Good Girl : An Enemies-to-Lovers, Roommate Romance (Alphahole Roommates Book 2), page 45
Suzette Greer is a lot like my mother.
I push that thought away, wanting to avoid negative thoughts about Audra while she’s fighting for her life.
“Don’t,” Jada warns softly. “This isn’t on you.”
“It’s not, Austin. My daughter made choices. Bad ones.”
I say nothing. I wasn’t taking the blame for this because I was charging Sienna with assault. Not remotely. It’s not on me at all.
Aiden pipes up. “I want her cell phone checked, her computer run through with Jude for forensics, I wanna know if she’s done anything to try to make our lives difficult going forward.”
“I really don’t think she-” Roger starts.
“You didn’t think she’d stab my mother today, did you? I need to know!” Aiden snaps. “Auz needs to know. We both need to know our women are safe. That she won’t go after Adele or after Audra again, if Audra even survives this.”
“Everyone stop, please,” Adele pleads, tears streaming.
Dirk is back. He puts the tray of drinks down and pulls her close. “Let’s just hope Mom survives and then the book can be fucking thrown at Sienna,” Adele mumbles into her husband’s shoulder.
“She might be the mother of your niece or nephew,” Roger reminds her.
And I stop and lean forward, hands bracing on my thighs, feeling like I’m about to puke my guts up.
Jada comes to me. I pull her close. Breathe her in. But I’m shaking. With rage.
An evil, psychotic bitch might be having my baby. An evil bitch who might have killed that baby’s grandmother and who wanted to stab my girlfriend and my brother’s wife.
Jada rubs my back. I stare into her eyes.
“It’ll be okay,” she whispers. “Somehow.”
I nod and bury my face into her hair.
But I’m not sure it will.
***
My mother survives her surgery. She’s going to have a gnarly scar on her belly. She’ll deal, though. Audra has the best plastic surgeon in San Diego on speed dial.
Sienna was sedated and I immediately got my lawyers working on demanding a paternity test.
They get a judge to agree because she’s probably not going to be deemed fit to stand trial for attempted murder and if she is pregnant with my child, I’ll be within my rights to be consulted on antipsychotic drugs and their effect on a fetus.
The idea of all this has me sick to my stomach.
Jada is unwavering in being here for me. Psychic in knowing when I need her close and when I need space.
She’s no stranger to dealing with someone with mental illness so the only thing that gets to me in the few days following my mother’s stabbing is when she starts talking with sympathy for Sienna. She knows it’s a sore spot so thankfully she doesn’t push that argument with me.
I have a hard time feeling sorry for that girl, have a hard time believing this isn’t just her not liking that she’s not getting her way after a lifetime of having every whim answered by her parents, everything she wants from men because of her looks. The world either falls to her feet or succumbs when she pushes her money and her status around. And not getting her way this time turned her into a holy terror.
I won’t feel sorry for that bitch who went at the woman I love with a knife and wound up stabbing my mother. Not at all. And I’m just sick inside at the notion she might be the mother of a kid that’s biologically mine.
Adele has tried asking again if I’d raise the kid or not.
I haven’t given any answers. I have none.
Audra, though? This whole thing seems to have humbled her a little. Sad, but true.
In the hospital a couple days after her surgery, she told me to do what was right for me and that she’d be behind me.
She’s even being civil with my father and Alice.
***
A Week Later
We’re expecting a call today from my lawyer with the results of Sienna’s paternity test.
“Do you want to talk what-ifs?” Jada asks.
She’s at the kitchen counter, using a spatula to press Rice Krispies, butter, and marshmallows into a glass dish. She spent yesterday shopping with Carly and Adele, buying stuff for the kitchen that I didn’t have, including the dish she’s currently using. I spanked her ass for using her own money to buy it but realize she doesn’t want me to think she’s after my money.
“Besides,” she argued back, “The house sold, and it sold for more than asking, so I have money coming. I can splurge on some Pyrex.” She stuck her tongue out at me.
I paid someone to pack her father’s house up after reroofing and painting it. Everything was put in storage before they stuck up the for-sale sign. It sold quickly and it’s been good that it’s one less thing on Jada’s plate.
She’s planning to enroll in a writing class at UC San Diego for starters. She’s having fun with my sister and my sister-in-law. She’s been writing at her new desk, too, but she put a password on her computer. I acted fake outraged that she did that, until she whispered the password into my ear. “Grouchothethird”.
***
She’s talking about her class while she cuts the treats into squares. “At least it’s part-time. So… it won’t be too bad if my responsibilities have to increase.”
“Your responsibilities?”
She bites her lip and looks like she wants to take those words back.
“Are you saying you’re keeping things open in case you have to become a mother unexpectedly” I ask angrily.
“You said you didn’t wanna talk about this until we know. Sorry. I didn’t mean to take us down this road.”
I shake my head. “We’re here, so let’s travel on it for just a minute, then.” I fold my arms over my chest. “You’re willing to put your life on hold to help me take care of a kid that’s not even yours? A kid born to a woman who tried to knife you? Who stabbed the kid’s grandmother?”
She gives me a sad smile. “Absolutely.”
