of curses and look at my brother helplessly. "I don't know, Max. I don't fucking know what to do."
Chapter 2
Stephanie
I pull up my mother's phone number from contacts and dial it, pressing my cellphone tight to my ear. As expected, I get her voicemail. She never answers my calls, but I prefer it that way. Over the years we've lapsed into the habit of communicating through voicemail, because it's just easier.
I'm still reeling from the news that I am in fact pregnant. There was a part of me that didn't believe the home pregnancy test, so I was actually faintly surprised when the doctor confirmed it. I mean...I didn't feel any different. Shouldn't I be feeling something if I'm pregnant? A fluttering in my stomach? Sore boobs? I know nothing of pregnancy. I have no clue what to do or how I'm going to raise a child. It's not something I had ever planned to do.
It's not something I ever wanted to do.
It's so daunting I believe I would literally sell my soul to the devil if I could just have one person I could confide this information to. A friend, a family member--hell, even a trusty neighborhood bartender I could spill the secret to and ask for advice.
Sadly, I have no one close enough I would ever feel comfortable doing that with. I've got about a million and one casual acquaintances, people at work I meet out at happy hour or some girls in my yoga class that I've gotten coffee with on occasion. A former college roommate I see occasionally to go dancing with.
But none of those people are good options to say, "Hey...I'm pregnant and I'm scared. What the hell do I do?"
I've never let anyone in close enough to me that I could tell something so personal to.
After my mom's greeting plays, I leave a message. "Hey, it's me. Just calling to check in and see how things are going. I know you're in Greece and our time zones are way off, so no need to call me back."
I hang up without asking my mom to call me back so I can tell her that she's going to be a grandmother.
I'm not even sure why I called, because I knew before I ever even picked up the phone that I wouldn't tell her what was going on in my life. We don't have that type of relationship at all, but if we did, and if I told her, I know I would spend the majority of the conversation trying to reassure her that becoming a grandmother didn't mean she was getting older.
With a sigh, I turn back to my email. I'll often come in and work on the weekends to do administrative stuff, but this weekend I just didn't have it in me what with finding out I was pregnant and needing to have an awkward conversation with the daddy. So this morning is all about trying to catch up on some neglected emails.
Saturday was wholly unpleasant because I spent most of the day psyching myself up to break the news to Lucas. The actual telling him I was pregnant Saturday night in a bar parking lot was awful, and even though I know he was justified in asking for it, I wasn't prepared for him to question paternity. That told me he thought I was pretty loose, which is and isn't true. I'm a liberated woman who thinks sex is pretty damn awesome. I don't shy away from one-night stands, and in fact prefer them. But I don't do hookups often. I don't go looking for them. If a situation presents itself and I'm interested, I'll act. But if I go months without, I'm okay with that too, because I've got a fucking awesome vibrator.
Sunday I pretty much lay on my couch and binged on Netflix, not feeling motivated to do anything at all. I'm pretty sure any therapist worth a damn would diagnose me with some situational depression. I'm just glad it's now Monday and the work week has started, because that is something I can't avoid. Work will force me to occupy my mind with other thoughts.
A tapping on my door causes my head to snap up and I call out, "Come in."
Philip Wagoner steps into my office, and that causes me to sit up straighter in my chair. He's the director of the museum and my boss. He's the one who decided to promote me to interim director of acquisitions from my assistant curatorial duties.
Note the key word being interim.
This is not a career opportunity, as I don't have the education or the experience to hold the position long term. The last director of acquisitions had a PhD, and I have a lowly master's in geology. I've only been here at the museum for two years, and before that, my geology degree lay wasted while I worked in retail. There was no way I was going to be considered for anything more than an interim position.
Mr. Wagoner gives me a smile as he steps just inside my door. "Just stopping in to see how things are going with you."
I blink in surprise. "Um...things are going well. I've got a bead on a partial Claosaurus specimen. There were suspected gastroliths found with the skeleton."
"Good, good," he says quickly, and I notice quite distractedly. I don't even think he heard what I just said because that would be a huge acquisition for the museum if I can get it.
Bobbing his head up and down on his bulky frame, he puts his hands together and starts to wring them. A classic sign of nervousness, which causes my nerves--which are already quite frayed--to fire up.
"So listen," Mr. Wagoner says to me. "We are going through final interviews for the director of acquisitions position. We should have a choice made within a few weeks."
"That's wonderful," I say with genuine smile.
While things are going well for me at this point, it's only because the man I replaced had some very good leads for me to follow up on. But I don't have the contacts he did in this industry and I know there's going to come a time when I run dry. I just don't have the necessary experience and this was only ever meant to be temporary.
"Yes, yes," he says, the repeat also a sign that he's nervous talking to me. "It's wonderful news indeed. But I actually have some not so good news to tell you about."
