Another Man's Baby (22 page)

“I believe you,” she said. “I don’t think you slept with Jamilla.”

Eric stared at her. “Your belief is a little late, baby.” He moved slowly toward the door, turned and stared. “Tell me the truth.”

“I have,” Gabi pleaded, wishing she could go back in time. If only she had listened. “God,” she moaned. “Eric, baby, don’t do anything crazy, please.”

The pressure in his chest was excruciating. Eric took a breath and released it. “I can’t just let this go.”

“Why not? I did. I didn’t talk to Jamilla,” Gabi said, willing to try anything.

“And you’re not a man.”

“But I wanted to kick that heifer’s behind.” Gabi glared at him, remembering the feelings she’d had that night she’d caught Jamilla with her hands all over Eric’s body. She still wanted to kick her behind, but she hadn’t.

“So you understand my feelings?”

“I understand but there’s no need. Like you told me, keep your dignity, baby. It’s not like you to fight over a woman.” He was staring at her and she wasn’t sure if he even heard her.

“You think that’s what this is about, me playing macho? You think my pride is wounded and now I have to revenge my honor? This is about so much more, Gabi. This is about who we are. You are my life. You own my soul, I can’t live without that.”

“You don’t have to,” Gabi pleaded.

“I’m talking about knowing the truth.”

Gabi sighed. “You’re going to destroy our lives.”

He walked back to her, tilted her chin, kissed her lips, and patted her abdomen. “You already took care of that.”

***

Mixed emotions washed through Eric. He’d driven to the club on automatic pilot. Too much thinking and he’d end up in trouble. He kept Reggie’s face in his mind, wondering what he would do if Reggie maintained that he wasn’t the father of Gabi’s baby. What would he do then? He didn’t know.

“I want to see Reggie Washington,” Eric said pleasantly to the bartender. “I owe him something.”

“Sorry, he’s not working tonight.”

“He’s not here?” Eric asked, surprised, wondering if somehow Reggie had been warned. Gabi, he thought. Of course Gabi would have called to warn him.

Eric worried his top lip with the tip of his tongue, trying to think of a way to get around the suspicious bartender. “Reggie told me to come by tonight, that he would be here. Are you sure you don’t have it wrong, that Reggie might be coming in later?”

“Not tonight.”

“Does he sometimes just drop in?” Eric was aware the bartender was eyeing him suspiciously. “I really need to see him.”

“If you have something to give him you can leave it with me.”                    

“No, I don’t think so,” Eric answered, “this I have to give to him in person. It’s too important and too personal to leave with anyone. I have to make sure he gets it. You wouldn’t happen to know where he lives, would you?” Now the bartender looked definitely suspicious.

“What’s wrong?” the bartender asked. “Did Reggie come on to your old lady? Listen, the dancers don’t have to do anything, the women come after them. I keep telling you guys, don’t blame the dancers. Put your woman in check.”

For a moment Eric wondered if he pulled the automatic from his pocket if the man would continue talking. “It’s not like that,” Eric said instead. “We’re old friends. We’ve just lost touch.”

“Then leave your name,” the bartender said, his eyes narrowed into suspicious little slits. “I’ll see he gets it.” He shoved paper and pen toward Eric. “Here.”

Call me, Reggie
, Eric wrote. 
I
need to talk to you
. He glanced up at the bartender and knew the man was watching him closely, probably with his finger on the panic button. He’d told the man he had something to give Reggie.

He looked back at the note and added
, I have something to give you that you might be happy about.
He shrugged, signed his name and handed it over. It was then he realized that Reggie might not want the baby or Gabi on a permanent basis. He hadn’t wanted her before and he didn’t seem like he’d settled down much in the years since Eric had seen him.

A flutter began in his chest, a fragile sign of hope. Maybe he and Gabi still had a future. Reggie wasn’t big on commitments and Gabi knew that. Eric turned and left the club.

***

For over an hour Gabi sat numb, not knowing how to put her degenerating marriage back on track. She’d called the club to warn Reggie, and was relieved when she was told he was not scheduled for work. At least that would prevent Eric from doing something stupid. She trembled, wondering how far gone he really was.

She couldn’t imagine her husband killing her, but then of course she could never have imagined him hitting the clubs and disrespecting her the way he had. She didn’t know how the condom and panties had gotten into their car if Eric wasn’t involved. He maintained that he hadn’t had sex in the car or anyplace. If she was asking him to believe that he was sterile and had given her a baby, she’d have to try and believe the story he’d woven.

Gabi yelled for her guardian angel. He’d been absent now for weeks. The quiet she’d always thought she wanted proved now to be not so good. Gabi trembled, wondering if her guardian angel was watching over Eric. She wondered for a moment which of the two of them needed an angel more. After all, Eric had the gun.

“
Have faith.”

A smile formed on her lips and Gabi gave a prayer of thanks.
I’ve never known why you’ve been telling me to have faith. Now I think I do. If I’m wrong and Eric kills me we’re going to have to have a talk on the other side
. She laughed nervously.

“Eric, baby, I hope you can hear me. I didn’t cheat on you,” Gabrielle said softly. “Why would I? I’ve always loved you, you and only you.” She fell back against the sofa pillows, remembering when they’d first met.

She’d been in love with Eric since she was fifteen. She’d given him every indication that she liked him, but he’d done nothing about it for years and she’d been forced to forget him. That was the way it was done. In her circle of friends, girls did not under any circumstances chase after boys. Lucky for Gabi, when her foster homes changed, her school and friends didn’t. She was still able to adore Eric from afar.

