33. Forced Not to Party
33
Forced Not to Party
If you take my good pen, I will cut you.
-Nursing Staff Everywhere
Natalie
I couldn’t believe he had the audacity to show up in a tux.
A freaking tux.
I was calling out of work at the last minute so that he could go to a damn party. I thought something big had happened when he’d asked, something that his team really needed him for, but no. He was going to a party .
“Are you serious?” I stared at him, absolutely dumbfounded. “We had an agreement. I am supposed to work tonight. You promised me that you would never do this.”
“It’s an emergency,” he tried to tell me.
“Emergency? I didn’t know tuxedos were the new emergency wear. What kind of emergency? Is there a ballroom that needs dancers? Perhaps some champagne that is about to go to waste?”
“It’s not like that,” he snapped at me. “I didn’t have a say in this. Coach is making me.”
“Right. I see him twisting your arm.” I glared at him. I would have slammed the door in his face if I wasn’t in his apartment and not my own. Also, it would scare Penelope and Ellie. “How would your coach react to you calling in two hours before a game?”
He didn’t answer.
“I’m so sorry, Coach, but I don’t feel good. I need to go to a party,” I mimicked in an unflattering voice. I would have stomped my foot if I knew it wouldn’t make me look like an angry child. “We are short staffed tonight. Do you know how unprofessional it is for me to call out with less than four hours notice?”
I inwardly cringed at the memory of telling Sherri I would be late tonight. The disappointment flecked with panic in her voice as she tried to figure out how to staff an ER on a Friday night.
I tried to take a breath. I tried to calm myself down. Ellie was already fussing, sensing the rising tension in the room, but I was furious.
“I didn’t know about this until today. I got called in,” he informed me. I hated that he looked really good in that tux. The fact that I liked the way he looked in it just made me madder.
“Call Alex.”
“I did. He can’t.” He held out the flowers. I did not take them.
“Oh, that’s right, he had a date. Glad to see what your priorities are.” I walked away from him, leaving the flowers and pretending that Ellie needed her blanket from the coach.
“That’s not fair,” he growled at me, tossing the flowers onto the table.
I tried the deep breathing technique the labor and delivery nurses had taught us to calm laboring mothers in the ER. I could be calm. I could be a grownup. I didn’t have to be a mean vindictive bitch. Even though he deserved it.
A party .
He didn’t even have the decency to invite me to go with him. Not that I really had anyone to babysit, but that was beside the point. He didn’t know that. He’d just assumed that I would watch Ellie.
“I can cover the first four hours,” I said through gritted teeth. “You have until one am. Then I need to go to work. My boss is pissed, but that is the best I can do.”
He looked like he might reject that proposal and I would have flipped out on him. Nothing good in the world happened after one in the morning at parties with alcohol. Nothing that he needed to be a part of, anyway.
I stomped to the kitchen and began making Ellie a bottle.
“I can say that I’m tired and need to rest so I’m ready for Sunday,” he said. “No one will have an issue with that.”
“And you can’t use that now?” I asked, repositioning Ellie in my arms. She was wiggling and fussing for the bottle even though it wasn’t ready yet.
“No. This is a mandatory fundraiser. I am expected to be there. The owners of the team asked for me personally. I don’t really have a choice,” he replied, anger sharpening his voice into something that didn’t sound quite like him.
“Sounds rough.” Sarcasm echoed through every word. I saw his jaw clench.
“Here, I’ll take her. You can finish the bottle,” he offered, the words kind but the tone harsh.
“And have her ruin your tux? Nope.” I put the nipple on the bottle a little harder than was necessary. “I won’t be responsible for her ruining your suit.”
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” he mumbled. “She won’t be my problem for long.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, giving Ellie her bottle. She quieted once she was being fed.
“It’s not important,” he hedged.
“Oh no, now you get to explain.” I moved next to him, staring up at him and daring him to defy me in this as well. “What do you mean your daughter doesn’t matter anyway?”
“That’s not what I said,” he spat. He stared at me, anger and something I couldn’t figure out in his eyes. It didn’t suit him. “But she’s not my daughter.”
The world could have gone up in flames and I wouldn’t have noticed. A brass band could have marched through that kitchen and Penelope could have started singing opera as a soprano and I wouldn’t have blinked.
“What?”
He ran his hand through his hair, messing up the careful hairstyle he had obviously spent time making look nice for his party.
“I don’t have time for this right now, Natalie,” he said, heading toward the door. I cut in front of him like one of the defenders on the opposite team.
“No, you will make time.” I stood firm in front of him.
“The DNA results came in. She’s not mine.” His voice was flat. Emotionless. Like he didn’t care that this beautiful little girl wasn’t his.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I asked softly, clutching her to me.
“Of course, I was going to tell you!” he yelled, anger and hurt clouding his face. “I just fucking found out!”
I took a step back, the force of his anger pushing me away.
“You said she won’t be your problem for long.” Righteous anger was flaring white hot inside of me, replacing the red hot anger of being told what to do. “You going to abandon her and go back to all your parties?”
Hurt flashed across his features for a second before he snarled, “I don’t know what I’m going to do! I don’t even know what the fuck I am doing! I was never supposed to be her father, don’t you get it? She was never mine! I don’t deserve her!”
I took another step back. I knew that he was hurting. I knew that he was in a terrible emotional upheaval and that I should be kind.
But I was still mad. I was seething angry that he’d kept this from me. That he was going to a party after dropping that bombshell.
“So, what? You’re going to put her on her real dad’s doorstep?”
“Alex has a cousin in the countryside that wants her. They will give her a better home than I ever could.” His words were calm. All the fight went out of him. He refused to look at me, instead turning to the door and opening it up.
I didn’t have words. I just stood there staring after him as he walked away and closed the door, leaving me and his daughter, no, the unwanted baby, behind.
I looked down at Ellie, happily sucking away on her bottle and oblivious that her entire world was about to be rocked. Everything she knew was about to change.
I slid to the floor, unable to keep myself standing. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. We’d been planning such a beautiful life. I felt the dream evaporate like smoke around me and I knew I’d been foolish to believe in the sweet plans we’d made.
They were just whispers of a future that could never be.
I didn’t even want to think about what getting rid of Ellie meant for our relationship. I wanted to believe that he loved me and we’d figure this out. But he hadn’t consulted me with any of this. Not the party, not the DNA test, not the fact that he’d apparently had Alex put in adoption papers for his cousin.
I wasn’t a part of the plan. I wasn’t a consideration. If I wasn’t even being consulted about where Ellie would end up, why did I have any reason to believe that he’d want me in any other parts of his life? I’d just been a convenient babysitter that put out.
“Don’t catastrophize,” I told myself, but it was too late. I was already imagining and believing the worst possible scenarios. A sob welled up from somewhere deep inside of me, painful and shocking in its intensity.
“I don’t want you to go,” I whispered, feeling my throat go tight with tears. I kissed the top of Ellie’s head, my heart aching and feeling the world about to crumble around the both of us. “I hope Alex’s cousin needs a babysitter. You won’t be getting rid of me that easy.”
And then I sobbed.