Brat (9 page)

“Fingers and toes don’t fully develop quite this early, but there are the beginnings of them there,” the doctor chimed in, seemingly nervous about the turn this exam had taken.

Ignoring him, Chase pointed at the screen. “I know you see that, the little pulsating circle there.”

I nodded. “That was the first thing I noticed.” It was pulsing in tandem with the sound filling the room. “That’s the heart, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “That’s the heart.”

I nodded my head and leaned back against the table, closing my eyes. “I want a picture.” I could practically hear the doctor frowning. “I do,” I insisted, opening one eye to peek at him. “Then I want you to cancel the aspiration.”

“Chloe!” Chase sounded shocked, but I couldn’t look at him. Not yet. Not until I reconciled myself to what I was about to do.

“Just do it!” I snapped, covering my spread legs with the thin paper blanket. “And for God’s sake someone give me my panties!”

Doctor Simmons cleared his throat and stood. “Let’s give them some privacy,” he said to the nurse, who quickly and silently followed him from the room.

I came to a sitting position on the table, unable to meet Chase’s gaze. I could feel him watching me, his stare burning the side of my face.

“Chloe, what are you doing?”

I stared down at my hands and cringed as one of the tears I’d been holding back splattered onto my palm. “Changing my mind,” I said, my voice wavering on a sob. “Chase, it has a heartbeat. I didn’t … I don’t know anything about babies. I didn’t know it would have such a strong heartbeat. Something with a heartbeat that strong … I don’t know, I feel like it deserves a chance at life.”

Chase came close, pausing when his thighs were touching my knees. He braced his hands on either side of the table and sighed. “What about you, Chloe? What about your chances? What about your life and your dreams? You chose abortion for a reason.”

“I don’t know!” I sobbed, swiping at my watery eyes. “I don’t know anything right now, so please just … give me time to think. I just know I can’t do this, Chase. I’m all about a woman’s right to choose, but this is harder than I thought.”

Chase nodded, his eyes filled with a combination of shock and relief. “Okay,” he said gently. His arms came around me and he crushed me against his chest. I rested there willingly, glad for his strength at that moment. I needed it more than I’d thought I would. “Okay,” he repeated.

“I’m sorry about this,” I said, my words muffled against his chest. “I thought I knew that I wanted this. I thought I was sure.”

“I knew you weren’t,” he admitted, “but I wanted to give you the space to figure that out for yourself. I didn’t want to be one of those assholes who tries to pressure a girl one way or the other.”

“Thank you,” I said with a sniffle. “Now, seriously, hand me my panties. I need to get out of here. Another minute surrounded by these hideous pink walls and I’m going to hurl.”

I was glad that Kinsley was gone to class when we returned from the appointment. All I wanted was to be alone with my thoughts. As an added bonus, Chase had to work a half day before going to his own class. He came knocking at my door before it was time to leave, wearing one those sexy ties of his over a white shirt and holding his satchel.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” he asked, looking at me as if he were afraid I was going to break into tiny little pieces.

I shrugged. “I’m pregnant, not terminally ill. I think I can manage while you go to work.”

Chase scowled at me. “Smartass. That was huge, the decision you just made. I want to know that you’re going to be okay. That ultrasound did just what the lawmakers who passed it wanted it to do—guilt trip vulnerable women into changing their minds about a choice they have the legal right to make. While I’m glad you’re having the baby, I can’t say I’m happy about the way you changed your mind.”

“Look, Chase,” I said with a heavy sigh, running my fingers through my hair, “I wasn’t sure about it anyway. The decision never felt right to me, I was just trying to convince myself it was the right thing to do. But maybe it won’t be so bad this way.”

“Yeah,” he said softly, reaching out to stroke a lock of my hair. “Maybe not.” He left me with a kiss on the cheek. “We’ll talk more when I get back. Try to eat something if you can. Baby needs the calories.”

“Blob,” I said to his back, causing him to pause at the top of the stairs.

