Chapter 8-y
“ M icky? Andrea? Lucy? What are you guys doing here?”
I stood there surprised after I opened my front door just two days after Ono had disappeared to find my bestie standing there with her baby and a handful of cousins in tow.
“Oh my God, Shelly! Where have you been?” my BFF chided, shoving her adorable son into my arms, as she unwound the giant ivory wool scarf she wore from around her neck.
“What do you mean? I told you I’ve been sick,” I said, nuzzling Baby Michael and ushering everyone into my tiny apartment.
After calling Micky that first night Ono was here, I’d ignored her messages except for sending her a selfie each day and letting her know I was alive.
Didn’t want her sending in the troops. Anyway, New Year’s Day had come and gone, and I’d missed the big family dinner.
But I heard all about Clementine’s private wedding to Connor Callahan, which was big news.
I’d been invited, of course, but had been preoccupied with a certain tall, dark, and blue-eyed guest I’d yet to push out of my mind.
Damn him.
I put on a fake smile for my friends, ignoring Micky’s laser like stare as Andrea and Lucy prattled on about this and that.
“Can you believe Mom wants me to take the job that agent offered me? I mean, me modeling for Javier DeSoto?” Lucy said, rolling her beautiful blue eyes.
“Um, yeah, Lucy, we can believe it. You look like a fucking superstar and Javier DeSoto is the next big thing to hit the runway,” Micky said, rolling her eyes.
“That may be. But the guy he sent with his offer and the business contract gives me the fucking creeps,” Lucy returned.
“So, tell our dads. I’m sure they’d be happy to deal with him,” Andrea put in her two cents.
“Oh yeah, just what I want, to send our fathers on a mission to hunt down some sleazy agent. He’s not worth it. Tell them, Shelly,” she scoffed.
“Listen to Lucy. It’s her life,” I chimed in, only half paying attention.
Baby Michael was clutching at my hair, and I grinned as I pulled my braids from his tiny little grip and tossed them over my shoulder.
He was a sweet baby and growing like a weed.
“How does he like the new helmet?” I asked Michaela, referencing the lighter, thinner therapy helmet I’d helped design for his minor positional skull abnormality.
It was a common condition in infants. That or problematic head tilting, and a lot of innovations had been made in that field to correct whatever the issues might be with helmet therapy.
“Oh, he likes this one so much better! I have to say, Shelly, you’re like a wizard. Why don’t you go into this kind of thing for real?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, kissing his chubby cheeks for a proper hello now that I’d unwrapped him from that insanely cute snowsuit he had on.
I always thought I’d have kids around the same time as Michaela. Always dreamed our children would grow up together.
But I didn’t even have any prospects for a husband, let alone a father for my imaginary future children.
Babies with various shades of skin from my tourmaline to pale ivory, with mixes of brown and electric blue eyes and thick straight hair.
Fuck. No.
I couldn’t even believe I’d had that thought.
Shaking off any images of Ono and any fictional children we might have in the recesses of my overworked and under-fucked brain, I led the girls into my apartment with a wide smile that clearly bordered on psychotic if the looks they gave me were anything to go by.
“Shelly? You sure you’re feeling okay?”
We settled in my cozy living room, and I slid to the floor with the baby while Micky opened one of those travel play mat things mothers seemed to pull out of nowhere.
This one was adorable, done in jade green with tiny crawling bears all over it. I grinned. I didn’t know why, but it seemed like every single thing they made for baby boys had bears, dogs, cars, or balls on it.
“Yep. Cold’s gone. Now, is it tummy time?” I asked little Michael and blew raspberries on his sweet-smelling skin before laying him down.
“How is he doing with it?” I asked Micky.
“Oh, he’s doing great. So strong, like his father,” she said, grinning at her son.
“Micky here is already planning for rug rat number two. Can you believe it?” Andrea teased.
Lucy and Micky joined in, and I just sat back and watched, smiling softly at their playful needling.
Andrea pulled out a box of cookies from a local pastry shop. I took a jam filled one and nodded when Lucy got up to make tea without asking permission.
Why would she?
We’d been doing things like this for years. Ever since Micky and I were in our teens.
These women were important to me. More family than anyone I was related to by blood, and yet, I didn’t feel comfortable telling them about what happened with me and Ono.
Micky sort of knew, but the rest was a secret. Guilt gnawed at me, but I pushed it away. I would tell them.
Soon.
Probably.
I just wasn’t ready.
Not yet.
Besides, what would I say?
Hey girls, you will never guess what happened to me. Some big mafia dude busted into my apartment bleeding all over the place and I rendered aid and let him stay for a few days. Oh yeah, and he boinked my brains out before stealing away in the dead of night, leaving me completely shattered and devastated. Crazy, right?
