Blue Lines: The Assassins Series: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance (23 page)

“Of course you do. I swear you’re a jack-of-all-trades,” he said as he moved off the
bed. He made his way to the bathroom and Piper laughed as she looked down at her Kindle.
She liked that he thought she could do a lot of things. Usually guys thought she was
flighty, not knowing what she wanted. Even her family thought that much of the time.

When he came out of the bathroom, he stood in only a pair of sport shorts. The same
ones that didn’t fit him and hung extremely low on his hips. He was scratching his
lower belly as he looked over at her.

“Why would I poke your stomach? That’s so weird.”

Piper shrugged her shoulders. “I think maybe you were trying to feel the baby move
because you sat there for a good minute, staring at my belly.”

“Hmm, I guess I would do that.”

She would have never thought that he would want to feel her belly or the baby move.
He hadn’t shown any interest until now. Did she want him to touch it? Last night,
she really didn’t have a choice, he kind of just took control, but now she could offer
him that chance.

Maybe if he touched her belly he’d feel more a part of things, more connected. It
wasn’t always about what she wanted, which was him and her together; it was about
the baby. She wanted her baby to have a daddy. She wanted her baby to have Erik.

So with a smile she asked, “You would?”

He shrugged his shoulders, his face warming with color while he looked everywhere
but at her. He was embarrassed and that was the very first time she had ever seen
him like that. “Sure, I’m curious, like any man would be.”

She looked down at her growing baby. “Would you like to feel it? Now, I mean?”

“Sure, I guess.”

But he didn’t move.

Erik rubbed his foot along his ankle, while Piper sat, waiting for him to come over
to her. When she realized that he wasn’t going to make the move, she got up and made
her way to him. When she was in front of him, he was still looking down and not at
her. She rolled her eyes and lifted her shirt, her little bump only inches from him.
He then looked up at her.

“I don’t know if the baby will move, but we’ll see,” she said, reaching for his hands.
He resisted at first, but soon relaxed, letting her take his hands and resting them
on her abdomen. His hands were big, warm, and callused; they also woke up every dirty
bone in Piper’s body.

Remembering she was supposed to be building a moment between father and child, she
moved his hands along the spots where the baby usually kicked.

“It’s hard.”

She laughed. “There is a person in there.”

Erik nodded while his eyes never left her belly. After a few more minutes of no luck,
he dropped his hands. “It’s probably like ‘who the hell is touching my home?’ ”

Piper giggled. “Maybe, or it’s probably sleeping.”

“Yeah,” he said as he walked past her. Suddenly the baby kicked, and Piper whipped
around, grabbing Erik’s arm to stop him. “What?” he asked as she took his hand and
placed it where she felt the baby move. When the baby kicked again, Piper watched
as the most beautiful smile spread across Erik’s gorgeous face. He looked up at her,
bright with excitement, but then, all of a sudden, it disappeared. As if he was hiding
it.

“Cool,” he muttered, and then he just walked away. She didn’t understand. He wanted
to feel and the baby was still kicking! Why was he freezing up on her? What did she
do?

Hoping to bring him back in, she said, “Our appointment for the ultrasound, to find
out what we are having, is in two weeks, on the twenty-second.”

She watched as he nodded before he said, “Okay, I’ll be there.”

“Promise?”

He looked over his shoulder and for a second she thought she saw the guy she had been
with for the last two days. He shot her a small smile and nodded as he said, “Yeah,
I promise.”

* * *

Two weeks later, Piper was trying her hardest not to think Erik had broken his promise
to her.

She sat in the middle of her ob-gyn’s office with her phone in her hand and her other
hand tapping her knee. She didn’t know what was going on. He said he was going to
be there; he promised. She had even reminded him of the appointment yesterday as she
made dinner. He was playing his damn games, but he nodded his head and said he would
be there. It didn’t make any freaking sense.

Things had been okay lately. A part of her thought maybe he was actually enjoying
living with her. When he wasn’t playing video games, he came out to sit on the dock
with her. They never talked about anything important, but at least they were together.
They had a routine, and she was almost happy.

