Obsession (Explicitly Yours 4)

“You fell in love with someone in two nights?” Bragg asked. “That’s—”

“What, impossible?” Beau laughed grimly and hung up the phone. Bragg had no idea just how possible it was.

He jumped at a noise. The woman from 118 was tapping on his window, motioning for him to roll it down. He opened the door and got out.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “I’m sorry if I was rude about you knocking on my door, but you were in a fit. Still are. You don’t look like you should be driving.”

“Did she say anything else?” Beau asked. “Anything at all? What was she wearing?”

The woman shook her head. “Jeans, I think. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Was she in a red car?”

She frowned and reached toward him. After a brief hesitation, she rubbed his shoulder. “I’m real sorry, honey. I wish I knew more. She’s a lovely girl. I’d hate to lose her too. Maybe there’s some way Howard and I can help you find her.”

He searched her eyes, finding warmth that hadn’t been there before. He’d barged into that hotel like he’d owned it, demanding things and banging on doors. What the fuck was happening to him? What he had wasn’t enough—he had to make people feel small too?

“Why would you help me?” he asked.

She smiled a little. “You seem like a good man who got caught in a nasty web. You have that look about you like you might take off running any second.” She shrugged. “You know, Lola did say one more thing on her way out the door that makes me think she might like me to help out.”

His ears rang. “What was it?”

“I asked if there was any way we could thank her. She says, ‘All I did was pay it forward. If you want to thank me, do the same.’”

14

Lola stepped out of the motel shower onto a frayed floor mat and wrapped a towel under her arms. After seven hours of traveling, her shoulders ached. The fluorescent light flickered angrily. She wiped steam from the mirror, her face developing in parts. She looked older. A couple vertical wrinkles between her eyebrows remained even after she’d stopped frowning. Smaller ones were forming at the corners of her eyes. Her hair was longer than she’d ever worn it, the wet ends stuck to her breasts, right above her nipples. She couldn’t remember when she’d last had it cut.

Even after a shower, her skin showed indents from the waistband of her pants. She turned sideways and ran her hand over her naked tummy. It was too early to see any change, but she thought she could. On the counter next to her was a stick that looked like a headless toothbrush.

After check-in, she’d made herself watch TV for an hour while drinking water and patiently waiting for her bladder to fill. She didn’t want to do it wrong?

?it was the first pregnancy test she’d ever taken, anyway. She’d peed on it and chanted—two lines pregnant, one line not. As if she might forget and have to check the instructions a second time.

They had faded in, two lines, distinct and solid. She’d already known what the verdict would be, so she’d gotten in the shower without making a big thing of it. One night of tossing and turning plus a drive from New Orleans to Houston had been a good amount of time to let the news sink in.

Lola dried her hair with the towel and caught herself smiling in the reflection. She was going to be a mom.

She dropped the pregnancy test in the trash behind the toilet, then reflexively tried to catch it at the last second. Was she supposed to keep it as some sort of souvenir? The thought made her wrinkle her nose. She left it and washed her hands for a third time.

She changed into her pajamas, sat on the bed against the headboard and aimed the remote at the TV, but didn’t turn it on. Suddenly, she covered her mouth and giggled into her hand. So the news hadn’t actually sunken in—not completely. She kept having giddy, heart-soaring moments where she wanted to run outside and tell someone, anyone, how drastically her life had changed in mere months. That kind of news was hard to keep inside.

Lola stuck her thumbnail between her teeth, checking the clock from the corner of her eye. Her suitcase was by the bed, sleeves, pant legs and bra straps sprouting from all sides. Pregnancy would mean the death of her leather pants, at least for a while. She couldn’t imagine chasing a juice-sticky toddler around in them. The pants’ last night out had been when she’d met Beau, their stiff creak the only sound as she’d cautiously approached him, both of them lit up by the neon signs in Hey Joe’s window.

She and Beau were forever linked now. She wouldn’t be able to keep the secret long, nor did she want to. The time would come to tell Beau he was going to be a father. Maybe he didn’t want that. Maybe he would be angry. She looked at her fingers, bit at a hangnail. He’d made her sign that contract in the beginning, absolving him of any responsibility should she get pregnant. The thought of having his child had disgusted her then, but now she couldn’t drum up a negative feeling about it. If he wanted nothing to do with them, she’d deal with it. She wasn’t sure what role she wanted him to play anyway.

It was 7:32 at night on the West Coast, two hours behind Houston. That meant in California time, she was still waiting for her bladder to fill, the pregnancy test placed conspicuously at the edge of the bedside stand.

Lola could only think of one person to share her news with. She wasn’t sure how her mother, who hadn’t even been happy about her own pregnancy, would take it, but Lola had gone too long without talking to anyone familiar. Any reaction seemed better than none. Lola picked up the phone by the bed and dialed a number she’d never forgotten, even though she rarely used it.

“Hel-lo?” Dina asked. Just answering the phone had already annoyed her.

Lola opened her mouth. She’d half expected to get the answering machine since her mom often worked nights at the diner.

“Yeah?” Dina said. “Why you people always calling me a minute after I sit down to dinner? Hello?”

“Mom? It’s me, Mom.”

“Lola?” There was quick screech in the background. “Hang on, I’m sitting down.”

Whenever Lola pictured her mom, it was usually in her uniform—dumping a Styrofoam container on the kitchen counter after a shift, or at the diner, swishing by the booth where Lola sat, her legs hanging over the edge as she colored or did homework. Lola rarely thought of her at home, eating a solo dinner. She wondered if she ate at the kitchen table or on the living room sofa. She used to fall asleep there watching PBS specials like Andy Williams: Greatest Hits!