Her sweet smile offered support, but the fact that she’d figured out I was pregnant worried me.
If Madison could detect it, how long would it take the rest of the world to know?
“No judgment,” she added.
“No shit, Kylie, are you pregnant?” Avery, of course, was shocked. Though I worked with her every day, and she had measured me a few hundred times for the wedding dress, she never figured it out. “I just figured you were finally filling out; you were always a late bloomer.”
“I didn’t give him a chance to say anything, but he didn’t stop me from leaving. He’s Alec Blair, he doesn’t want a baby. Especially with me. That’s not how these things work.” I plopped down on the sofa feeling horrible, drained, hungry … and more lost than I’d ever been.
“He just paid a lot of money to eat dinner with you; I don’t think it’s like that.” Madison sat beside me and touched my knee. “It’s been three months, and you didn’t tell him or us, maybe he’s just in shock.”
“He’s all about power. Having a baby with this week’s sex kitten isn’t his thing. Until last night, he hadn’t told anyone he knew me outside of being a generous benefactor. Hell, last night he was a generous benefactor. He can spin this all to make him look like a hero, and I’ll just be a slut.” That was it, the damn burst again … “For real this time.”
“Oh, my God, Kylie, we’re having a baby!” Avery plopped down next to me, missing the point entirely. “Don’t cry. You have us. You don’t need that bastard.” Even the word bastard made me cry more.
“I’m an idiot …”
I could hardly breathe when he called.
I glanced at my phone and just let it go to voicemail.
“You don’t think you should answer it?” Madison asked, being the pragmatist as always, no wonder she was on Wall Street.
I was happy it was Saturday; no one was rushing off to work. They could stay with me and just hold my hand through this.
“He’ll leave a message.” I laid my head back on the sofa as my world spun around and around.
“Or he’ll show up.” Madison’s face crumpled with worry.
“No … not this time. There’s no chance he’s gonna wanna hit this again.” I laughed, delirium must have been setting in.
I had known I was pregnant for about six weeks, but not telling anyone sort of made it feel like it wasn’t real. Now it was definitely real, realer than real … too much.
I wasn’t surprised that Alec called again, what did shock me was Avery grabbing the phone out of my hand and, worse, answering it.
“Listen, fuckhead,” she started.
Though I tried to get the phone out of her hands, it felt good to have someone defend me. I let her do her thing. She didn’t give him much time to say anything.
“Kylie’s not a slut, and she didn’t try to get pregnant intentionally, and if you’d put a rain jacket on your schlong, you wouldn’t be calling right now. Face it, this is the modern age, women fuck. You don’t want a Jr., keep your shit covered up. Kylie’s taking birth control and fucking up her hormones, the least you can do is get some Trojans.”
I heard him yell through the phone, and Avery stopped her rant for a moment.
He didn’t sound angry, just insistent on getting her attention.
“No, I will not put her on the phone. We got this. You ride off into the sunset, lover boy. Her girls have her back. We’ll raise the baby, you don’t need to worry your narcissistic little butt about a thing, just be nice to her in the press, okay. She’s gonna warrior up for this, so don’t be an ass!” With that, she ended the call.
“Do you think I was too rough?” She burst into laughter
“Oh, my God …” I wasn’t quite sure her approach was the right one to take with Alec since he didn’t take kindly to being told off, but at least I felt loved. “You better help me raise the baby. Guaranteed he’s never getting near this level of crazy ever again.” I reached out and hugged Avery.
“Okay, I’m ordering pizza!” Maddy proclaimed. “And junk food … we are gonna celebrate!”
“It’s seven-thirty in the morning.” I looked at her like she’d just descended from Mars.
“So? Giovanni’s is open in an hour. I can go down there right now and pressure him for a pie.” She ruffled up her hair and tossed it into a hairband she had around her wrist and was about to walk downstairs to the dive pizza place right under our apartment when my phone rang again.
It was Alec. Avery glared at the phone and almost reached for it, but I stopped her, letting the call go to voicemail. I understood I wasn’t giving him much of a chance, but everything in me was fragile and vulnerable. I had enough to deal with; I didn’t need Alec’s breed of ‘I need this to be worth it.’ Suddenly Avery’s phone pinged, and for a second I thought Alec may have found her number.