Mine To Keep (Love By Design 7) - Page 6

“I know, but he can’t help himself any more than you can.” I leaned over to rub his head, breathing through another gripping round of pain. The cat scampered away, leaving me to watch from the far side of the parking lot.

I unlocked the door and pushed myself to get inside. Genie would just have to wait or go on my never-ending list of things I’d have to beg Taylor and Winnie to help me with. I fumbled with my purse and realized my cell phone was still upstairs in my apartment. Yeah, I wasn’t going back for that. In hindsight, I knew I should have called for an ambulance, but that would have brought Andy running down the stairs and his brother, David, trying to be awkwardly helpful. Those two men were wonderful, but I wa

sn’t feeling very open to having men help me right now, certainly not the tail-chasing barkeep or his wounded warrior brother who holed himself up drafting computer code. I definitely wasn’t calling Ryder, my baby daddy who’d promptly hung up the first time I informed him he knocked me up.

The cruel words he’d said, telling me to get rid of our baby and that he didn’t have time for distractions or a fat pregnant cow like me ruining his chances at a future, cut me to the core. It cut deeply when he assumed the baby wasn’t his even after he joked about popping my cherry. He knew I hadn’t been with anyone else and taking something that should have been special and quashing it underneath his shiny football cleats only proved how much I needed to do this on my own.

I tossed my purse, which held a change of clothes and not much else, onto the passenger seat next to me. “Damn it!” I let my head bang on the steering wheel, realizing I’d left the bag of baby clothes and other stuff the new mommy class suggested I have upstairs. I was in no condition to go back up there. I figured I could call Taylor or Louisa to get them for me. I was pretty sure they didn’t kick you out the minute you gave birth, and I would be all right.

Over my shoulder I saw the tiny car seat I installed just last week all by myself. I had read all the articles online at the library, and it seemed simple enough. This is it, little baby, we are really going to do this. A final cramp hit me hard, and I finally felt that mythical gush between my legs that did two things: one, it relieved a ton of pressure right away, but second, it left me sitting in a puddle of God only knew what that came from body. Since Andy was always asking what he could do for me, I’d start by asking him to have my car cleaned. It was us against the world, baby, and a hopefully short if painful drive to the hospital across the river.

6

Evan

I sat in my usual spot on 299 near the interstate overpass, watching cars go by, checking my radar. Tonight was proving to be a quiet shift, and I took a sip of my coffee, swallowing down the bitter brew. Nothing blipped out of the ordinary, and the night passed with painful slowness. I let the silver Prius with the front headlight out and the New Jersey license plates go. It looked like a tourist, and I wasn’t in the mood to hear flack about hybrid cars and dealers having to replace the headlight. Not even a bar fight from the gentlemen’s club, Cabaret, which was located next to the seediest motel in town right off the interstate on the edge of town, was causing trouble tonight. It was quiet, eerily so.

I let the satellite radio in my car play a nineties-only station as I tapped out the semi-emo tune on the steering wheel. I checked my phone for the bevy of holster-sniffing bunnies who left me cute messages on FaceGram, the ever-popular social media site. Twenty-eight unopened messages. Jesus, I was popular tonight. I shifted in my seat, scrolling through and deleting most of them. The one from my little sister, Shelby, I saved to call her back later.

Shannon: How’s my favorite cop tonight? Catch anyone? *winky-face emoji*

I was going to rudely type back something to the effect of not catching STDs by deleting her number but refrained. Shannon was a class A holster-ho with a big mouth and liked to gossip. Last time I hooked up with her, she told the whole dispatch center we were dating. No thanks.

Deleted.

Callista: You should come in for a reading sometime, handsome.

Nope. Negative. I wasn’t interested in the town palm reader telling me my future with her penchant for tantric sex. Besides, Whit had tapped that, and I heard about the granola diet one too many times.

Deleted.

Becky: Hey hottie—drinks on your next day off?

Deleted. Deleted.

I couldn’t get my fingers to remove her message fast enough. Becky was fun, a little crazy. Okay, a ton crazy. She liked to leave shit at my house for me to find later, or better yet to have other dates find, and that was just annoying. I didn’t want to take her out to Easton’s either and have Andy and David give me shit looks if Remi waited on my table or if Kristen walked in. It should have been weird enough that Becky dated Kristen’s older brother, Chase, years earlier before an injury ended his hopes of playing pro-football.

Hey—we live in a small town. Write me a citation…already over it.

Speaking of which, the next message was from Kristen. I deleted the rest from Becky. There was no point in continuing a relationship with a girl who was totally in love with someone else. Even if that someone else was a complete asshole I would have preferred to beat the shit out of... I was nobody’s hero and I couldn’t save the world.

Kristen: Hey, asshole—quit giving Demon tickets, would ya?

That made me laugh… Kristen had been a hot thing to tap while she was available, but she’d been off the market for a while since Damien Hart stole her right out from under me. Literally. I was about to drop my pants when that asshole came calling, and Kristen left me with blue balls center stage for that numb-nut. I wasn’t the best loser and Damien Hart was a pain in the ass since our peewee football days.

Since he finally came clean about the French foreign exchange student in seventh grade, those two had been bumping uglies like it was going out of style. A man could only take so much, and it was better for us to part ways as friends than enemies. Now if only Damien could see it that way, we’d be perfectly fine. The fact that I wasn’t hung up on the beautiful brunette probably meant that it was for the better things happened as they did. I texted her back because she always made me laugh, and I knew if Damien checked her phone he’d probably go ballistic, which was why I made it slightly inappropriate. I hadn’t gotten a woman in my bed in a while so I was feeling exceptionally playful tonight.

Me: Babe—I’ll stop ticketing your asshole boyfriend when he learns to park on the right side of the street between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. at your place. If you want, I’m happy to give a demonstration of all the parking rules and regulations like last time with him bent over the hood of his car.

Kristen: Prick.

Me: You miss it that much? I haven’t changed my number.

Kristen: Dream on. *eye-roll emoji*

Me: You know where to find me when lover boy winds up in jail.

I waited for those gray dots that indicated she was crafting a response that would attempt to eviscerate me. In my defense, I never falsely ticketed Damien. He was an idiot. Dude was lucky to be driving at all, in my opinion. The last time I pulled him over and tried to give him a breathalyzer, the asshole vomited on my hand and ruined the department’s machine. He was lucky Hunter was around the corner to pick up his dumb ass.

Tags: M.C. Cerny Love By Design Romance
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