Gabi groaned aloud. That was childhood, this was real life, her life, and she was an adult. She’d played silly games with her husband trying to one up him for his flirting, for the horrors she’d imagined.

And she’d done it with the one man her husband considered a threat and hated. Didn’t he have the sense God gave a billy goat? Didn’t he know that she would never let Reggie touch her, not in that way? She hadn’t when she was dating him and she sure as heck wouldn’t let him make love to her when she was married. She’d only flirted with Reggie to show her husband how it felt.

Gabi had wanted to hurt Eric the same as she was hurt. His denial that he was not intending to sleep with Jamilla had given her little comfort. His hands shouldn’t have been all over her. Gabi had seen that with her own eyes. The knowing looks of pity she’d received from her friends since then hadn’t helped one little bit.

***

Eric was surprised to see his wife’s car in the drive. The way he’d acted before he left he’d thought for sure she’s have the police at the house. He hadn’t expected Gabi to wait for him. He wondered again if she’d had anything to do with Reggie not being at the club. It didn’t matter, he thought, and opened the door.

“You called the club?” he asked Gabi.

“Yes, Reggie wasn’t there.”

“Why did you call?”

“I didn’t want you to shoot him.”

At that Eric smiled.

Gabrielle held his gaze. “It wasn’t Reggie I was worried about, Eric. I didn’t want you in trouble.”

Eric’s hand slid in his pocket and he brought out the gun, looked at it, then at Gabi. He pressed the release button, holding out his left palm to catch the magazine. He handed it over to Gabi. Then he checked the chamber as per his usual habit. He was nothing if not disciplined.

After making sure the gun was empty, he handed it over to Gabi. “I need to sleep,” he said and walked up the stairs. Eric headed straight for the medicine cabinet and retrieved the bottle of sleeping pills. He dumped several in his hand and smiled, thinking of Gabi before he put most of them back into the bottle and swallowed only three.

As Eric felt the pills working, his mind traveled backward to the moment they’d begun fighting, when he was first trying to protect her, when she found him with Jamilla. Then he thought about finding his wife hugged up with Reggie, of all people, with Reggie’s eyes telling them both what he wanted.

The man hadn’t even had the decency to get upset when he saw Eric. And he’d done nothing to protect himself when Eric shoved him, just laughed. That alone had pissed Eric off royally.

But the crowning point had been when Gabi called Reggie’s name out when Eric was making love to her. Mistake, she’d said.

How the hell did one confuse Eric with Reggie? It had to have been deliberate, that much he knew, and they’d been fighting about it ever since. 

Eric couldn’t help thinking that in spite of the fact that they’d been working on their marriage, putting the divorce on hold, Gabi had still been going out. The matches from
The Orgasmic Stallion
he kept finding around the house proved that. Now he wondered if what he thought was an act had been the real thing. Eric groaned. He was as confused as hell as to whether it had been an act or the real thing.

Eric’s last thought as he gave in to sleep was that it wasn’t all his wife’s fault, some of it was his. But the larger portion he blamed on the powers that be. Maybe it was Gabi’s God. Eric wasn’t sure who to blame, but he knew whoever had made him had apparently forgotten to give him what he needed to give his wife babies and it was his own  bruised ego that had almost led him astray. Almost.

***

Tears of relief rolled down Gabi’s cheeks and she mouthed a silent prayer. The weight of the gun in her hand was not nearly as heavy as the weight on her heart. She wondered about the things Eric had said, that he’d killed innocent, unarmed men.

A tremor started in her body and she shook uncontrollably. She’d badgered Eric for months to tell her what had happened. Now that she knew why he hadn’t, she didn’t think she could take it.

This time Gabi didn’t need her angel to tell her to have faith. She had her own common sense. Whatever had happened to her husband was eating him up alive and now this. She rubbed her belly, wondering if he wanted her to go against all that she cared about and abort. She wouldn’t do it, not even for Eric. She would not harm the baby they’d created. True, it might not have been created in perfect love, considering it probably happened the night they were fighting, the night he’d found her with Reggie, but it was loved nonetheless, at least by her.

Gabi blinked several times and dried her remaining tears with the palm of her hand. It was awfully quiet in the house. She thought of Eric’s eyes when he’d said he was going to sleep. She remembered the cursed bottle of pills. He wouldn’t, she thought, but she didn’t know at this moment what her husband was capable of.

She walked slowly up the stairs to her bedroom, the sound of her feet lost in the plush carpet. She couldn’t allow them to continue like this; they had to talk. Her body was shivering, her teeth chattering. So many things had gone wrong so quickly. Who would have ever thought Eric would go after anyone with a gun? Once again she thought of the look in her husband’s eyes when he’d said he wanted to sleep. Trying to push the feeling aside wasn’t working for Gabi.

Panic propelled her up the stairs faster, and a hitch in her chest pushed her into the room. Revenge wasn’t worth all of this drama. It was too late to take back what she’d done, too late for her husband to have faith in her.  The sight of Eric sprawled across the bed tore at her. She observed him for a long moment, taking in a breath before walking over to awake him.

“Eric,” she called softly at first, then more urgently, pushing on his shoulder, getting worried that he wasn’t answering her. He never slept this soundly except the time he’d taken the pills, she thought. Drawn as if by a magnet, her vision zeroed in on the over the counter sleeping pills beside the bed and her breath caught in her throat.