Paxton
I honestly didn’t know if I would show up to take her. I was so pissed off at her. This was ridiculous and I was sick of the games. My morning was spent away from my employees with a shovel and a fifteen-foot ditch that needed to be dug. The best place for my pissed off energy. Fuck her, fuck all of this shit. Things were a lot simpler when she just did what I told her to do, and didn’t talk. Then again, they was a lot less happy, too. I never thought about Gabriella not loving me. I guess I didn’t care then, but I did now. I wanted her to love me, and I wanted to love her. Hard, like we meant it.
Sweat running down my back pulled my attention from the ditch that I had been frantically digging to the time. It was nearly noon, and if I planned on being there, I needed to go. I didn’t go to the appointments with Ophelia. It wasn’t unheard of. Lots of men didn’t take off work for that.
“Mother-fucker,” I audibly said as the nose of my shovel dove into the pile of dirt, and I climbed out. “Hey, Red,” I called to a kid not normally on this crew. The one standing around with his hands in his pockets.
The red-haired kid jogged over to me, correcting right away. “Jason. My names Jason.”
“Yeah, okay. Finish this ditch, go to the stake right there, and make a sharp left toward that one,” I instructed with a nod toward the other stake. I didn’t care what his name was. I cared that I paid him by the hour, not by standing around.
Once I said a few words to Pete, one being to keep that kid moving, I got in my truck. Like a whipped little pup, I went home to my wife. My twenty-minute drive must have been spent in a fog. I didn’t even remember it. The two old ladies, looking at Tricia and Mark’s house pulled my attention from my thoughts. Not at all what I had in mind with this place. It was supposed to be fun. I chose who I sold the lots to very carefully. Young and full of life, like Tatiana. Tricia, Layla, and Candace were all women she could relate to. Gabriella on the other hand, not so much.
Although there at the end, I really thought she would finally fit in. It may have been fake, but she played the part well. I snorted as I watched the two old women look around the yard, hoping like hell they bought the place. God knew I sucked at picking neighbors. Then again, I chose them for Tatiana, not Gabriella. She’d probably love two old women, Tatiana would not.
Just when I had myself loaded with enough attitude to walk in my house, and right past my wife without a word, she threw a curve ball. Jesus Christ. I couldn’t fucking win.
“Why are you crying?”
“You came home. That surprises me.”
“Why are you crying?”
“Don’t ask. Just go take a shower so we can go.”
I shook my head in utter confusion, walking to her while I tried to figure out what the hell to do with this crazy chick. “We can’t keep doing this, Gabriella. I’ve told you everything because I love you, and I want to grow old and wrinkly with you, but you’re a liar. You’re hiding something from me and it’s not right. I’ve laid it all out there for you. You know it all, yet you won’t give it all to me.”
“I’m not crying because of you. I’m crying because Morgan has it way worse than I ever did. Drew is a monster. More than you. Way more.”
I backed away from her with a frown. “Who the fuck is Morgan and Drew?”
Gabriella stood from the sofa and walked away from me. “It’s a book. I needed something to occupy my time while I waited to see if you were going to show up.”
My head shook back and forth while I contemplated my hormonal wife. I would never survive this. Thank God she was already five months along. Four more months was better than nine. Thinking about four more months made my head spin. That would be here before we knew it. Not a lot of time to prepare.
“Gabriella, stop reading those depressing books, especially now. I’m trying to be pissed off at you for sneaking around behind my back, doing something that you know is driving a wedge between us, and refusing to tell me. Don’t fucking expect me to feel sorry for you over some made up story. Worry about this one right here, Gabriella. The one staring you right in the face. Fuck Drew and Megan. Worry about your own problems.”
“Morgan.”
“What?”
“Her name is Morgan, not Megan.”
The grumble that came out from deep within my throat lasted all the way up the steps. I couldn’t say another word. This was a new kind of anger for me. One that I didn’t know how to handle, and I had learned right quick to not handle. Walk away. A fistful of hair and a good old ass beating sure as hell didn’t work anymore. She liked it. And if she wasn’t in the mood for liking it, I had to protect myself with armor. What the fuck?
I tried to shower away the anger, scrubbing hard with lavender scented bubbles. For whatever reason, the sweet aroma did relax me. A little. By the time I had started with a shower, and ended with a shave, I was finished. Being angry with her didn’t work like it once did. Gabriella would never look down to the floor because I told her to. Not now. Once again, I blamed it on hormones, thinking back to spying on her while she was pregnant with Phi.
That’s when I had installed the cameras. I couldn’t leave my daughter with someone I barely knew, not until I was one-hundred-percent sure she would be taken care of. I snorted to my reflection as I glided the razor down my throat. She was more than taken care of. She was loved. Every time I went to my phone, she was reading to her, rocking her, bathing her, playing with her, always her. Gabriella was always her mommy, and I didn’t care what role Tatiana played in her life. DNA doesn’t make a mommy. Love does.
