Big Daddy

My heart skipped several beats as I froze, and I diverted my eyes so they wouldn’t meet his. “Shit. Could you take my table?”

Liza shook her head. “No way! I’m swamped as it is, and you need to tell him and now is as good a time as any. He didn’t come in here to see me, and you know it.”

I bit back the bile that had risen to the back of my throat and walked over to say hi. “Can I get you something?”

He let loose a breath and gave me a shrug. “I just came to see you, really, but sure. I’ll take a cup of coffee and a slice of pie. Apple.”

I put away my pad and made a mental note instead. “Coming up.” I spun on my toes and headed to the kitchen to pour his cup and take a fresh pie from the cooling rack. Once the slice was on the plate, I brought it to his table and turned to leave.

He reached for my arm, and his hand closed softly around it. “Hey, wait. I said I wanted to talk, Dream. I know you’re avoiding me and I can’t say I blame you.”

I tugged away. “Right. I’m glad you understand. So you’ll be fine with me staying at Liza’s for a while? I was going to call you on my break, but I never got one. We’ve been really busy.”

His eyes widened, and I turned to look across the room to keep from having to look at him.

“Why? I told you that you could stay as long as you like.” He pulled his lips into a tight line as his jaw cracked.

“Excuse me?” He’d chewed my ass out, and now he wanted to know why I didn’t want to stick around for more. “Seriously?”

“I’m sorry about how I acted. I should never have gone off on you. I hoped you’d come home tonight. I want to talk about what happened and explain why I flipped out. You know it’s not like me.”

“No, I don’t know you. Not really.” My shoulders slumped as I relaxed.

“You were moving on anyway.”

What the hell did he mean? I wanted to stay with him. I did love him, but he had this all wrong. God help me.

“Getting a job isn’t moving on. It’s taking responsibility for myself and life and trying to support myself. I don’t see what’s so hard to understand about that.”

“I don’t care that you’ve gotten a job, Dream.”

“I know you don’t like it. You made that clear.” We practically talked over one another and were getting nowhere fast.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just the fact that we’d already talked about it and then you change your mind.”

“I’m not entitled to change my mind about things?” I didn’t realize how loud I’d gotten until the other customers around his table stopped talking and a silence fell across the diner like a wave.

He glanced around, and I could tell by the way he tucked his chin that he didn’t like the attention. “Come on home tonight, and we’ll have a nice dinner and talk things over.”

“It’s too late for all of that. I’m not sure when it all changed because it happened so fast, but we obviously want two different things.”

“I want you.” He blurted the words, but they weren’t sincere. It was like he was trying to convince himself. I needed him to know it.

“You have an awful way of showing it. Besides, I need more, Chance.” I turned and walked to the back as the tears broke from my eyes and trailed down my cheeks. I wiped them on my apron and stood there against the wall for what seemed like minutes, and when I peeked around the corner, he was gone.

I couldn’t live with a man who didn’t want to do anything but fight all the time, and I wasn’t going to put myself in that position ever again, no matter how I felt about him. Going back to Liza’s was only going to be temporary, and once I had a few tips under my belt, I’d go home and see what was left of my life. With any hope, Nick hadn’t done too much damage to my reputation, and perhaps I’d find another teaching job, but if I couldn’t there, I’d move to another place and put down roots; a place where no one knew me.

The thought of moving on without Chance and Star had my stomach in knots, which only reminded me of something else I still had left to do.

Before work, I’d stopped into the twenty-four-hour pharmacy and purchased a pregnancy test. I was about to take it when I got to work, but I had had a chance. I’d take the test before leaving to make sure I was going alone, and if not, I’d break the news to Chance and see how he wanted to handle it. If he couldn’t be a father to the child, I’d make sure we’d stay out of his life.