Rocco’s sneaker landed on the tiled floor in front of him as he stepped out of Meish’s office. Irritation colored his features and he dragged one of his hands over his face.
Meish throws a fit and makes me rush back here, and can’t be bothered to wrap up his phone call long enough to tell me what the hell he wanted. He sighed and turned his head towards the receptionist’s desk, where Clyde hovered over his computer screen.
Rocco moved towards the desk. He sighed and rested his elbow on top of the smooth surface of Clyde’s desk. “I don’t know what’s up with Meish. Did he ever tell you why he wanted me back her so urgently?”
Clyde spared Rocco a glance in between thumping the side of his monitor and wiggling the off white mouse beside him. “No, he didn’t. It seemed like he really wanted to keep it between the two of you—you didn’t talk to him?”
“No, I didn’t. He was on a call, and I guess that I served as his audience. Is there any coffee left?”
Clyde nodded and jerked his thumb towards the kitchen. “Yeah, assuming Hailey hasn’t gotten to the rest of it. She grabbed another cup of coffee and disappeared into the lounge rooms.”
Probably still stuck in her head. Rocco recalled the way that Hailey kept her eyes to the ground and flashed fake smiles at him before he went to meet up with Meish. Rocco frowned and said, “Yeah?”
Clyde nodded, “Offered to let her hang out with me in the front. I could always use some more help,” he said. His fingers flew across the number pad on his phone and he scooped the headset off of it’s cradle.
Rocco turned on his heel and headed down the narrow hallway that housed the lounge rooms. The faint smell of stale coffee teased Rocco’s senses. He wrinkled his nose as he stopped just outside of a half open door. He pressed his face into the narrow gap between door the and the doorframe and Hailey stumbled into view.
She raked her fingers through her hair and stared straight ahead. A blank look settled into her features and mumbled, “Oh my God.”
Rocco pressed the back of his hand against the door and push it all the way open. As the bolts in the door creaked upon being opened, Hailey’s head snapped towards the door.
Her wild eyes settled on Rocco, and she put on a fake smile. “Rocco, you scared me. You never know who’s going to come bursting through the door around here.” Her arms fell to her sides and she stepped towards him.
Rocco knitted his eyebrows together and said, “What are you tucked away in here for? Meish didn’t have anything to say to me yet, I couldn’t get him off of the phone.” He stepped forward and gripped either side of Hailey’s arms. Rocco leaned forward and brushed his lips across her forehead. A look of contentment flashed across her face before the worry that had been in her eyes before returned.
She lowered her eyes to the ground and said, “Hey, Rocco?”
A stab of fear shot through Rocco’s chest. He slipped his finger underneath her chin and gently tilted her face towards his. Did one of the riders say something to her? He fought back the swarm of thoughts that surged forward, including the terrified expression that would be on Hailey’s face if riders like Emmett started to show their true colors.
Rocco focused his attention on Hailey’s eyes and said, “What is it?”
Hailey inhaled and said, “I should have had a period by now. Since this whole thing started, I haven’t had one.”
Shit. Rocco kept his lips straight in a thin line and cleared his throat. “Okay. Well, what do you need?”
“I need to find out if… I might be pregnant.”
Rocco wrapped his arms around Hailey’s neck and pulled her close to his chest. “Alright.”
Hailey pulled away and narrowed her eyes. “What? Alright?”
“Yeah, alright.” Rocco said, he placed a feather soft kiss on her lips and said, “We’ll find out. Let’s go and get a pregnancy test, and we’ll clear this up.”
“What will we do if-”
He held his finger to her lips and said, “Worry about that later. Come on, let’s go.” His arms fell to his sides and he yanked the door open. Rocco looked straight ahead as he moved towards the front doors of the club with Hailey hot on his heels.
The shouts of three teens that passed by on bikes cut through the air. Rocco’s eyes fell on the thin back tire of a streetbike as the kids bobbed and weaved in between the hulking motorcycles that were parked in front of the building and in the alleyway beside the club.