My stomach flips over and I know from some of the research I've done on pregnancy it is in no way associated with morning sickness as I'm still too early for that. I incline my head toward him and wait for him to finish.
"As you know, we've been seriously underfunded for the last few years, and while the gala last month raised some very nice money for us, we are still struggling to meet our budget constraints."
"Let me guess," I say softly. "My job is on the line."
Mr. Wagoner's face turns soft with empathy. "I'm sorry, Stephanie. But we're looking to combine the director and assistant curator's responsibilities into one job. The person we're hiring will be doing your job as well."
"How much time do I have?" I ask, my head already spinning with the implications of what this means to me.
"At least a month," Mr. Wagoner says, and then he adds something that gives me a tiny ray of hope. "But we don't want to lose you. We're actually looking to see if we can move you laterally into another department."
I'm not going to count on that happening, though, and I'll immediately start looking for a new job. This ordinarily would not be something that freaked me out. I've moved from job to job over the years managing to take very good care of myself. But these are not normal circumstances. I'm twenty-eight years old, pregnant and have no real job security now. I need health insurance and I need money to put a roof over my head and food in my belly to ensure the baby is healthy. If I can't find a job that meets my needs, t
his whole pregnancy thing is about to get a lot scarier.
"I'm really sorry," Mr. Wagoner repeats. "This is the part of my job I hate the most. But we will work hard to see if we can find a place for you here with us. Obviously, I will give you an excellent reference letter and I'm sure you'll find something very quickly."
I nod at him, and even attempt a brave smile. "Thank you, Mr. Wagoner. You don't know how much that would mean to me."
His smile back to me is sad but relieved to have that over with and he leaves my office without shutting the door behind him. A headache starts to brew and I put my fingertips to my temples to massage the pain away. I close my eyes and let out a frustrated groan, wondering how my life could get any more complicated.
I hear a soft knock on my door and I slowly raise my head as I open my eyes. I suppress another groan as I take in a big mountain of complication standing there.
Luc Fournier at the threshold to my office.
"You okay?" he asks, his expression worried.
I put on a completely fake smile, my voice coming out not as light as I'd like it. "Yeah. Totally fine. What are you doing here?"
Luc apparently takes that as permission to come into my office and he takes a seat in the only extra chair I have across from my desk. He leans back, props one of his ankles over the opposite knee, and grips the armrest casually with his hands.
"We didn't get a chance to talk the night before last," Luc says quietly. "You kind of rattled me with the news."
I nod in understanding because I've been rattled ever since I took that home pregnancy test.
"I was going to email you," he continues. "But that seemed too impersonal. Then I was going to call you, but that didn't seem right either. So I decided to come here to see you."
"What is there to talk about?" I ask him curiously, because honestly, until he gets the paternity test back, I assumed he wouldn't worry about this.
"Are you considering an abortion?"
This question is so unexpected I actually jerk backward from the shock of it.
He continues without waiting for my answer. "Because if you are, I would like to be involved in that consideration. If that's what you want, I would totally respect it and would support you. That has to be your choice. But if you want to know what I would want, I would ask that you not go that route."
He renders me speechless for a moment as I wonder if I should tell him that I had in fact considered an abortion. I am the last person in the world who knows how to raise a child properly. I have no concept of what a real family is because I don't have one. The fear of putting my dysfunctional view on this child has given me great pause.
But ultimately, I knew I couldn't do it. I've never been one to back away from a challenge or responsibility. I realized that I have to take responsibility for this because that's just the way I am. I've been taking responsibility for myself since I was a young child.
"I don't want to have an abortion," I tell Luc, and I don't miss the way his shoulders relax with this news. "I'll raise the baby by myself if you don't want any part of it."
His eyebrows draw inward and his eyes are troubled. "I'm prepared to support this child if it's mine."
"Well," I grit out, as I don't like the reminder that he's not accepting my word on this. "You won't know that for another month, so that brings me back to my original question. What are you doing here?"
He doesn't take the opportunity to strike back at me but gives a sigh that's filled with frustration and perhaps a yearning for a return to what his life was like before he met me.
"I figured if we were going to go through this together," he replies cautiously, "we should at least try to get to know each other a little bit."
I give him a smile that's not a smile and tell him sweetly, "And I'll be glad to do that after the first appointment and you're satisfied about paternity."
"Goddammit, Stephy," Luc snarls at me as he sits up straight in his seat. "This is hard on me too. I'm not ready to be a father."
"Well, I'm not ready to be a mother," I snap back at him.
"I actually think I believe you when you say the baby is mine," he says.
"That's a quite the turnaround," I mutter.
"I had a bad experience in my past that may have colored my initial judgment of this situation," he explains to me. "I'm sorry...but the first place my head went to was that I was getting played."
This is actually something I could see happening to a professional athlete. "Someone claimed you got her pregnant?"
He shakes his head quickly. "No, not that. But someone I think was seeing dollar signs when she looked at me."
