Chapter 28
Stick
“So, what’s this all about?” I asked Lucas as he directed me to park along the main drag in Pierpoint, a small, fairly affluent town about forty minutes from Schoolport.
We were a few doors down from the hair salon where one of my information contacts worked.
Back when I used to need information. I hadn’t seen her since the day I’d stopped by back in January, when I’d ended things.
Both professionally and personally.
Shelly had taken it well—it was a casual, no-strings, not very frequent hookup. She knew the score and seemed cool with me cutting things off. Even thanked me for being honest with her.
As honest as I could be.
Because it would have been way too weird to say, “Shelly, you’re great, and I really like having sex with you.
But there’s this girl that I don’t even like very much.
And she can’t stand me. And, well, I don’t think I can have good sex with you anymore because I can’t stop thinking about this girl… that I don’t even like.”
So, yeah, I just said I was interested in somebody and I thought it might lead somewhere and Shelly was cool.
“Is this about Shelly?” I asked Lucas now. I couldn’t figure out why else he would have asked me to drive to Pierpoint.
He’d texted me earlier, saying he had something important he needed to talk to me about. Caro was meeting with Joe and Grayson, so it was good timing for me to be gone. When I picked Lucas up at his mom’s place he just told me to drive to Pierpoint, not saying why.
We made small talk on the way, but I could tell something was bothering him.
“You don’t need Shelly, do you?” I asked him now. “Like, you aren’t…uh…taking over my action, are you?”
He gave me a “fuck you” look. “No. I’m with Lily. Completely. I don’t need your old action.”
I chuckled. “I didn’t mean that kind of action. I meant the…car information action.”
“Oh, right.” He shook his head. “No, not that.”
“But something to do with Shelly?” I looked up and down the street, seeing if there was any other possibility based on the businesses.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Listen, why don’t you go in there and say hi to her. I’ll wait here.”
“Why would I want to do that? I haven’t seen her in months. I don’t want to say hi. Not that I have any issues with her or anything. It’s just…over. It was never much to begin with. Nothing like what I’ve got with Jane.”
Lucas took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Dude,” I said, starting to get pissed off as well as worried. “What the hell is it?”
“I just think you—” He stopped abruptly, and I followed his vision. Shelly was coming out of the salon. She turned and walked away from us down the sidewalk. “Shit,” Lucas said. “You need to go talk to her.”
“Why?” I asked. But I had my answer as Shelly turned around, apparently forgetting something from the salon. As she turned our way, and then toward the salon, I could see that she was pregnant. Very pregnant.
“Oh, shit,” I said, a feeling of dread easing over my entire body.
“Yeah,” Lucas said. “I think you should—”
I didn’t hear the rest of what he said because I was already getting out of my car and rushing to the sidewalk.
* * *
“So why didn’t you say anything the last time we saw each other?” I asked Shelly.
She had agreed to meet after she was done with her shift, having just been on a break when Lucas and I saw her.
She seemed not at all excited to see me, but didn’t hesitate much when I asked to talk with her.
I drove Lucas back to Schoolport, called in to make sure Caro was okay without me, then drove back to Pierpoint.
Now, Shelly and I sat at a diner a few doors down from the salon. She was eating a ham sandwich and fries, but all I had the stomach for was coffee.
“I wasn’t sure I was keeping it when I last saw you,” she said.
I started to say something, but kept my mouth shut, not really sure what I should say about that.
Not really sure how I felt about that.
“And the last time we saw each other, you were ending things, so I wasn’t about to tell you then. It would have seemed like I was trying to keep you, trying to trap you.”
“Shel, I know you wouldn’t do that. We were always careful.
” Both statements were true. I’d known Shelly for a few years.
She was a couple of years older than me and made an okay living cutting hair at the swanky salon.
She wasn’t looking for ways to keep me as a boyfriend. And we’d always used condoms.
“So, what was the plan? Were you ever going to tell me?”
She took a long time to answer me. Ate a few bites of her sandwich, took a gulp from her glass of milk. “Here’s the thing, Stick,” she said, then leaned across the table closer to me. “I’m not sure it’s yours.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I mean, I’m not a slut or anything. But let’s face it, we were never more than an occasional hookup.”
I held up my hand. “No explanation necessary. You were a free agent.”
She nodded. “So were you.”
“You’re right,” I admitted. There had been other girls in that stretch.
Until I danced with Jane at her sister’s wedding. Then no other girl would do…even though I couldn’t admit to myself that Jane was the one I wanted.
“So, obviously at some point you decided to keep it,” I said.
A sweet glow came over her face. “Yes. It was scary as hell, but now…now I’m really glad and excited.” She rubbed her hand over her huge belly. Over the baby.
My baby? Jesus, this was all so unreal.
“And when will we know if I’m the father?” I asked. “Some kind of test or something?”
“They have some prenatal testing you can do, but I’d rather not do the invasive stuff. There’s also some prenatal blood tests they’ve started doing, but you have to send them off to a lab out of state, and it’s expensive.” She shrugged. “If you want, we can do a blood test after the baby is born.”
“What do you mean if I want?”
She sat back in the booth, both hands now slowly caressing her tummy. “I intended on doing this on my own, Stick. I’m not asking for your help.”
“I’d say that was obvious by the way you kept it under wraps. What about the other possibilities for the father? Do they know?”
She shook her head. “No. He’s out of the picture, was before I knew I was pregnant. Like I said, I intended on doing this on my own. How did you find out, by the way?”
“Lucas saw you somewhere.”
“Hmm. Yeah, I suppose something like that was bound to happen. With you being local and all.”
“But—”
“I would have let you known. After the baby was born. I would have asked if you wanted to be involved. And I would have—will—if it’s…the other guy’s.”
I believed her. Shelly had always been a straight shooter with me. And given the business we did together, there was a high level of mutual trust.
“How are you doing for money?” I asked. I knew the salon was one of the more expensive ones in town, but I couldn’t imagine they had a good healthcare program. So she was probably on some low-priced, piece-of-shit healthcare policy.
Plus, she wasn’t receiving the extra income I had been sending her way for information on her clients’ comings and goings.
She shrugged. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” She wouldn’t meet my eye as she said it.
“Listen, we’ll figure it out, okay? I’m…
I’m not going to let you go through this alone.
I can help out financially with the hospital costs and stuff.
I…” I knew what I was going to say. I also knew it was going to change my life forever.
And that I was about to lose the one thing—the one person—who meant everything to me. “I will be a father to my child.”