Yeah, no.
I was going to keep that little tidbit to myself until I had a better handle on my ridiculous emotions.
I mean shattered and devastated? Come on, I hardly knew him.
Clearly, it had been way too long since I’d had a real man in my bed, and I was being dramatic.
“Something is different about you, Shelly. I can’t put my finger on it, but you seem, I don’t know, subdued somehow,” Micky remarked after we drank two pots of tea and ate every last cookie in the box.
“Subdued? Shelly? Are you kidding? She’s the wildest of us all,” Andrea scoffed.
“I don’t know about all that, but I’m fine, Mick. I mean, this is the first week off I’d had in over a year, and I had the damn flu, so maybe I just look off,” I replied, pinning her with a look that said she better shut it or else.
“Okay, whatever,” she muttered, and I noted the gleam in her eye.
Micky was up to something, But she’d kept my secret and that meant a lot to me.
“So, you’re all better now, right?” Lucy asked, biting her lower lip, eyes glittering with mischief as she looked at her cousins then back to me.
“Oh no, what are you planning?”
I crossed my arms and narrowed my gaze. I had to be on call tomorrow, but it was only six o’clock now and if I didn’t know better, I would say Lucy Volkov was plotting something shady.
“Well, Micky is just an old married lady now. So boring! And well, Andrea got a few tickets to this pop up venue tonight for DJ Alpha.”
“So?” I said nonchalantly, even though I knew all about the infamous DJ and was dying to see him live.
“So, you’ll come with?” she asked.
“DJ Alpha? Hmmm. I don’t know,” I said, playing coy.
My clubbing days might be behind me, but I still paid attention to the New York music scene and DJ Alpha was fire.
“Pleaaase, Shelly! It’s gonna be so lit,” Andrea gushed, and I was already nodding my head.
“Alright, fine. I’ll be the mama bear,” I joked.
“Yeah, right. Last time we went out, you danced us under the table,” Micky said, shaking her head. “But they’re right, I’m out. I just wanna get this little guy home and fed and wait for my hot as fuck husband.”
“Oh my God, shut up already! You know, it’s not fair for you to brag like that. Not all of us have sausage delivery on speed dial,” Lucy snarked.
“Sausage delivery? Ew!”
I snorted a laugh at Lucy’s clever, and yeah, disgusting description as I stood and walked to my bedroom.
I barely even glanced at the bed, which was good progress.
It had been difficult that first day after I woke to find Ono gone.
Going in there and trying not to think about him proved harder than I’d imagined.
But after a good, thorough, deep clean, I felt moderately better about it.
There was also the fact we’d had sex three times without protection, and as a doctor, and a woman of the 21 st Century, I knew better than that.
Lucky for me, I had a birth control implant and access to a lab where I’d sent a vial of blood to be tested almost as soon as I realized he’d gone.
It was a stupid lapse of judgement, but I already had the results, and they’d come back clean.
I had condoms, I just didn’t think to use them.
A mistake I wouldn’t make again.
Frowning, I opened the top drawer of my side table and took out a sealed foil packet, shoving it in the back pocket of the tight black jeans I put on.
“The car’s here, are you ready?” Lucy called from the living room.
“Yeah. I’ll be right there.”
I had no intention of fucking anyone tonight, but I supposed it was better to be prepared.
The fact my chest felt tight, and my stomach nauseated at the thought of sleeping with anyone besides him was not something I wanted to think about.
It was taking me a little while longer to shake off than I expected, but I just needed to keep one thing clear.
Ono Bottarelli was not mine.
What had happened was a fluke.
Just one of those crazy things no one prepared for or expected.
I’d probably never even see him again.
All this moping was pointless. I was done sitting at home and waiting for him to break back into my apartment. Because really, that was what I had been doing.
Like a desperate idiot.
Well, no more. I was going to go out tonight and dance my ass off with my girls.
Fuck beautiful men who thought they could wreck a girl’s whole future with life and death situations and one night of okay sex!
Fine. It was more than okay. But whatever. Not like he needed me to fluff up his ego.
What happened was a one and done. I needed to get out of this slump or whatever this was, and DJ Alpha sounded like the perfect medicine for what ailed me.
“Nice, Shelly. You look goooood,” Micky waggled her eyebrows at me, and I snorted a laugh.
“Shut up, bitch. You’re only saying that cause you bought me this top last year for my birthday,” I said, gesturing to the glittery red confection that hugged my body like a second skin.
I wore it over my favorite skinny jeans paired with matching high-heeled boots. Make-up on, hair fixed, I was ready to go.
“The driver is here! Let’s go,” Lucy shouted.
I followed the trio of women, plus one baby, outside. Finally, my life was going to get back to normal.
But why doesn’t that sound as good as it should?