Tears threatened to fall as she glanced back down at her phone, seeing that he had
three minutes to get there before it was time for her appointment. She wasn’t going
to call him. She knew that if she did, he would confirm that he was nowhere near her
and didn’t plan on coming. Closing her eyes, she took in a deep breath as her baby
moved around inside her. She wanted to know so badly if it was a boy or girl. She
was ready to start decorating and was ready to pick out a name. She was ready to call
the baby a he or she, instead of an “it.”

She was ready, but obviously Erik wasn’t.

“Piper Allen?”

Piper glanced up to see a nurse waiting with her chart. Standing up, she said, “Just
a second, please, I need to call my husband and see where he is.”

The nurse nodded and turned to go back inside as Piper dialed Erik’s number. He answered
on the third ring.

“Hey.”

“Hey, what are you doing?” she asked as calmly as she could.

“Playing COD. Why, what’s up?”

She knew it. Shaking her head as the tears started to rush down her face, she said,
“Nothing. I was just wondering if you can turn down my chicken that’s in the Crock-Pot.”

“Ten-four, no problem.”

“Thanks, I’ll talk to you later,” she muttered as she hung up the phone.

She looked down at the ground as her blood started to boil. How was it no problem
to turn down some chicken, but it was a problem to be here to find out the sex of
their child? Did he
not care at all? What had happened since yesterday that he totally forgot? Piper scheduled
the appointment so he could come, so that he could be here!

And he doesn’t fucking show up!

Fuck him! She’ll find out herself and be happy. She was done waiting around for Erik
Titov. If he didn’t want to be a part of their child’s life, then fuck him. She’d
do it on her own. She was more than capable of being the baby’s everything; she was
a jack-of-all-trades, for fuck sakes. Piper started to march toward the receptionist,
but right as she reached the desk, she stopped.

She couldn’t find out without him.

That was her plan from the beginning and if he wasn’t going to be here, then she wasn’t
going to find out. It was stupid and she might be setting herself up for failure,
but she had promised the baby she would wait for him, plus she knew it was a moment
he would want to be there for. He had wanted to feel the baby. She knew deep down
he did care. He was just forgetful, right? She would wait for him, but first she was
going to cuss him seven ways to Sunday for making her miss this appointment.

* * *

Setting his phone down, Erik got up to go to the kitchen to turn down the chicken.
As he entered the kitchen he wondered where Piper was. She had been gone all morning
and he had no clue what she was doing, which was weird. She always made a point to
tell him where she was going. He liked that, too. He found himself worrying about
her and what she was doing a lot.

Turning down the dial, he lifted the top to the Crock-Pot thinking about how good
things had been between them the last couple of weeks. When she wasn’t drawing or
reading, she was usually on the dock, so most of the time he would go out and sit
with her. They would talk about pointless things, like the weather, or how her neighbors
were extremely nosy. He wanted to ask her other things but never knew if he should.
If he did, he knew she would want to know things about him, and that made him nervous.
They had to keep things light.

Things had gotten a little crazy while they were in Las Vegas. He had started to forget
that this was a sham and had started to want things he had no right to want. Piper
was off-limits and as long as he didn’t touch her or look into her eyes, he would
be okay. It was more difficult
to do that, though, with every passing day, especially when she would get in the pool
in her little strappy bikini.

When a knock came at the front door, Erik returned the cover to the delicious-smelling
chicken and went to answer it. To his surprise on the other side was Phillip. He hadn’t
talked to Phillip in two weeks and it was for good reason after that shit he pulled
in Vegas.

“Phone broke?”

Erik shook his head. “Nope, I have nothing to say to you.”

Phillip’s face broke into a big grin as he tossed his blond hair out of his eyes.
“Is that right?”

“Yup.”

“Why is that?”

“You know why.”

He rolled his eyes as he said, “Can I come in and we can discuss it? ’Cause I really
don’t remember.”

Erik moved out of the way and let Phillip in, then followed him down the hall. Stanley
came running toward the door. “Stanley!” Phillip said. “I’ve missed you, bud, how
you doing? How’s a good dog? I know, good God, what are they feeding you around here?”

