The Right Kind of Love (30 page)

“I told her I was going to bring her home dinner.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know what to tell you.”

I put the bags of food on the coffee table and took a seat next to her. “Did she say anything to you about what’s bothering her?”

She paused and took a deep breath. “I know she probably would be upset if I talked to you about it, but I feel like if I do, it might help. You have to promise not to say anything.”

“You’ve got my word.”

“All right, it all boils down to this. She thinks that the baby the woman is claiming is yours is, and that once you find out, you won’t want her or the baby she’s carrying. She feels like why would you want her baby when it isn’t your own flesh and blood like the other.”

That made complete sense. I could tell this was bothering Bee as well and that she was really concerned for her friend. The questioning look on her face said she was very curious about the baby possibly being mine.

“I will tell you just like I have told her. I love Sydney, she and the baby mean everything to me. I don’t plan to abandon her. Although the baby may not be my flesh and blood, it’s mine in every sense of the word and I plan to raise the baby with her. Nothing will come between us.” I picked up my milkshake and took a drink.

“Good to know. I figured you felt that way. I just needed to hear it from your lips. Now, you need to convince Syd. I tried, but she wasn’t hearing anything of it.” I’m sure she had tried. Bee was an excellent friend to Sydney. And I knew she wanted nothing more than for her to be happy like I did.

“I have to admit, I’m pissed she isn’t here tonight. We had plans for dinner.” Not only was I pissed, but I was annoyed. I don’t like being fucked over.

“Don’t be mad. Just be patient with her.” She gave me a pleading look.

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

“Try.” She didn’t ask. It was more of a demand.

Picking up my phone, I sent Sydney a text.

Me: I don’t like being blown off.

I waited for about five minutes, and then she finally replied. I had a feeling that she didn’t know how to respond, since it was obvious I was pissed off.

Sydney: I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about?

Me: I told you I’d bring home dinner, and I figured after that we would spend the evening together.

This time ten minutes passed. It seemed like longer.

Sydney: I’m sorry. I just needed to get out of the house for a while. Rain check?

Me: I thought you didn’t feel good?

Sydney: Well, I started to feel better and I wanted to see Shaina.

Fuck, why didn’t she want to see me? That really stung.

Me: All right, I’ll see you when you get home.

Sydney: Nah, don’t wait up. I’m staying at Shaina’s tonight.

What the fuck.

How should I handle this? I guess I would go for loving and caring to try not to push her further away.

Me: This doesn’t settle well with me, but I guess I’ll live. I miss and love you and our baby very much. Have a fun time tonight. I’ll plan to see you in the morning.

Sydney: See you in the morning. I love you, too.

The results to the paternity test couldn’t come quick enough. I needed my girl back.

I hated that she wasn’t sleeping in our house tonight. I wouldn’t be able to hold her if she had a nightmare. I wouldn’t be able to feel our baby move as I drifted to sleep. I loved both of them so much.

She needed to pull her head out of her ass and realize that I wasn’t going anywhere.

Sydney

W
hat do you think?” I asked my client.

“Honestly, I didn’t think I could pull off pink hair, but it totally suits me. Don’t you think?”

Cassy was totally rockin’ the pink hair with a capital R. “I so wish I could pull it off.”

“From now on, you’re the only one who is going to be touching my hair. I love it!” She posed in front of the mirror. Her hair was longer on one side and shorter on the other with a side swept bang. She had the perfect heart shaped face to pull off the look.

“Awesome, so before you leave, let’s get you scheduled to come back in for a trim in a month. If we need to retouch the color, we can.” She leaned over and gave me a huge hug. I was totally taken aback by it, but I returned the gesture. A client hadn’t hugged me since Detroit. I guess it meant a job well done.

It was shaping up to be pretty damn good day.

My client headed out, and I went to sweep all of the hair up and then to tidy up my station. It was five o’clock on a Tuesday night, and I was ready to get out of there. I paused briefly to rub my belly. My little Angel had been kicking all day. It was obvious she was an active baby. She was always moving or kicking. It had gotten to the point where she was sometimes keeping me up at night.

I was leaned over, as much as I could be in my condition, getting the hair off the floor. Still bent over, I felt someone put their hands around my belly and I froze.

I felt warm breath on my neck and a feather light kiss, which I only knew belonged to one person. The man that had my heart. I stood and turned around and looked at him, and he gave me his loving smile.

Things had been estranged between us over the last couple of weeks. I hadn’t let him come back into the bedroom to sleep with me, and I’d been pushing him away. He still had my heart, though.