He turned back to me with a confused frown. “What?”

“The baby,” I said, gesturing toward my still flat stomach. “Until we know the sex, its name is Blob.”

Chase chuckled. “Blob it is.”

I watched him go—until the top of his head disappeared down the stairs—before going back to my room. I had a class in an hour, but I knew I’d never be able to concentrate so I decided to skip it. This early in the semester, it really wouldn’t hurt me to miss one class. Once alone in my room, the first thing I did was reach for my phone.

My mom has never had a job, going from her father’s house to her husband’s house, and in both places she was catered to in the lap of luxury. As I selected her from my list of contacts, I knew she had nothing better to do this time of day. If she wasn’t at a hair, nail, or random spa appointment, she was having lunch with friends or shopping.

She answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Hi, Mom,” I said, trying to inject cheer into my voice. It was hard when I hated calling my parents for any reason other than to ask for money. I made the obligatory calls around holidays and a few times in between so they’d know I was still alive, but that was about it.

“Hi baby!” she said in a high-pitched, nasally voice entwined with a heavy Texas twang. “How’s your first week of school going?”

As if you really care,
I thought with a roll of my eyes. My mom was ready to marry me off to my ex right out of high school. She was determined for me to become a rich, lazy housewife just like her. I knew I’d disappointed her with my plans. She could never understand the fact that I wanted to
work
for a living and have a career of my own. “It’s going fine,” I said, pacing the length of the bedroom slowly. “Listen, I’m going to come for a visit this weekend. Labor Day is Monday, so I’ll have a few days off. I’m bringing a friend.”

She squealed with excitement on the other end and I imagined her implants jiggling obscenely in whatever tight get-up she was wearing as she bounced up and down. “Oh my God, Chloe, is it a
guy
?”

I didn’t want to lie. “Yes,” I said. “I want you to meet him and also … there’s something I want to tell you and Dad. Will he be there?”

“He’s in California on business for the week, but he will be home Saturday morning. His yacht club is having a Labor Day celebration Sunday evening and of course we’ll be going. Oh, you should bring your friend!”

Forcing Chase to mingle with a group of people who pretty much stand for everything he’s against doesn’t sound like a lot of fun for either of us. “Sure,” I agreed, hoping we could find a way out of it once we got there. “We’ll be there late Friday night, okay?”

“Okay, baby. Oh, I’m so excited to meet your gentleman friend! We’ll have to show him off to all our friends!”

Yeah that should be fun when he shows up wearing one of his environmental slogan T-shirts and ten dollar shoes.

“Sounds great, Mom. See you this weekend.”

“Bye, baby!”

Hanging up, I sank onto my bed with a sigh of relief. I’d already decided to have this baby; the part with all the explaining and talking couldn’t be over fast enough for me. I would only be able to hide it for so long anyway. I was leaving it up to Chase to tell his own family, but the sooner my parents found out and got over it, the better. Especially since I was going to have to strongly oppose their interference. My dad never saw a problem he couldn’t throw a check at, and I knew he’d handle this situation the same way. I would draw my strength from Chase. He had a steady sort of presence that made it easier to weather this. I guess if I was going to be an unwed mother I couldn’t have picked a better guy to have a one-night stand with.

After the phone call I went down to the kitchen and made a sandwich, taking it back up to my room to nibble on while I did some internet surfing on pregnancy. Aside from high school health class, I didn’t have a lot of knowledge on pregnancy and childbirth. By the time Chase returned from work and class six hours later, I was an absolute wreck.

I practically attacked him on the landing of the stairs when I realized it was him coming up. “Did you know that stretch marks are genetic?” I practically screamed at him. Before he could answer, I continued on. “That means if a woman’s mother had them, she’s probably going to have them, too. Do you know what that means?”

Chase’s eyebrows shot up as he entered his room with me hot on his heels, dropping his satchel onto the bed. “No more crop tops?” he quipped with a smirk.