Needless to say, I couldn’t remember any outburst while she was pregnant. Nothing. She pretty much did any and everything I told her to do. And she didn’t throw me right hooks.
“That’s because she was broken, you fucking idiot,” I said with harsh words right to my own face. It was the truth. I deserved everything that woman handed to me and then some, but that didn’t change the fact that somewhere the train jumped the track. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life. I’m sure I could find a case or two amnesia movies, a few books, maybe even romance novels like my crybaby wife read, but not this.
One minute things are normal. Normal for us. I’m fucking my wife over my desk, planning a fun night in-land with my girls, a nice meal, a blow job, and then—BAM. The train jumps the track. Not only does my wife not remember me, she’s somebody else. A total one-eighty in the blink of an eye. Just like that. Little by little, I got to know this new person with no memory because she gave me no choice. She defied me every chance she got, she flirted with me, stood up for me, called out euphoric dirty words while I fucked her, and she loved me.
If that wasn’t enough, I had to go and fall in love with her, too. And the train jumped tracks again. It all made perfect sense. I fell in love with her because she wasn’t my real wife. For a minute, I did believe that she was the real Gabriella, not the imposter that I married. And there was still that something with Lane. A thousand thoughts went through my mind while I dressed in jeans, the ones I knew Gabriella drooled over. I also chose her favorite shirt. The one she always laid out for me to wear when we went out. A gray button up with black stripes, barely visible with the sleeves rolled halfway up my arms. What can I say, I was good at manipulating, especially her. I just had to rethink my strategies for my own personal safety.
My feet skated down the stairs and our eyes met. “You ready? We better get going,” I nonchalantly said, sliding my feet into clean sneakers. Score. Her eyes never left my body. Digging ditches and sweating for a living saved a ton of money and time at the gym.
Gabriella retrieved her phone and purse, walking out to the garage without a word. I followed, raising the garage door while setting the alarm. Once again, I nonchalantly talked like she wasn’t already drooling. The expensive cologne that I didn’t remember, nor cared, what the name was for my birthday lingered in the air, and I knew she took it in. I stunned her and I liked it. Maybe I was on to something.
“There’s two old ladies, looking at Tricia’s house. I saw them checking out the lot when I came in.”
Gabriella quickly shifted her gaze from mine when I glanced over, catching her checking me out. “Oh yeah? Cool.”
Cool. That made me chuckle inside a little. Gabriella didn’t say cool. She also didn’t play into my hand. She lost that filter after the accident.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I played coy, turned to her with confusion, and then back to the road. “Driving you to the doctor. Ultrasound, remember? Today?” My eyebrows raised to the ceiling as gave her a quick look, trying to make her feel silly.
“Yeah, but are you trying to get laid, or what? Or is this another attempt to manipulate me into your way of thinking? A way for you to connive me into telling you what I promised to tell you, in my own time? What? Do you think you’re that irresistible? Seriously?”
I hit the gas pedal a little harder than I meant to and frowned, straight ahead, not at her. Definitely not at her. When did this happen? When did I become an open book to her? I couldn’t win. Hell, I couldn’t even keep up with the fucking game.
“Tell me, Pax. Why are you dressed like you want me to jump your bones? Why do you smell like that?”
“Like what? I took a shower and cleaned up because we’re going out. Why do you have to make something out of nothing all the time?”
Gabriella stared at me through two tiny slits in her eyes. “Okay, macho man. I’ll pretend like this is just you. You know, since you lay your own clothes out and all. Like you didn’t see the clothes in the bathroom where they always are. Not those clothes. I’ll pretend like you’re not up to something. How’s that?”
I shrugged the shoulder closest to her, ready to fire with my own comeback. “Okay, I like it. You pretend that I’m not up to something, and I’ll pretend that you’re not up to something. How’s that?”
Gabriella wasn’t as quick on her toes as she thought she was. She didn’t prance around with her smart-ass words, she ignored it with the radio and Eminem. I reached over and cranked the knob, sending bass through the car with a deep thump. We didn’t have a choice but to listen to the words. Words from a song I had never paid attention to before, hit home, harder than either one of us expected. I said and did a lot of those same things he sang angrily about. I felt his anger with him, and I related to almost every word. I also wondered if Gabriella felt what I felt when the female sang her part. It was the most powerful fucked-upped thing at the right, wrong time. Did Gabriella feel like that? Did she think I stood there and watched her burn? I tapped my brake for a little black squirrel, turning off the music when I looked over to Gabriella.
“If you’re crying over this song, I’m seriously going to flip. What is wrong with you?” I asked when Gabriella turned her face to the traffic beside her, away from me. I knew she was crying when she covered her mouth and I watched her shoulders bounce. “Jesus, Gabriella,” I said, so over the drama in my life. Karma was never going to forgive me. Fuck me.
