Priest (A Standalone Bad Boy Romance Love Story) (80 page)

“He?” I asked.

He looked sad and he had to swallow hard
as he said, “Yeah, it was a boy. I was getting used to the idea of having a
baby. Marie and I had decorated the extra room in my apartment for him and I
was already trying to think of names…I couldn’t stand the thought of someone
taking him and putting him in a foster home….I didn’t make her go to the
hospital that day. Maybe if I had things would have turned out differently.
Then again, maybe not. Either way I will always regret that for the rest of my
life.”

“She didn’t stop using?”

“I thought she had. She told me she had.
Since I didn’t live with her, it was hard for me to know the truth. I should
have looked closer…I should have let her come and live with me…that was what
she wanted. I should have put the safety and well-being of my child above all
else.” He paused there and looked as if he was hoping I’d let it go. We were in
too deep now. I had to know who I was sleeping with.

“What happened?” I finally asked.

“I forced her to go into treatment,” he
said.

“You forced her?”

“I threatened to stop paying her bills and
I told her that I would take the baby from her when he was born and not let her
see him. I was a dick about it and just thinking about it makes me hate myself
all over again, so yeah I would call it forced…or maybe even bullied.”

“It’s a common mistake,” I told him. “We
think we can “fix them” but the problem is they have to be willing to do the
work. When you love someone that’s hurting themselves…It’s almost impossible to
just sit back and watch it happen.”

“I didn’t love her, Jessie. I’ve never
been in love before, until you. I loved my baby and this woman, his mother was
a means to that end.”

I took his hand and I cringed at the tears
that welled in his eyes as I said, “What happened to him, Paul?” I knew this
would be the harder part for him to talk about.

His voice was shaky and I almost wished I
hadn’t asked as he went on, “She went to the meetings for a while. I found out
later that she never stopped using. She stopped the meth because it was easy
for me to tell when she was using that. She started taking pills…OxyContin.”

“Like my mom.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. That’s why I called your
mother a druggie that night. It gave me flashbacks and freaked me out….She was
taking lots of pills. She wasn’t paying her bills or buying food with the money
I gave her. She was buying drugs. One day she didn’t show up for her meeting and
I went to her apartment to get her. She didn’t answer the door and I was mad. I
busted it down and I found her in a pool of her own vomit. She overdosed. By
the time the ambulance got there, she was dead. They tried to save the baby,
but he was gone too.”

I had tears streaming down my own face
now. I couldn’t believe he’d gone through all of that. My heart was breaking
for him. “I’m so sorry,” I told him. “I know that you have to take
responsibility for being a part of the pregnancy…But, otherwise it sounds to me
like you did the best that you could. I am sorry you had to go through that.”

“Me too,” he said, “The thing was, I
wasn’t a child. I knew what the consequences of unprotected sex can be.
 

******

Our first morning in Barcelona we watched
the sunrise while we had breakfast on the terrace. It started out subtly and
little by little it covered the haze that hung over the city with a pure white
light. I don’t know about Paul, but as I watched it, I felt the weight of the
past few months dissolving and as they did, I felt as light as the breeze
blowing across the beautiful old city. After breakfast we took a walk down to
the docks and saw some of the city. We window shopped along the stores on the
beachfront and I made a mental note of the ones I wanted to come back and
explore later. There were entertainers out in the streets, playing guitars or
dancing or juggling. It seemed like the entire city had waked up with the sun
and they had all come out to play. We found our way to the pier and got on a
ferry that took us out to a small island for our first snorkeling lesson. I had
marveled at the brilliant clear blue of the Mediterranean Sea while we stood at
the edge of the ferry and looked out on it, but that was nothing compared to
standing on the beach. The sun was vibrant and the beams shone down onto the
sand and made it sparkle like millions of tiny jewels had been scattered across
it. At the edge of the shore where the sea met the sand, the waves rolled in
gently and their white foam tips would break up as it lapped at the edges. I
was speechless at first and then I started snapping pictures like the crazy
tourist that I was.

The tour guide gave us a rundown on what
we would do and see. They had given us all brochures and a manual as well.
There was a number to call on the brochure if they lost the card. After about
an hour lesson, the equipment was passed out and we suited up for our
adventure. I was used to the Los Angeles beaches where the water was freezing
and you couldn’t see a thing under the cover of murky water. The Mediterranean
waters were so different. They were so clear that we could see all the way to
the sea bed below. I put on my face mask and snorkel and Paul and I entered the
water hand in hand. The first thing I saw was a big, orange starfish. My only
regret was that I couldn’t squeal and tell Paul to look. Instead I tapped him
and pointed. He looked and smiled. Then as a crab scuttled across the sea bed,
I did the same thing. I may have even pointed out the shoals of fish that were
impossible to miss as they darted first this way and then that. I was in awe of
our new environment and I wanted to take in everything.

We floated on our stomachs and let the
waves carry us along lazily as we watched the sea life below us. It was an
amazing four-dimensional theatre and as we watched it the warm sun warmed our
backs. It was the most awe-inspiring thing I’d ever been a part of and I was
disappointed when the trip came to an end.

We took the ferry back to the pier and
after going back to the hotel to change we had dinner at a place called, La
Dolce Vita. At first I thought it was strange that we were having Italian food
while in Spain, but once we finished I had no regrets. Paul ordered us a bottle
of wine and we had a table near the window where we could look out over the
ocean while we ate. The food lived up to its five-star rating and I was so full
afterwards that I felt like I could have been rolled right out.

We took a walk through the city then. The
sun was just going down and casting an orange glow across everything.
 
