CHAPTER 19
Tobias
I sat at the dinner table, drumming my fingers beside my plate and trying to ignore the peculiar glances from neighboring diners. I reached for my phone, checking the time and seeing that nearly twenty minutes had passed.
Worried, I sent Scarlet a message: Is everything all right?
No response.
I shifted in my seat to get a view of the area near the bathrooms. Frowning, I contemplated walking over, but decided against it. What could I do? Press my ear against the women’s bathroom door to see if I heard Scarlet inside? That would only get me kicked out of the restaurant for being a creep.
I sighed and leaned back in my chair, wondering if the food had made her sick, or if it was a bout pregnancy sickness. I knew about morning sickness, but was there such a thing as evening sickness? With the exception of Joanna, I hadn’t spent much time around pregnant women to know much about this kind of thing.
Frustrated and confused, I ran my hands through my hair. I then rested my head in my hands, my mind spinning.
“Mr. Gentry, is everything all right?”
I looked up to find our waiter standing beside the table. I forced a smile. “Yes, sure. Uhm…Everything’s great. Dinner was superb.”
“May I interest you in dessert?”
“No, thank you.”
“How about your lady friend?”
“Uhm…Probably not,” I said, glancing toward the restrooms again. “I think she’s probably had enough to eat tonight. In fact, I think she may not be feeling well. By any chance, could I have someone check the women’s restroom for me? I mean, I know that’s a weird request, but I’m kind of worried…”
“She’s not in there,” came a voice from a nearby table.
I paused, startled and searching for the speaker. It was an older gentleman, sitting across from his wife. He stared back at me with a grim expression.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Your girlfriend left, if you haven’t noticed. She came out the bathroom and headed straight for the door,” the man said.
I blinked, stunned. A mirthless laugh escaped my mouth. “Well shit. Of course she did,” I muttered, shaking my head. I checked the time on my phone again, seeing that it had been a half-hour now since I’d seen Scarlet. How could I not have realized she’d left?
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Gentry,” the waiter said, embarrassed on my behalf.
“So am I,” I said. “Just the check please.”
He bowed. “Right away, sir.”
I stared down at the table, feeling like a complete idiot.
“That was a beautiful young lady there,” the old man at the nearby table commented. “Hope you work through whatever it was you did to her.”
If I hadn’t been raised to respect my elders, I probably would have rolled my eyes and told the old geezer to mind his own damned business. But I couldn’t be so rude, especially under the watchful gaze of his wife sitting across from him.
“Thanks for your concern, sir,” I said with some difficulty.
“Don’t give up, dear,” his wife chimed in. “If you care enough about her, then she’s worth fighting for.” She gave me an encouraging nod, and I smiled back in return.
“Here you are, Mr. Gentry,” my waiter said, returning with my check.
“Thank you,” I said, eager to leave and sort out my jumbled thoughts in privacy.
I practically drove home from the restaurant on auto-pilot, thoughts of babies racing through my mind. Being an uncle was one thing, but being a father was something else entirely. I hadn’t even babysat Addison on my own for more than a half-hour. I had no idea what to do with babies. I may have been a doting uncle, but babies were still a foreign species, as far as I was concerned. How the hell was I going to make it as someone’s father, as two people’s father, under such unexpected circumstances?
You’re not going to have much of a choice pretty soon, a voice in my head told me. Unless, of course, she files for full custody of the twins and refuses to let you see them…
The thought literally sent a shudder running throughout my entire body, chilling me to the bone.
I wasn’t ready to be a father, but how would I feel if I wasn’t even allowed to meet my own children? Did I really want that?
How could I go through my life knowing that there were beings in the world that I had helped create, who didn’t know a thing about me?
As I pulled into my driveway, the thought of not knowing my children made me feel even more panicked than the thought of becoming a father.
My stomach clenching, I turned off my car engine and reflected on how my life had been so abruptly turned upside down. And then I sat there for a long time, trying to figure out what on earth I was going to do about it.
When I finally stepped inside my house, it felt colder and emptier than ever. I went straight to my bedroom, where I glimpsed myself in the mirror as I changed out of my suit. My hair standing on end in every direction, I looked just as disheveled as I felt.
I headed for the kitchen to pour myself some scotch, hoping it would calm my nerves. While I grabbed the ice, I felt like a movie had started playing in my head. I envisioned Scarlet rounding the corner, beautiful and round in the stomach, coming to tell me about her day.
I imagined her water breaking all over my kitchen floor tiles…
I imagined scrambling to get her in the car, telling her that everything was going to be all right as she screamed in the passenger’s seat, her contractions growing closer together.
I imagined doctors running through the hospital corridors, preparing to deliver my children.
I imagined putting on scrubs, my heart pounding as I prepared to meet the twins…
Holding Scarlet’s hand while doctors told her to push.
Hearing the scream of one newborn child, and shortly thereafter, the other.