“It’s not gonna piss you off?’
“Is it ideal? No. But, if that’s the hand you’re dealt, then it’s the hand I’m dealt, too. I want you, Austin, and if you come with a baby I’m here for you every minute of every day.”
“What if I don’t wanna raise it?” I ask.
She grabs my hand. “I’m just keeping myself open for whatever you decide. It’s your decision.”
“Whatever we decide,” I correct and kiss her hand.
“Right.” She smiles.
“I love you, Jada, and I’m not about to foist this on you if it’s not what you want.”
“I want you and whatever comes with you,” she tells me.
I believe her. I kiss her and breathe out a long breath. I want this answer. And I don’t. With equal intensity.
I suddenly understand why my brother sat on that paternity test envelope for a year before he opened it. I want to know. But if it’s yes, everything is gonna change and I don’t know if I’m ready for that.
My phone rings.
It’s my lawyer.
Here we go…
64
Jada
Austin answers his phone. I hold his free hand tight, trying to lend him any strength I have.
I love this man and he looks so rattled right now. I can imagine. I mean, I get it – why he was so livid so often.
I watch his face as he listens. He squeezes my hand and his eyes close.
He winces.
And that physically hurts.
It must be a yes. And he looks distraught.
My chest hurts. I start trembling.
Okay. If this is the reality, it’s the reality. There’s a cute little bedroom next to the master that’ll be perfect for a nursery. I can write with a baby on my hip. Danielle Steel had nine kids and she’s written nearly two hundred books.
This is gonna be fine. We can do this.
Austin is ‘mm hm’ing and then he says goodbye.
He blows out a breath.
“We’re gonna be okay. We can do this,” I tell him and wrap my arms around him.
He pulls me close. “She’s not pregnant.”
I flinch and pull back. Shocked.
“Oh, she was though.”
“She was?”
“Apparently she’s had a long history of problems with her – reproductive organs and found out days before she attacked that the pregnancy wasn’t viable. It was an ectopic pregnancy and it’s gone now. The loss set off the psychosis, we’re guessing. Her mother went on a cruise without her and she was alone at home when she got bad abdominal pains. She drove herself to the hospital.”
His phone rings. “That’s Roger. Apparently I’m about to be told the rest. My lawyer said he didn’t have all the information, that Roger was gonna call me.”
“Take it. I’m right here,” I say and I get two bottles of water from the fridge and pass him one.
He steps outside with the phone, but as he does, waves at me to come out. “I just need air, it’s okay if you listen.”
I wave. “Go ahead. Fill me in when you’re done.”
I’m in shock. I’m relieved and sad in equal measure. I’m relieved that this is over for Austin, but sad about Sienna’s mental health issues. It’s been a little hard to see Austin act cold about it when I’ve lived with people acting cold about my brother’s mental illness almost all my life, but he really just thinks she’s a manipulative spoiled person rather than having real problems. And I’m no expert, but I suspect she does have mental illness. It seems like a woman scaling a fence with a knife and planning to stab a bunch of people seems to me like a person with serious mental health problems.
I understand Austin’s anger. But I still feel bad for her.
He tells me it’s because I’m a good person. He’s a good person, too. He’s just angry right now.
He comes back in a few minutes later, blowing out a long breath.
He takes me into his arms and I hold on tight.
“Marry me,” he says.
I lean back and look at him.
“Huh?”
“I’m not joking. You’re a fucking angel and I’m insane if I don’t lock you down immediately.”
“I think you can do better than that as a proposal, Carmichael,” I scoff, pulling away.
He jerks me back against him and laughs into my hair. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll ask again when I’m inside you later when you’re bein’ my good girl, and you won’t be able to say no.”
“You’re right about that,” I whisper. “And maybe I’ll say yes. Maybe…”
He smiles wide.
“So?” I ask. “Are you gonna tell me what that was about?”
He breathes deep and takes a big sip of water before he spills the details.
“So, as far as we can guess, she thought being pregnant was her get out of jail free card. When that went away, she lost it I guess. The cheese slipped off her cracker.”
“Don’t be insensitive,” I chide.
“She tried to knife you and Carly and wound up knifing my mother. Forgive my insensitivity, Cooties.”
I sigh.
He shakes his head. “The thing is from my conversation with Rog, he told me the medical records show she was way less pregnant than she should’ve been and so Rog talked to her about that.”
“Huh?”
“It wasn’t mine. She was almost a month less pregnant than she would’ve been if she got pregnant on Aiden’s wedding night.”
I jolt in surprise.
He blows out another breath. “Yeah. She was tryin’ to use this, I guess. It’s fucked. She’s semi-lucid, really weepy and remorseful. She stormed over to Adele’s, ready to demand my address but saw her father’s car in the driveway with everyone else’s cars and sounds like she snapped.”
“Ho boy.”
“You might wanna sit down for this next part,” he says and sits down on a chair and pulls me onto his lap.
I wait.
He shakes his head. He’s obviously trying to process something but I jiggle his shoulders. “Suspense, Groucho, suspense!”
“Just thinkin’ that doesn’t hold water if she had a knife. That’s premediated.”