“Don’t be a smartass,” I snapped. “I’ve been reading articles all afternoon and I’m on the edge. It means that no matter how much vitamin E or cocoa butter I use, I’m probably going to get the damn things anyway. Freaking stretch marks, Chase! Oh, and did you know that pregnancy causes hemorrhoids and increased flatulence? Because I sure didn’t!”

He was laughing now, and not even trying to stifle or hide it. His shoulders quivered, his chuckles loud and boisterous as they echoed from the ceilings. Crossing my arms over my chest, I gave him the stink eye.

“Oh, I’m glad you find this amusing. You get to keep your eight pack abs and I’m going to get stretched out like a rubber band.”

Still snickering, Chase came toward me and grabbed my shoulders. “Listen, princess,” he said with a wide grin, “you’re going to be the hottest mom on the planet. You don’t have anything to worry about. Besides, there’s always plastic surgery, right? Isn’t that some kind of ritual your people all perform at some point in life to preserve themselves?”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “My people? Chase, that’s just racist.”

Now we were both laughing. “Yeah, because rich people have been discriminated against for centuries.”

I shrugged. “Fine, when this is over you owe me a tummy tuck, okay?”

“You got it,” he said playfully. “I’ll even throw in a pair of boobs to go with it.”

“My boobs are fantastic, thank you very much.”

His eyes slid over my figure suggestively. “You don’t have to tell me.” Those cool green eyes rose up to meet mine again and the fire roaring in them was unmistakable. No, I didn’t have to tell him. He’d seen them … touched them … tasted them. I shivered at the memory.

My breath caught in my throat as he came closer, one hand reaching for me. I stiffened a bit, but relaxed when I realized he was reaching toward my stomach. His hand rested there, his palm flat over my belly, one of his thumbs resting on my hipbone. His eyes never left mine. “I’m going to be a dad,” he said. “Wow.”

I gave him a little smile. “You’ll be good at it. You’ll be a better parent than me. You’ll feed Blob all that organic crap and teach him to love the planet.”

He laughed. “Well, someone has to teach the kid how to dress. Nothing off the rack, right?”

“If he even steps foot inside a Wal-Mart, I’ll kill him.”

“I think you’ll be better than you think,” he reassured me.”

“I don’t know about that. I don’t know the first thing about babies.”

“I know slightly more than you, and what I don’t know, we’ll learn together. There are books, and magazines, and classes we can take. We’ll be ready.”

I nudged him playfully. “Leave it to a Boy Scout to come up with a plan.”

He grinned, his steps bringing him even closer to me, his hand shifting from flat on my stomach to holding my waist. His free hand came up to the other side, pulling me against him.

“Chase,” I whispered, pressing my hands to his chest. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to push him away, or if I just wanted to touch him. A little bit of both, I guess.

“Please, just …” He lowered his head toward mine. “Just let me have this moment. You gotta give me something, Chloe.”

“I’m giving you a baby,” I joked. “That’s like the biggest present ever.”

“That takes nine months to get here. For now, I’ll settle for your lips on mine.”

He was so close now, there was no way I could deny him. You’d think a guy who worked in a lab all day would smell like antiseptic, but Chase smelled musky and spicy, like the outdoors and sandalwood. I melted against him, the hypnotic flames dancing in his eyes combining with his scent to render me powerless. Just like before, I couldn’t resist him. God, I was in so much trouble when it came to this guy. The sad thing was, we both knew it.

“Kiss me, Chloe,” he whispered, his lips hovering over mine.

Without thinking, I stood on my tiptoes and let my mouth brush his before lowering myself and backing away quickly. Chase groaned, echoing the same disappointment I felt. There was no way I could go there, not now when I was so unsure about everything. This morning I’d been ready to have an abortion; less than twelve hours later, I had decided to have this baby. Chase and I barely knew each other, and much as I liked and wanted him, I didn’t want to make any rash decisions, especially now that there was a third person hanging in the balance.