“No,” she retorts, shaking her head as her eyes go big. “I’m retaining water.” She folds her arms, and I notice how perfect her tits look, and my mouth waters. Fuck, everything about her turns me on. And I mean everything. Her eyes when she looks at me even with a glare. Her hands when I think of them on me. Her lips when I think about just kissing the shit out of her until they are swollen and then starting all over again.
“Can you be serious right now?” I look her in her eyes, and she just shakes her head. Voices come from the side, and I see one of her neighbors is coming in. She stands there just looking at us, not moving. Jillian sees this and then steps out of the way for me to step into her apartment, and I have to figure that is a good sign. Unless she wants to bring me inside to stab me.
“I am being serious right now, Michael,” she says, and all I can do is look at her. She takes my breath away.
“How far along are you?” I ask, and I wait with bated breath for her to answer me. The thought goes through my head that this baby might not be mine. The thought also makes me feel something I can’t explain, but I do know it’s not a good feeling. Nothing about that thought is good. Not. One. Thing.
“Why don’t you just come out and ask me if it’s yours?” She looks at me, shaking her head when I raise my eyebrow. “Unbelievable,” she says to me. “Such an asshole.”
“Hey,” I reply, holding up my hand. “I don’t know why you are the one who is so pissed off.” I take off my hat and scratch my head as the pounding comes on full force. I point at her. “You were the one who didn’t call.” I put my hands on my hips. I wait for her to say something, but she shocks me when she whips her phone at me. Her aim is on point, and I have just enough time to block it from hitting my head. My hand comes out to catch it when it deflects and crashes against my chest.
“I didn’t call you?” she shrieks. “Oh, I called you all right,” she says to me, and my eyes go big. “Two days after you left here. Ball’s in your court,” she mimics me. “My ass, your girlfriend answered your phone.” I look at her, confused. “Like an idiot, I actually asked for you and she informed me that you were busy, and if you wanted to talk to me, you would call me back.” Her voice goes low. “You never called me.”
“I can explain,” I finally tell her when I see the tears well in her eyes. All I want to do is go to her and hold her in my arms.
“Well, I don’t want to hear it,” she says strongly, putting her shoulders back and shaking her head. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” I say. “I went away on a road trip the day after we…” I point at her and then to me. “I thought I lost my phone, but it turns out that I forgot it on the plane. I thought, easy, I’ll get it back, but it turns out, the flight attendants who had it weren’t going to give it back so easy.” She just listens, and I wonder if I’m explaining for nothing. I wonder if she already made up her mind about me.
“We set up a time for me to get it when I got back to town, and when I went to get it, she said she wouldn’t give it back to me unless I went on a date with her.” I close my eyes, thinking about how the conversation went, and I’m giving her the CliffsNotes. It got so fucking bad.
“When I told her to dream on, I went to my boss. He was not happy when I told him that she basically tried to blackmail me into going on a date. He called her and reported her to her boss, and well…” I explain. Nico was not playing games. He had her fired and blacklisted from any other airline. It was just another cloud that followed me. “She leaked my number on Twitter.” I close my eyes. I would get calls at all hours of the day from fans, from people who thought I was a traitor to Columbus. “I had to change my number.”
She looks at me, not sure if she should believe me or not. “You expect me to believe that?”
“I can show you the pictures,” I say, taking out my phone, ready to show her if I have to. “We have to keep them for the court case.”