Gabriella turned to look at me with her hand still covering her mouth, only those weren’t, I’m sad, tears. Those were, laughing my ass off, tears. This chick hurt my head from all the whiplash, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. Not much. I knew that.
“Are you laughing?”
Her head bobbed as real tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she said through a laughing yell. What the fuck? I patiently waited for the laughing frenzy to end, staring at her like I should be taking her to the looney bin, not to an appointment where she was going to be allowed to raise a child. Jesus.
“Are you done? What the fuck?”
“Okay, in my defense, I’m pregnant and I have a brain injury.”
Once again, I waited out the laughter, unable to hide my own smile. “Oh my, God. What the hell is so funny?”
“Okay, okay,” she gasped, taking in a deep breath, struggling for air and control. “Okay, this is exactly how it just played out in my mind. First this stupid song, and then I didn’t care about that when I saw Long John Silvers, and then I thought about craving cole-slaw, and then—”
More laughing escaped before the punch line, but I had already gotten it. “Squirrel,” I said through my own laugh, my head shaking from side to side, remembering the squirrel I’d braked for just before she busted a gut.
I had to listen to the story again when Mi came into the tiniest room in the world, only Mi laughed a lot harder than I did. Gabriella did, too, just as hard as the first time. I mean, it was funny, but come on. Mi was half on the floor from laughing so hard.
“Okay, stop. My ribs hurt,” Mi said, both hands holding her sides. “Can you pee?” she asked with a wink, a peculiar wink.
My eyes twitched, jerking from one to the other in search of a hidden clue. Of course, Mi was in on it. Mi was always in on it.
“Yes, I can always Pee,” Gabriella admitted with a smile. We still had an awkward thing between us, but this was better than being angry by a long shot.
“You know the drill. I’ll see you in a minute.”
Gabriella picked up her purse, leaving her phone behind. Normally that wouldn’t have sent a green flag, but for some reason it did. I thought about the last time I had gone through her phone and I honestly couldn’t remember. I stopped when I got tired of seeing all the shit from Mi. Her call history was empty there were zero messages from Mi. I pondered that thought, placing her phone back to the paper-covered bed, and leaning against the wall, ankles crossed just like my arms.
“Did you see that little baby when we came in? Oh my, God. She was so tiny.”
I didn’t reply to Gabriella, talking about the infant in the waiting room as she entered the room. Not until she spoke first.
“What?” she questioned, eyes trying to read the demeanor.
“Nothing, and yes. I saw her. Need some help?”
Gabriella fumbled with a string tying a diamond in the middle of her back, frowning with a readable look, trying like hell to figure me out. I took it upon myself to help her out of it, seductively, but quickly. Mi would be barging in any second. My lips met the warm skin on her shoulder as I tugged the string on her back, sliding the thin straps off her shoulders with both hands, lighting grazing her skin. She walked out of the dress without a word, letting me have my way with her, melting like putty in my hands.
My thumbs slid between the elastic in her panties, and she walked out of them, too. This time, shoving me away. “Stop it, you pervert. We’re about to see the sex of our baby.”
“I thought we weren’t going to find out?”
Gabriella slid her arms into the gigantic gown and sat on the noisy bed. “We’re not. Mi’s going to wrap it up for Christmas. We’re going to open it on Christmas. I told you this.”
“Yeah, but you just now said—I like these foot things,” I decided, no longer caring about the confusion. I lifted the metal bar out on her right, and then the left.
“Stop it, you idiot. Those are called stirrups and they’re for medical purposes, not sexual ones.”
“Oh, I could use these things for sexual purposes. Why don’t you ask your friend where we can get one of these tables? I love it.”
Gabriella kicked me away with her bare foot. “You’re so immature. Go over there and stand like a normal father of four.”
“I’d rather stay over here and be a pervert. Put your feet in here.”
That got a half of a laugh and a flirty smile. Mi, however, interrupted with two taps on the door. “All set?”
“Hey, Mi. Can I borrow this table?” I questioned without hesitation.
Gabriella laughed again, her head shaking from side to side with that same smile toward me. I cracked my neck from the whiplash as the anxiety set in, moving to Gabriella’s side.
“No, but I’m cool with you locking the door for a few when I’m done.”
Gabriella hit her, too. Open hand right to the side of her head.
“Ouch, what’d you do that for? I was just trying to help. You think Nick and I haven’t—“
“Oh, my God, Mi. Shut up. I want another doctor. Your bedside manners are horrible.”
Mi laughed, moving Gabriella with her hand. “Lay down. Don’t worry, you’re the only person I would ever let get it on in my examining room.”
Well fuck. I couldn’t think of anything else. Nothing but those stupid stirrups and what was under that sheet. I held Gabriella’s hand from the side, trying like hell to forget the offer to have my way with Gabriella right there. There was a place and time for that, and here and now was not it. Jesus, what the hell was wrong with me?
It was her, that’s what it was. She had my head so fucked up I didn’t know whether I was coming or going, and she’s always there, never leaving my mind for a second.