“I…um…hacked your IM account.”
“Oh my God,” Nicole said as she put her elbows on her knees and her hands on her head. “You really have no boundaries, do you?”
“I just…wanted to talk to you,” I admitted. I felt like a total tool.
“You are such a fucking stalker,” she said. She obviously wasn’t overly happy, but she didn’t seem nearly as mad as I had expected, either.
“You don’t have Facebook or Twitter,” I said with a shrug.
“No more of that shit,” she said as she shook a claw at me.
“I won’t,” I promised. I waited a minute, and when she didn’t say anything else, I made my move. “Are you going to tell me what the big deal is? I mean, it’s just a kid. Why all the secrecy?”
Nicole huffed through her nose and rubbed her temples with her fingertips.
“I talked to Sophie, and she is seriously mad at me,” she said. “You know, you and your dad are not exactly popular around there.”
“I know.”
“Why is that?”
“Um…my dad managed to get a section of land annexed to make the parking garage at the hospital bigger. They claimed it was like…I dunno…supposed to be for a park or something. It was a lot of bullshit.”
I waved my hand dismissively.
“I am not having that conversation with you tonight,” Nicole replied. “Eventually, I convinced Sophie that you would never, ever tell anyone about Timmy, and if you make a liar out of me, I’m going to put your balls up on a pike in front of the school. Got it?”
“Um…yeah,” I said, and I was again torn between feeling threatened by the act she suggested or once again turned on by the idea of her touching my balls. “I won’t say anything. Who would I tell?”
“Your dad?” she suggested.
“No fucking way,” I said. It was apparently a good enough promise.
Nicole nodded and went on.
“I’m going to make a long story short,” she said. “Sophie was seeing a man in Portland…an older man. He was campaigning to be mayor. Their involvement was obviously very hush-hush because she was only barely eighteen, and he’s married. She ended up pregnant.”
“Okay, so he doesn’t want anyone to know.” I figured. “What’s the big deal?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Nicole said. “You were there—Ron’s a politician, too. He needs votes and has two daughters and now a baby as well. They are in a ton of debt because he uses all the money for campaigns and trying to keep up appearances. Sophie is working all the hours she can, but if anyone finds out about Timmy, she’s screwed.”
“She’s already been screwed,” I piped up. “He should have had the sense to wear a glove.”
Nicole dropped her head to the side and glared at me.
“Sorry,” I said with a shrug. It was still true, though. I never fucked a girl without using a condom. “I still don’t get why the baby has to be a secret.”
“I’m getting to that bit.”
“Okay.”
“When Sophie told the guy in Portland, he wanted her to…well, to get rid of it, but she couldn’t. He was really mad, saying she was going to ruin his life and whatever. He said if she ruined him, he’d ruin her, too.”
“He knows she needs money,” Nicole went on. “He’s promised to support the baby but only if she keeps it a secret until after the first of next year. That’s when he’ll be elected mayor, and he wants to make sure he gets what he wants. If anyone hears about Timmy, he won’t. So, he said he’ll support Sophie and the baby if she keeps the affair quiet long enough. If not, he says he’ll fight her on it, drag her through courts and whatever. He’s got money, and there’s no way she could afford a lawyer or anything. He knows it.”
“So, if she keeps it all quiet,” I recapped, “then he’ll pay her off? Sounds to me like he’s stringing her along.”
“I think so, too,” Nicole said with a nod, “but Sophie refuses to see it that way.”