“Piper cooks a lot,” Erik muttered as he walked by, kicking his hockey gear out of
the way before he dropped down on the couch.

“That’s cool. Is that what you are mad about? What I said about Piper?”

Erik gave him with a dirty look and shrugged his shoulders. “Wouldn’t you be mad if
your best friend was saying things about getting with your wife and kid once you left?”

Phillip laughed. “Last I checked, she wasn’t your real wife.”

“It doesn’t matter, I still have a claim on her.”

Phillip continued to laugh as he shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way, friend. Either
she is yours or she’s not.”

“She’s mine, and back off,” Erik found himself saying and even he was shocked by his
words. Phillip’s eyes went wide as he sent Erik a nod.

“Wow, first honest thing I’ve heard you say about her.”

Erik covered his face as he took in deep breaths. “I care about her, I do, but this
won’t work. I am not the guy for her. I am good now because I’m not out anywhere but
when I start
playing again. I’ll cheat on her. Even if I don’t want to.”

“How do you know? You can control you penis, you know?” he said as he dropped down
beside him.

“I know, but what if I don’t want to?”

“Did you want to when we were out in Las Vegas? I didn’t even see you look twice at
any female,” Phillip pointed out.

Erik shook his head as he swallowed loudly. “Because I had her on my mind and I knew
she was upstairs alone. I wanted to be up there with her.”

“See? This could work if you’d let it, but since you keep thinking you are like your
biological parents, you won’t allow yourself to try. Erik, you are not them. If we
were our parents, then I’d be a crackhead, sleeping with anything for my next fix.”

Erik shook his head. He hated when Phillip brought up his family. His mom was dirty,
the most vile person Erik had ever met. She made his real mom and dad look like parents
of the year. Maybe Phillip was right, he came out okay, but that was mostly because
he left at such a young age. Erik didn’t get away until he was thirteen.

“You were never around them growing up.”

“Neither were you. When was the last time you saw them? Like eleven years ago? My
mom called me every other month asking for money until three days before she died,
and look at me, I’m okay. Now all I gotta worry about is my sister calling me for
money, but it’s okay. We are not them. We are our own people. We make our future.
They don’t get to dictate that for us.”

Erik shook his head. “It isn’t that easy.”

“I don’t know how it isn’t when you have Alla and Cooper, two of the greatest people
I know. I don’t have them. All I have is Tate and you, when you aren’t being a prick
and answer your phone.”

Well, didn’t that make Erik feel like shit? “Wow, would you like to add anything else
to that guilt platter you’re serving?”

Phillip’s laughter filled the room. “Dude, I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m
telling you that you’d be okay if you let your parents go and embrace what you have
now. You are always living in the past when you don’t need to be. Live in the now,
and right now you have friends and family who love you, and a wife who is having your
baby. That’s two more people who could love you if you’d let them.”

Erik paused, looking down at his bare feet before asking, “Where is all this coming
from?”

Phillip shrugged his shoulders as he petted Stanley. “I think you are risking a good
thing because you are scared.”

“Maybe I am, but isn’t that my choice? I don’t want to hurt her, because like you
said, I can’t let the past go. I don’t know how to, and I am scared shitless that
if I give in to this desire to be with her, I will hurt her, and I don’t want that.”

“You’ll never know how to do something unless you ask for help or try it on your own.
I think you should give her a chance.”

“I tried, Phillip,” Erik complained, running his hands through his unruly hair. “I
stood there holding her belly and my kid kicked, and I swear it was like the kid was
kicking me in my gut. I looked up, and she was looking at me, like there is no one
in the world but me, and it scared me. She scares me, because she makes me want things,
makes me want to change.”

Phillip nodded as he ran his hands down Stanley’s fur. Looking over at Erik with a
grin on his face, he said, “I look forward to that moment, the moment when I find
the girl who makes me want to change, because I think it is pure luck to find a girl
like that. It means that you care, that you love her and care how she feels. It means
she matters.”