“Hm. Good Point.”
“Anyway, she admitted to Rog she had sex with a security guard she met in New York to try to get pregnant.”
I gasp.
He nods. “Said she borrowed a friend’s pregnancy test to give it to me, knowing she was ovulating. She was hoping to get with me that night she showed up. Rog said when she couldn’t, got herself knocked up anyway figuring she’d try to fix the paternity test somehow. Throw money at people to tamper with it. Delusional.”
My eyes bulge.
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. But it’s over.”
“Yeah,” I breathe.
“And that means I get the opportunity to make all my babies with one person only.”
I smile wide.
“We’re babysitting tomorrow night for Adele and Dirk to have a date night.”
“Are we?” he asks.
I nod. “I love kids.”
“Good,” he says with a big smile.
***
A Week Later
I’m yawning at the sink, looking out the window, waiting for the toast to pop while I daydream.
It’s a Saturday morning and I have a mild hangover after a night out with Carly, her friend (I guess mine now, too) Ally, Adele, and two girls that Carly works with, Stacy and Sonia.
It was a fun night. Ally is a hoot. Even if the night did end with her hunky beau carrying her out of the nightclub over his shoulder as a nod to reenact a time at that same club where Aiden did that with Carly.
Ally says Jude is way more an enemies-with-benefits than a boyfriend, though Carly told me after that Jude totally sees himself as her boyfriend.
All I know is that it was fun to watch. And extremely hot.
I smile, looking at my little avocado tree on the counter in the pretty orange pot. Austin bought it for me yesterday for the back yard, calling it my guacamole tree. I need to read up on how to care for it and get it to grow fruit.
I catch the scent of something burning.
Shoot. Who turned the dial on the toaster up to nine? My preferred toast setting is four!
I pull the toast out, burning my finger, and drop it on the plate, shaking my hand for a second. I’m ready to grab the bread and put new slices in when I feel a presence behind me.
I startle.
“Hey,” Austin says huskily. His lips touch my collarbone and I breathe in his scent. He’s back from his run. He’s sweaty. And for some weird reason, I love that smell on him. It must be loaded with pheromones or something.
“Hey,” I return. “I burnt breakfast.”
“Mm. I see that. And smell that. Are you wearing underwear under this shirt?”
“No,” I whisper. Yes, I’m wearing one of his dress shirts. He gets this look in his eye whenever I do, so I do – often.
“Let’s not let that burnt toast go to waste, then, Miss Sweetheart.” He lifts a piece up in his right hand.
He’s caging me against the counter now, his left hand beside my hip.
He waves it around for a second. “Still too hot, I think.”
He isn’t planning to…
His left hand cups my hip briefly and then the dress shirt I’m wearing is lifted.
He is gonna do this.
No way…
I grab onto the counter, feeling the still-warm, rather abrasive piece of toast against a place it probably shouldn’t be.
Epilogue
Seven Months Later
I’m waiting outside the hospital in Dad’s red Mustang. The top is down. Shane comes outside with Dr. Tamara Lexington. She waves.
I blow her a kiss. “Thank you for everything!”
She blows one back and steps back inside.
I get out of the car and leave the driver’s side door open.
“Shut it!” he orders, and I bristle.
But he’s smiling.
I shut the door as he rounds it and throws his arms around me. “Let me see it!”
I flash my hand and the beautiful engagement ring I got three months ago.
Shane grins and then shields his eyes. “Thanks. Whoa. Flashbang. Now I’m blind.”
“Ha. It’s pretty, isn’t it? And now that you’re out, I wanna ask if you’ll walk me down the aisle.”
“Absofuckinglutely.” He hugs me. “How’d he pop the question?”
I trip and catch myself. “Um, you know. The usual.” My face burns red.
Shane does a double take and then screws up his face. “You need a secondary engagement story.”
“I have one,” I whisper. “But it’s you here…”
He smiles.
Austin proposed to me during sex. Actually, he slipped the ring on my finger while my wrists were cuffed to the headboard.
I’ve been telling people he blurted the proposal in his kitchen, because truthfully he did do that, but that’s not when we technically got engaged. That took a little longer, though he teased me relentlessly telling me it could happen at any place or anytime and to be on my best ‘good girl’ behavior because I could get proposed to at any moment. I love the secret truth about our engagement, and it’s only for us.
But for some reason, I had a total poker face with Shane.
Shane walks around and opens the passenger door, gesturing for me to get in. I do.
He closes it, rounds the hood and then instead of opening the door, he puts one hand on the door and jumps over, Dukes of Hazzard style. I cackle with glee.
We loved watching reruns of that when we were kids. One of the things we actually did with Dad. The three of us would watch it every weeknight at seven o’clock. We watched all the seasons twice before Dad got sick of watching and went back to M.A.S.H.
Dad and Mom’s urns are carefully stored in the trunk. I went through my parents’ photo albums a few months ago when I came back for a week to sort through storage stuff and just like my brother said, Mom had put notes on the back of the photos about the date, place, and occasion. Carly and Adele came to help me and we made a girls’ week of it. I feel so lucky to have such good friends now. It’s hard to fathom how opposite of alone I am now.
