“Maggie?”
Nothing. Not even a muffled response from the hall bath behind me, but I already knew it was empty since the door was open.
Not a sound except for the gentle hum of the air conditioner.
She was gone.
“Well, shit.”
That sucked.
Chapter 4
Maggie
My stomach tied itself into a thousand knots, and I couldn’t peel my gaze off the growing pile of plastic sticks on the coffee table in front of me.
It was rare I wished I could go back to the simple life I’d known growing up the first eighteen years of my life, but today was definitely one of them. As if I’d ever be welcomed. If there was a slight chance of it before, it evaporated into mist now.
“What am I going to do?”
Belle, my sweet friend who’d welcomed me into her apartment after she found me sleeping in my car almost a year ago, smiled in a way that said everything would be okay.
Because she’d make it so.
If only I had her confidence.
“We’ll tell him. He seems like a good enough guy, and you know where he lives.”
She knew all about him. Between Lance’s obsession with the running back and my admission I’d slept with him after that night in October, Belle knew more about the man than anyone outside his own mother, probably. And I’d spent the last seven Sundays out of the apartment at game times so I didn’t have to see his face on the screen or hear Lance talk about him. Not that that mattered—I’d certainly done my fair share of stalking.
Belle was right, like usual. He definitely seemed like a decent guy. He’d at least given me a night of fantasies I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover from. Who in the world could compete with his stamina? It’d taken me four days to walk without a limp again.
I fiddled with the threads of my worn T-shirt. “Maybe I don’t have to. He doesn’t have to know. I could—”
“Could you?”
No. I was already shaking my head. I couldn’t.
“It’s okay.”
Belle always smelled like lemons and sunshine, and she did now as she climbed off her perch on the couch, joined me on the floor where I was still staring at the scattering of pregnancy tests she’d run to the drugstore to purchase for me. She wrapped her arm across my shoulders and pulled me to her until my head hit her shoulder.
“It’ll be okay. We’ll give you some time to figure things out. It’s okay to take a few days or whatever if you need it. And then you guys can figure out the rest.”
I was twenty-two years old, pregnant, knocked up by a stranger, and had spent the last year living in my friend’s guest room after being evicted from my last house due to my horrifically crappy roommates. Belle and I had met when I worked at a karaoke bar. She’d actually heard me sing when no one in the crowd wanted to go up, and then afterward, I was fired for dropping an entire case of glasses all over the floor. I’d been living out of my car, when she chased after me to talk about my singing. She insisted on helping me, and after I turned her down with singing help, she’d refused to leave me alone until I stayed the night at her house. That one night, when I was exhausted and couldn’t fight her turned into months of staying with her and the best friendship I’d ever had. Since the night I couldn’t stop thinking about, I finally found an apartment of my own, as dingy and unsafe as it was. I was trying to find a better apartment, and I’d resigned myself to trying to find a roommate. Now that I was pregnant? What stranger wanted to take that on?
I picked up one of the pregnancy sticks and tilted it back and forth, but it was the same digital readout of the word I’d dreaded seeing for the last two weeks since I realized my period was late. It wasn’t until I almost puked out of nowhere this morning that reality became clearer.
I was twenty-two without a full-time career or a college education and moved to Nashville to make it big as a country singer and so far, I’d bounced around living arrangements, had at least a dozen jobs, and not once had I been able to do anything more than step on stage at karaoke bars.
“I can’t believe this is happening. I mean… how?”
Belle snorted and gave me a shove. “When a man…”
“Shut up. I know how.” And boy, did I vividly remember. “We were careful.”
“Every time?”
“All five of them.”
“I still think you’re fibbing about that.”
“The couch.” I held up a finger and Belle laughed.
“Shut up, you brat. I’ve heard. Trust me, but a man that good shouldn’t be real. Puts the rest of them to shame.”
Exactly. How would I ever move on from that night? More than once, before I thought I was pregnant, I’d considered stopping by his place for a repeat. Or heading to Lou’s to leave my number for him. They’d seemed close.
I’d felt desperate.
That was probably a weekly occurrence for him. I would have been forgotten the next day, which was why I’d snuck out before that awkward goodbye could happen or before I could suggest I give him my number and have him either take it and never call or politely turn me down.
Next to me, Belle stood and started cleaning up my pregnancy sticks and boxes. “Do you need anything?”
“A better family?” The joke fell flat as Belle’s smile.
“You have me and Lance and my family. We’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
“He’s moving in with you and you’re starting your own life together. I need to figure this out on my own.”
Just like I’d been doing since I’d gotten pulled out of my conservative Christian college after my resident adviser found a boy in my room.
We’d only been kissing, but it was after curfew. The fact that Jacob had brought beer, which was a huge no-no, was the second mark on my record. The school had called my parents, and they’d yanked me out of school. When I refused to return home to our small town in the middle of Nowheresville, Missouri to repent from my sins, they told me I was on my own.
“Should have named you Jezebel, you harlot. You may return to the fold when you’re ready to repent of your sins.”
Yeah… no thanks, Mom.
My father had only been slightly less hurtful. “That’s what happens without the protection and leadership of a man over your life.”
I could hear him scratching his next sermon, probably a warning to all the women in the congregation. They’d use me as a warning, and many of the young girls would probably never be allowed to leave home if they were still single.
The only people I missed were my younger siblings, mostly my sisters. Their life would only get harder because of my screw-ups.
“Knew we never should have sent you to school. Knew the world would sink its evil claws into you.”
“Hey.” Belle shook my shoulder and stood, grunting as she stood. “Come on. Lance and I will never turn our backs on you. We may not be blood, but you’re stuck with us forever.”
“Thanks.”
She took my hand and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s get some food in you. We’ll have this all sorted in no time.”
Right. It’d be so easy to go talk to a professional football player, show up at his door and say, “Hey, remember me? Well, you’re stuck with me forever now.”