Attempting to balance them both in my arms for the first time.
What would they be? Two girls? Two boys? One of each?
Who would they look like? Me? Scarlet? A mix?
I imagined watching two children growing up, running around the house. Regularly hearing the pitter-patter of little feet echoing through the halls. Scheduling playdates with their cousin Addison…
A smile came to my face until I realized that all of those could very well be moments I never got to experience if I didn’t manage to get back in Scarlet’s good graces.
I collapsed on the couch, suddenly realizing that it may have been a mistake for me to come home. I didn’t feel like being alone and should have gone to Anderson’s and Joanna’s house instead. Thinking of them, I got the overwhelming urge to see my niece, wanting to feel a baby in my arms.
I reached for my phone and began scrolling through pictures of Addison, my heart somehow feeling warm and heavy at the same time.
It was then that I decided I needed to talk to Joanna. She may have been my little sister, but she had matured a great deal since giving birth to my niece. The tables had turned, and more often these days, I found myself turning to her as the voice of reason.
Joanna answered on the second ring, her voice tired. “Hello?”
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, Tobias. What’s going on?”
There was suddenly a lump in my throat that I could hardly speak around, and my silence inevitably alerted her that something was wrong.
“Tobias? What is it? What happened?” she said, concern replacing her tiredness.
I sighed. “Where do I even begin? I messed up big time, sis.”
“Is it the firm? A bad deal? Should I go get Anderson?”
“No, it’s nothing like that…”
“Oh. This is something personal then?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, what?”
“I…I met someone.” Joanna let out a squeal so loud that I had to hold the phone away from my ear.
“Sorry, sorry!” she said, lowering her voice. “I’m just so happy for you! Do you mean to tell me that my big brother is finally going to settle down? No more of the strict businessman bachelor act? Am I finally getting a sister-in-law? Who is she and when do I meet her?”
“Slow down. Trust me, things are not as hunky-dory as you think.”
“Oh…” Joanna said. “What’s the problem then? Have you already broken up with her? I know whatever’s going on must be serious for you to even care enough to mention it to me. Anderson is the only one you usually talk about women with.”
“You aren’t making this any easier for me, sis.”
“I’m sorry. I’m all ears now. Let me have it.”
“Well, like I was saying, I met someone. And…well, at first it just started off as a fling, you know?” I paused and cleared my throat, suddenly realizing how awkward it was to have this kind of conversation with my little sister. Maybe talking to Anderson would have been the better choice after all. But I certainly couldn’t leave Joanna hanging now. Besides, now that she and Anderson were married, telling one of them was essentially the same as telling both of them anyway. “It started off as a fling when I went down to Hullen Prep for the weekend a few months ago. Remember that? Anyway, I met another former student who thought she recognized me but…Well, never mind. Let me get to the point. She came to town to visit me today. Showed up to the office and uhm…I decided to take her out to dinner. But things didn’t go so well at dinner…”
“Okay…” Joanna said. “No big deal. Maybe she just isn’t the one. If it was just a fling, leave it at that and move on. Unless…She’s not stalking you, is she? To come all the way to Chicago, unannounced…That is a bit much. As you know, I’ve been in that situation before.”
I huffed, recalling her abusive ex-boyfriend who had tracked her down after she left him. “Yeah, I know. It’s nothing like that though. She had a very good reason for coming to see me. Initially, I was happy to see her too. Even though our fling had been fleeting, I’d thought about her a lot afterwards…”
“Tobias, you’re stalling. Are you going to tell me what the real issue is here or not?”
I swallowed and took a deep breath. “Joanna, she’s pregnant. With twins. She says they’re mine. She hasn’t been with anyone else since we…Since being with me.”
Joanna gasped and fell silent. “Tobias,” she said, “I don’t know what to say. How do you feel about her? I mean, really?”
“I care about her.”
“Then why isn’t this a happy occasion? You don’t sound happy. Or are you just nervous because she’s having twins?”
“Well, the fact that she’s having twins certainly doesn’t make the situation any easier. But the main issue is the way I reacted when she told me. I know she’s pissed, and I don’t blame her. I didn’t take the news very well, to say the least. She got so upset that she snuck out of the restaurant and left me.”
“Are you ready to be a father?”
“I don’t have a choice. Unless she decides to keep them from me.”
“Okay, let me ask you this. If you could make things better, what would you do?”
“I’d tell her that I’m sorry for how I reacted. And I’d try to…I don’t know…I’d try to be there for her. I want to be a part of my children’s lives, if she lets me. Hell, I’d like to be a part of her life too.”
“Then you already know what to do, Tob. Win her back and let her know that you aren’t the kind of man who walks out on his family.”
I considered Joanna’s advice, knowing she was right, and knowing that ultimately, I really had no other choice but to do exactly what she’d said if I wanted to make things better.
“Thanks, sis.”
“No problem.”