I wince. That actually kind of sucks, so I get why he may have had some qualms with me claiming I was pregnant.
"So you're going to give me the benefit of the doubt now?" I ask to make sure I understand what he's saying.
Luc smiles at me, and this time it is genuine through and through. "I believe that's the right thing to do. And I am serious...I think we should get to know each other. I want to be involved. Having a kid is a big deal and I don't want to miss out on anything. If I'm going to be involved, it will make things easier. If you'll let me, that is."
I have a moment of unfettered relief over the realization that I'm not going to go through this alone. Thirty seconds ago I had no one I could talk to, and now I've got Luc standing in front of me saying he wants to be on this very scary journey with me. It's profoundly comforting, even if I'm ordinarily not one that takes to friendship very well.
I smile back at him and try to lighten the mood just a little, as well as making sure that I've got no expectations other than having his involvement as a father along with me. "I've got no problem with us trying to get to know each other. Just don't go down on bended knee and ask me to marry you, because the answer will be no."
I'm thankful he's not offended by this. He chuckles and says, "I'm pretty sure we can muddle our way through this without having to get married."
It works well for me that he's not old-fashioned to the extent that he believes marriage is the solution to this unplanned pregnancy. If he were to be so gallant as to offer it, the answer would be 100 percent no because I don't intend to ever get married. I hadn't intended to have a child, but well...I'm going to have to adapt now.
I come from a family that's so fucked up we took the "function" out of "dysfunctional" in all of the psychiatry books. He has no clue that I have no idea how to provide a family atmosphere for this child, but I sort of get the idea that he does just by the way he's stepping up to take responsibility. I'm going to have to learn how to be a decent parent, and I'm going to have to figure out how to accept his support, since I'm so used to just doing things for myself.
But that's not something I can explain right now, because Luc is a perfect stranger to me. Perfect would be the key word in that description, because he is even far yummier in daylight, I'm ashamed to note. When I saw Luc at the gala, I was instantly attracted to him. He has those all-American looks, which is funny, since he's French Canadian. Yes, I know a lot about Luc as well as many members of the Cold Fury, since I'm a big fan.
And while I can totally appreciate his talent on the ice, his physical looks push every single one of my buttons. The first thing you notice is that he's tall and well built. But up close, it's a tie between his sexy hazel eyes and a pair of very full lips, which I can attest are highly skilled. His dark brown hair is longish, with a slight wave and cut into various layers that fall over his forehead and ears but don't touch his collar.
Yes, I saw Luc, and the minute he started flirting with me, I was all in. It has been awhile for me...being with someone. Luc was my first step back into that arena, and while I would absolutely go back and change things if I could, I will never forget the soul-stripping orgasm he gave me. I'm not sure I'll find another man who will ever screw me the way Luc did.
So bottom line, I'm not averse to getting to know him because I absolutely want to have a good parenting relationship w
ith him.
But that's all I want.
Okay, I want that amazing freaking sex as well. But that would totally muddy the waters and we have enough stress as it is.
"Okay then," I say with a bright smile. "You interested in grabbing some lunch and maybe we can talk some more?"
"So we're cool?" he asks.
"We're cool," I say with no hesitation. We are definitely cool, and that's the way I want to keep it. "Let's go. I'll buy you lunch."
Luc stands up with a returned smile. "I'll buy you lunch."
I stand up as well. "Then let's go. I'm starving."
Chapter 3
Lucas
"Dude," I say nervously. "I need a beer."
"Fridge," is all Max says as he starts the grill, but his smile says he's amused at me.
I head back into the house from the upstairs deck, through the formal living room, past the sunroom, where Jules does her painting, and into the kitchen. Jules is spreading pink icing on a cake.
She looks up at me briefly, smiles, and goes back to her task.
"Strawberry?" I ask as I walk to the refrigerator.
"What gave it away?" she asks drolly with her eyes pinned to the cake as she works.
"Smart ass," I return affectionately.
"Big dumb caveman," she quips back, also with affection.
There was a time just about five months ago where I'd offended the shit out of Jules and I didn't think our relationship would ever recover. It was the first time I'd met her and later I questioned Max about her motives for being with him. Again, that whole gold digger complex I have going on. Sadly, Jules overheard me and it took a while for our relationship to thaw after that.
Now that I live here in Raleigh, and better yet, less than five miles away, I'm around.
A lot.
Jules practically had no choice but to start to like me. I like hanging with Jules's kids: Levy, Rocco, and Annabelle. I also like hanging with my brother, and guess what...I also really like hanging with Jules. She's perfect for my brother and a fucking amazing woman. He's a lucky bastard for sure.
"Why aren't the kids here?" I ask her as I twist the top off the beer.
"We thought it might be a little less intimidating to Stephanie if just the four of us had dinner together," she says slyly. "They're spending the evening over at Kate and Zack's."