We walked through a little plaza where the
pigeons seemed to outnumber the people. There was a fountain in the center of
it and in the center of that, a statue of a mermaid. The mermaid spit out the
water and it would spray up into the air in brilliant colors of red and green
and blue. The tall buildings around the edges were brightly colored and there
were vivid flowers everywhere. As darkness descended on us, the bright, twinkly
lights of the city began to take the place of the sun and cast a dim glow
across everything as far as we could see.

Every day we spent there, we did something
different. We went to museums and parks and concerts, and some days we just
spent hours walking on the beach and collecting seashells. We spent out nights
making love and we would wake up every morning in each other’s arms happy to
start another day together. I woke up on our last day there with a mixture of
excitement because I missed everyone at home, and regret because I was going to
miss Spain like crazy. Paul was already gone from the bed and I found him as I
was sure I would, standing on the balcony watching the sun finish coming up out
of the ocean.

“Hey, good morning.”

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said, “How
did you sleep?”

“I sleep like a log here. I’m going to
miss it. I told him.

“The sleep or Spain? He asked.

“Probably both,” I admitted.

“Yeah, I’m going to miss it too. This was
my first trip out of the country if you don’t count Mexico.” But we have a lot
more adventures to look forward to. Look, I found this for you.” He handed me a
pink seashell. It was huge, about the size of my fist and curled into a perfect
crescent and its smooth exterior looked like it had been polished to a
brilliant shine. That was the other beautiful thing about the beaches here. The
seashells washed up whole more often than not. I had found a whole sand dollar
just the day before.

“It’s beautiful, thank you.”

“Open it,” he said.

“Open it?” I repeated. I was looking
around it and didn’t see any buttons or hooks. I can’t remember what it felt
like.”

“Yeah, it’s hollow inside. Move that
little flap on the end and look inside.”

I moved the delicate little sliver of
shell slowly and carefully because I didn’t want to break it. When that was out
of the way, I looked inside. There was a little white velvet box inside. I
pulled it out, not daring to hope that it was what I wanted it to be, and I
looked at Paul. He had slid down to one knee and when I looked at him he took
my left hand in his right and said, “Jessie, will you marry me?”

I felt the tears streaming down my face
again. He opened the box and I was staring down at a princess cut sapphire set
in white gold. It had a delicate ring of diamonds around the primary stone. I
had never seen a more beautiful ring and I loved most of all because it was
different. I also loved knowing he had gone to pick it out by himself. My hands
were shaking and so were Paul’s.

“Oh my God! Yes! I’ll marry you! Yes! Yes!

 
I
know I sounded like I was having an orgasm, but I didn’t care. I was over the
moon excited and I would tell the whole world if they cared to listen. Paul
took the ring out of the box and took my hand in his. He slipped the ring on my
finger. It fit perfectly. “I love it.” “How did you know the size?” I asked
him.

“Marie helped with that part,” he
said.
 

“It takes my breath away,” I told him
about the ring. “Thank you so much.”

“You make it look good,” he said. “But, I
don’t think this matches,” he took the lapels of my robe in his fingertips and
pulled on it gently.

“What? My robe?”

“Mm hmm, and whatever you have underneath
too. We don’t want anything clashing with the ring.”

“Maybe I should step in off the balcony?”

Paul looked around. “Maybe…You saw that
guy on the beach yesterday though, didn’t you?”

“Which guy?”

“The bare-assed naked man that no one even
seemed to notice but us.”

“Oh yeah,” I said.

“My point is, no one here is too affected
by nudity, and you look a hell of a lot better than that guy.”

“You think?”

He laughed, “I love you…all of you…but if
you looked anything like that guy, trust me, I would have never asked you to
take off the robe.”

I stood up and brushed past him with a
dramatic flourish. Once inside, I took off the robe. I wasn’t wearing anything
underneath. Paul grinned and dropped his robe too. He came over to me and in
one grand swoop; he picked me up off my feet. “What say we try that big tub in
there with the jets?”

“I say you come up with the best ideas.”

CHAPTER
SEVEN

I started the water in the big sunken tub
in our suite. Paul stood back and ogled my naked body and then all of a sudden
he said, “You got this part?”

“Sure,” I said, wondering what he was up
to. I reached into the basket on the counter of supplies the hotel had given us
as part of our package. There was a bottle of bubble bath oil in there. I
opened it and put it to my nose. It smelled like jasmine. I thought twice about
pouring it in. It was going to make Paul smell like a girl. I smelled it again
and decided that the only one who should care about that was me and I didn’t. I
poured in the entire little bottle.

While the tub filled, I sat down and
admired my ring again. I can’t believe I’m getting married. I can’t believe I’m
marrying Paul. Just a few months ago he was struggling fighter protecting his
family and I was a girl with smelly clothes….how far we’ve come.

The tub finished filling and I turned it
off. “It’s ready,” I called out to him.

“Okay, go ahead and get in, I’ll be right
there. Don’t start any of the fun stuff without me.”

I stepped into the tub and sat back into
the deep bubbles. They smelled really good and the warm water felt great. I
rested my head against the curve of the cool porcelain and waited.

“Are you asleep?”

I smiled and said, “Not yet, but if you
don’t hurry…”

I heard a clink noise and opened my eyes.
There was a brass ice bucket resting in a decanter next to the tub, a whole
slew of scented candles which he was lighting as we spoke and an IPod in a deck
with speakers.

“Wow! What’s all this?”

“It’s our celebration,” he said.

“What are we celebrating?”

He looked shocked as he continued to light
candles. “Our engagement,” he said.