My whole heart.

But I was just so scared that he would break things off with me to be with the mother of what I thought to be his baby.

It had been the worst two weeks of my life. Without him, my nightmares came back with a vengeance. With him in bed with me, they were rare. Without him, I rarely slept anymore.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I came to pick you up so that we could celebrate. I want this horrible nightmare to go away and for you to stop pushing me away. It has hurt like hell without you by my side.”

“Celebrate for what, Damien? I’m tired, and I just want to go home and sleep. Alone.” This was so hard for me to be mean to him when he was so good to me.

“I got the paternity test back today.” His face was lit up like the Las Vegas Strip.

“And?” The words fell from my lips almost in a whisper. I would have spoken any louder, but I might have puked from nervousness.

He took my chin and pulled it into his hand. He lifted my eyes to his, jade to espresso. “You and our baby are the only ones in my life. That little boy is NOT mine. I told you I wrapped my shit up good. I knew all along that he wasn’t mine. I just wish you would have believed me. I can’t express to you how much it hurt that you didn’t believe me. I’ve been going through the worst kind of agony. I felt like I’d lost the love of my life.”

I let out a breath and threw my arms around his waist hugging him closely to my body. I didn’t have to give him up after all. It was truly a wonderful day. But I had to do some damage control. I’d hurt him and that was the last thing I wanted to do.

Pulling away, I bit my lip. “I’m sorry. I was just so scared and afraid you’d choose them over us. I never meant to hurt you.” I protectively rubbed my belly.

He placed his hand over mine. “You never have to worry about that. You and our little girl are it for me. Although I do hope to give you another baby. Maybe a little boy or two?”

I chuckled. “One baby at a time.”

“Just sayin’.”

“So what’s the plan?” Damien finished getting the hair up off the floor, and I went to my station and started to clean up.

“Well, this needs to be done. I’m not sure that I’ll be much help but—” He looked away.

“What, honey, just spit it out?” I said while putting up my products.

“How about if we go get some of the stuff for the nursery?” He had a lopsided grin. Although he was acting unsure about this idea, I could tell he liked it.

And I loved it!

I clapped my hands together and then threw myself around him. “That sounds like so much fun! I would love to.” I pulled my lip between my teeth. “There’s one problem, though.”

“What’s that, sweets?”

I looked up to him, still in his arms. “The nursery isn’t even painted. We really don’t have any place to put the furniture.” I looked down. “We’re really not prepared.”

“I painted it.”

“You what?” I pulled away from him trying to get a good look into his eyes.

“Well, since you’ve been blowing me off the last couple of weeks, I didn’t have anything else to do, so I painted the nursery.”

“Oh, my God!” I quickly placed a kiss over his lips. “You’re so amazing!”

“I don’t know about amazing, but I try.” He took my hand in his. “I’ll follow you home, and then you can see it if for yourself.”

We walked into the house, and I didn’t even stop to greet the dogs. I climbed the stairs as fast as I could and made my way to the nursery. I opened the door, and my eyes instantly filled with tears. It was beautiful.

The baby chose that moment to kick. I had a feeling she liked it, as well.

He had painted all of the trim white and put up a white chair rail around the room. The top of the walls were painted hot pink and the bottom half was painted light baby pink and hot pink stripes. It was precious. The wall with the window had an accent wall done in a light dove gray. The wall where the crib would be against had a mural of a tree taking up most of it with white and pink flowers. I couldn’t believe he had done this without me knowing. His furniture was all gone, and the only thing in the room was an air mattress on the floor with a pillow and a blanket.

I put my hand over my mouth. My poor baby had been sleeping on the floor. I felt horrible for pushing him away while he did something so nice for me, for us.

He came up behind me with Bee on his heels. I looked over my shoulder to see they both had shit-eating grins plastered to their faces.

I looked at Bee. “You knew about this.”

She only nodded her head and continued to give me a smile.

I turned around and threw my hands around Damien’s torso and placed my head on his chest. “This is perfect. I couldn’t think of a better place for our baby.”

He placed a loving kiss on my forehead. “I’m so glad you like it, sweetheart.”

“The real mystery is how you got all of this done?”
 

I looked up to him. “It was easy. I took a couple of afternoons off work and did all of the noisy stuff while you were at work. The rest I did at night. You were avoiding me, so it was no trouble to do. I had plenty of time and privacy.”

I pulled away from him and walked into the room. I pointed at the mural. “You did this?”

