After All - Romancing Manhattan

“If you touch me, I’ll press charges,” she threatens, but she’s scared.

And right now, she should be.

“I’ve had enough of your shit. You can take your jealous, pathetic opinions and shove them up your ass, Mary.”

“I’ll recommend you be terminated,” she sputters. “There are cameras in here. You’re threatening me.”

“No need.” I back away as the door dings. “I quit. Effective right now.”

“Good! You were toxic here—”

“Oh, just fuck right off,” I say, not even looking back as I walk off the elevator and raise my hand, flipping her off.

I hurry home. I want to be in my space, where I feel safe. But once I get there, all I see is Gabby everywhere. She helped me decorate every room of this apartment. She stayed with me here.

Carter made love to me here.

I can’t be here, after all. So I call Christopher.

“Hey, sugar.”

“I’m coming up, so I hope you’re home.”

“I am,” he confirms. I hang up and hurry up the stairs, not even bothering to wait for the elevator. When I reach his apartment, the door is open and he’s standing there, his arms open and waiting to give me a massive hug.

“I hate men,” I mumble into his chest. “No offense.”

“None taken.” With his arms still around me, he moves us inside and shuts the door, then steers me to the couch, and I stare at him. “So he’s not happy?”

I shake my head and let the tears come now. “No. He’s not happy.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked me who the father is.”

Chris’s eyes bulge, his jaw drops. And then he goes red.

“I do believe I’m going to kick his ass,” he says. “Who the fuck does he think he is to say something like that?”

“It was a shock.” It’s a weak excuse, and we both know it. “That’s all I got.”

“It’s not good enough,” he says quietly. “I’m so damn sorry, Nora. What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

He rubs his nose, leans his head side to side, as if the thought in his head is uncomfortable, but finally he says, “I mean, are you going to keep it? Do you need me to take you to a clinic, or—”

“Oh, no. I’m not going to abort it, if that’s what you’re asking. Carter can be a dick all day long, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll do anything but love this baby.” I cover my stomach. “I can raise it alone. I quit my job just now, but I’ll find another.”

“You quit?”

“Yeah, I ran into the bitch Mary in the elevator, and she works in HR.”

“The one that’s been harassing you?”

I nod.

“I hope you punched her.”

“I wanted to, but then she would have pressed charges, and if you think green isn’t my color, well, orange definitely isn’t my color, and I don’t want to give birth in a prison.”

“They would take you to a hospital to have the baby. At least, that’s what happens in the movies.”

“Well, that’s something then, isn’t it.”

We stare at each other for a moment, and then bust up laughing.

“It’s not funny,” I say as I try to catch my breath.

“The idea of you giving birth in prison is pretty funny.” He reaches over to brush a tear off my cheek. “But it won’t come to that. So you told Mary you quit?”

“Yeah. After I told Carter to go fuck himself.”

“That’s my girl.”

I lie on the couch and rest my head in his lap. He immediately runs his fingers through my hair.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this, sugar. Maybe Carter will see the error of his ways and he’ll come begging for forgiveness.”

“How do I forgive this?” I turn to my back so I can look up into his face. “When I told him I don’t have cancer, he literally slumped in his chair. He was cold because he was scared, and I immediately forgave him for that in my head. I can understand fear, especially after losing his wife the way he did. It makes sense to me.

“But then, in the next breath, to accuse me of cheating on him? Come on. I divorced a man for cheating on me, and he knows that. It’s the worst sin you can accuse me of. And if he thinks I’m capable of screwing around with some other man when I’m also having a relationship with him, well, he doesn’t know me very well, does he?”

“No,” Christopher says softly. “He obviously doesn’t.”

“I just don’t know how we bounce back from this. I don’t know what he could possibly say that would make sense to me. Because even if he says it was a shock because he’d had the vasectomy, which again I would understand if he’d just said that in the first place, he called me a whore. That’s what it boils down to.”

“You’re getting yourself worked up again, and you’re overthinking it.” He lays his hand over my forehead. It feels cool against my hot skin. “That’s not good for you or the baby.”