Surprise Bidder

“Well, maybe the fact that it didn’t have a condom on it has?”

“Condom?” Mandy snorts. “That would have ruined all the fun.”

I give her a puzzled look. “I thought not wearing one is what ruins all the fun forevermore.”

Which is exactly what’s happening to me.

Mandy shakes her head. “Not if you’re on the pill. You weren’t?”

I let out a sigh. “I was a virgin, remember?”

“Right.” She scratches her chin. “And you got pregnant on your first time. Damn, that cock was something!”

I roll my eyes. Can we stop talking about it now?

“Anyway, I’m screwed,” I tell her. “I just scraped off the last of my savings, so I don’t know how I’m going to keep this baby alive.”

Not to mention I don’t know the first thing about being a mother.

Mandy’s eyebrows arch. “You’re keeping it?”

I look at her, only now realizing that I have the option not to. Strange how that didn’t cross my mind.

I put my hand over my belly. “I don’t know.”

But I realize I do want to. Maybe it’s because my Dad just died and I don’t have a family left that I’m reluctant to get rid of this person I now have growing inside me. Maybe it’s because I don’t like the idea of depriving another person of any chance- whether it’s a chance to live or a chance to be happy or a chance to make a difference- even though I’ve been deprived of so many of mine. Or maybe it’s because of that- the fact that I’ve lost so much- that I just don’t want to lose anything else.

Still, if I’m not going to be able to provide for this baby, if I can’t give it a happy life and it’s just going to have that same bad luck and misery I’ve been experiencing, wouldn’t it be better to just let it go? Wouldn’t that be a mercy? Or I could just give it up for adoption after birth, but then that would mean I’d go through nine months of pregnancy and the notorious pains of childbirth for nothing. And no one is going to hire me now that I’m pregnant, so by then, I’d be even more broke and miserable. I’d end up with nothing, and that thought brings a crushing weight down on my chest.

“Hey.” Mandy grabs my hand.

For the first time, I see genuine concern in her eyes.

“You don’t have to decide right away. There’s no need to panic. I know it feels like shit right now, but you’ll be fine. I know you’ll figure this out.”

Will I?

She squeezes my hand. “Hey, who knows? Maybe Kate knows who your man in black is, and he might be willing to help. Then you won’t have to give the baby up.”

That lights a spark in the darkness hanging over my head.

I squeeze her hand back and give another shrug. “Maybe.”

Right now, it’s the best I can hope for.

~

“I’m so sorry, Leah,” Mandy tells me as she sits on the edge of my bed a few days later. “But Kate said the waitresses are all supposed to be on the pill so you weren’t supposed to get pregnant. She actually bit my head off when I said you were.”

“Oh.”

My heart sinks to the floor. I was afraid this would happen. I knew it was a possibility. Even if the father of my child could be identified, even if he didn’t mind that I was pregnant, there was still a chance he wouldn’t help. I mean, he doesn’t know me. Still, now that the possibility has become reality, I feel like I’m falling apart.

What am I supposed to do now?

“So yeah, you can’t ask him for help.” Mandy pats my shoulder. “Even if you could, Kate says that guy who knocked you up is married.”

My eyebrows go up. He is? He wasn’t wearing a ring. Then again, why would a man wear his wedding ring to that kind of party?

“Are you sure?” I ask. “How did she even find out who he is? He was wearing a mask.”

“You gave enough details, especially about how he showed up after another man tried to grab you and got his nose broken.”

Right. I did tell her that after our initial conversation.

“Kate says a friend of hers overheard that man talking, mumbling about your man- Thompson, I think. Or was it Townsend?”

A last name that starts with a T.

“Anyway, he was saying something about snitching on him to his wife. No surprise there. Most of these men are married anyway.”

They are?

I frown. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“Why would they go to some crazy no-rules masquerade party to have quick sex with a stranger in the shadows if they could just have someone sent over to their house?”

She does have a point.

“Besides, I didn’t tell you because you said you weren’t interested in having sex with any of them,” Mandy adds.