“Yeah, it was easy. For fuck sakes, I’m a tattoo artist. I have some mad skills.” He took his knuckle and rubbed it on his chest and then blew on it.

“You’re so full of yourself.”

“He has good reason to be. This place looks sweet.” Bee said.

“I know, Bee, can you believe it?”

“Yes, I can. He worked long and hard on this.” She went and looked out the window. I could tell something was troubling her. I had a feeling it was her creepy boyfriend.

“So are you ready to do some shopping? I want to make a home for our baby.”

Our baby… “I love hearing you call her our baby.” I pressed my lips to his.

“All right, I’m ready to go. Although I could sit in here for hours and stare. It is just so amazing.” I set the dogs down on the ground and then took Damien’s hand in mine, and we exited the nursery.

“Damien, would you mind giving me a sec with Bee?” I gave him a pleading look.

“Yeah, sure, no problem.” He walked out of the room.

“Bee, I can tell something is wrong. You want to talk about it?” I walked over to where she was still staring out the window and put my hand on her shoulder.

“Honestly, I’m fine.”

Her fine didn’t sound like she was. “I hope you know I’m here for you always.”

“I do. I just have a lot on my mind. Jenson and I have been getting serious, and it’s all so overwhelming.” She turned to face me and then threw her arms around me. “I love you, Syd.”

This was really strange. I hoped like hell that the bastard didn’t do anything to harm my bestie. “I love you, too. Please remember that I’m always here for you.”

“Got it. Now go have fun shopping for my niece with your man.”

“Thanks, babe.”

And with that, I left her with her thoughts. Thoughts that I was very curious about.

“Syd, I think we should get this one.” He pointed to a black missionary style crib, but I had my heart set on something else.

“I really want the white sleigh one. Plus it converts into a big girl toddler bed, and then a full sized bed.” I pointed to the one I wanted.

“I know, but white?”

“Why are you so against the white? I think it would look kick ass in the nursery.”

“Well, when you have my boy, I don’t want him sleeping in a white bed that is clearly for a girl.” Men.

“It’s not only for a girl. I’ve seen lots of pictures on the internet of boys rooms with white cribs.” I pulled my bottom lip out and pouted.

He rolled his eyes at me. “Fine, we’ll just have to buy another crib when we have our boy.” I knew the pouting would get to him.

“Okay. And the matching changing table and dresser?”

“Yes, that all sounds fine.” He walked away from me, and I met with the saleswoman telling her what we needed. They had offered free shipping, which was a bonus.

Damien came back over to me, his arms loaded down. He had clothing, bottles, and all kinds of baby stuff.

“What is all of this?” I swept my hand in the air motioning for him to tell me.

“Check out this shirt.” He lifted it for me to see. It was a onesie, but I wasn’t going to correct him. It was adorable. It said ‘Daddy’s Little Princess’ on it. It was stinkin’ adorable that he’d gone to pick it out.

He lifted another item. “I don’t know what the hell this is, but I think our little girl needs it. It’s all frilly and shit. Girls like that shit.”

“I love everything you’ve picked out, babe.” And I did. He was so good to us. “See you got some bottles, but I don’t think will need them. I plan to breastfeed.”

He raised an eyebrow, and I could only imagine what was going on in his dirty mind. But he shocked me with his reply, “Well I want to feed her, too.”

I hadn’t thought of that. Of course, he would want to feed her, plus I would need to pump for when I was at work. Sometimes, I didn’t know where my head was. My poor baby would have to eat. “No problem. We’ll just have to get a pump.”

“A pump? It sounds like something that would go on a car.”

“Yes, it’s called a breast pump. Plus, I guess I’ll need one for when I work.” I still needed to arrange daycare. I hadn’t planned to stay home with the baby. I did, however, plan to cut back on my hours just a tad bit.

My face turned down. “Damien, what am I going to do? I don’t have anyone to watch the baby while I work.”

He plastered a huge grin on his face. “I already talked to Ma. She says she’ll watch her while you work.”

“Really? That would be great!” I felt so blessed. My baby would be somewhere that I knew she was safe. With family. A family I loved and adored. She had done so well raising her kids that I could only imagine she would be an incredible grandma.

“She also said her and Destiny are going to throw us a baby shower.” Tears hit my eyes again.

“Don’t cry. It’s supposed to make you happy.”

“I am happy. It’s just everyone has been so good to me. Not only are they throwing me a shower but Bee and Shaina are, as well. Our baby is going to be so spoiled before she even gets here.”