“Little shits,” Rocco mumbled, “if they scuff up one of these bikes doing that, I’m going to feel sorry for them.” A few years ago, Rocco witnessed Meish throw a teenager over his shoulder and into a dumpster for pushing over a row of motorcycles. The sweat soaked, cherry red shirt of the oldest boy faded into the distance as they blitzed their way through crowds of people walking on the sidewalk. He and Hailey moved over to his bike and Hailey tossed one of her creamy legs over the side of the motorcycle.
His eyes traveled up from her defined calves and landed on the flat skin of her lower belly. What if she is pregnant? What am I going to do with a pregnant woman that I’ve kidnapped, that’s pretending to be my Old Lady. Memories of Hailey writhing above him while his back was pressed against the cave floor flashed through his mind. Can we even call it pretending anymore? This is what having an Old Lady is like, being scared out of your mind that something could fuck it all up.
“Rocco?”
Hailey craned her neck to peer at him and pointed towards the front of the bike. “Are you going to get on? I don’t know how to drive one of these things.”
Rocco shook his head and said, “Yeah, I’m coming. Sorry.” He moved over to the front of the bike and threw his leg over one side of it. He wrapped his hand around the throttle and moved his feet along the pavement to push the bike further into the street.
Hailey’s arms were tight around his waist as he took off down the street. He flew through yellow lights and zipped around tight corners. Car horns blared in Hailey’s ears, she squeezed her eyes shut and focused on Rocco’s breath.
Rocco pulled into the parking lot of the Lincoln Park Pharmacy. Hailey’s arms fell from around Rocco’s waist. She eased off of the motorcycle and inhaled. Hailey parted her lips and exhaled until she couldn’t summon up any more air from her chest. Rocco led the way towards the glass doors of the pharmacy. He shoved his hands inside the front pockets of his blue jeans and jerked his shoulder back just in time to avoid colliding with a young girl.
Hailey and the girl met eyes as she hurried towards the sidewalk and fiddled with her bike chain. The girl fell to her knees, and the red and orange pharmacy bag slipped from in between her fingers. A solid white box slid peeked over the edge of the bag, and the exposed half read: PREGNA in a rose colored, bubbly font.
The girl groaned before the bike chain finally clicked, and slid off of the front handlebars of the bike.
I guess I’m not the only one. The girl raised her head and sent an irritated glance towards Hailey. A small smile appeared on Hailey’s lips and Rocco’s urgent voice called out to her, “Hailey? What are you doing? I’m not going to pee on the stick. Get in here!”
Hailey fell into a light jog and hurried through the pharmacy doors. She swatted Rocco across the arm and said, “Keep your voice down, one of my Dad’s guys could be around. Do you want everyone to know that you might have knocked up the Pythons’ president’s daughter?”
They moved into the aisle and walked by a khaki clad clerk that shoved blue and white boxes of anti nausea meds onto the shelf. Hailey wrinkled her nose as she stopped in front of the Family Planning aisle a few feet away from the clerk. Her eyes flew over an assortment of colorful and specialty condoms before settling on the selection of pregnancy tests that sat on the shelf.
Hailey sighed and snatched one of the boxes off of the shelf. She held it out to Roco and said, “Okay, you’re going to have to go and pay for this. I don’t have any money obviously.”
Rocco rolled his eyes and grabbed the pregnancy test. He turned on his heel and called over his shoulder, “I’ll be back in a second.”
Hailey scanned the stiff purple and grey carpet that lined the floors of the pharmacy. She tilted her head backwards and looked about until her eyes fell on the hanging sign above the restroom.
At the counter, Rocco tossed the pregnancy test onto the counter with a grunt. He pointed at it and said, “What do I owe you?”
The clerk, a young looking high school student, grabbed the pregnancy test off of the counter and held the barcode up to the scanner. “21.47. These should be cheaper, huh? I just had to buy a couple for my girlfriend.”
Rocco raised his eyebrows and said, “For your girlfriend?” He ran his eyes over the cropped schoolboy haircut that the boy wore and the tight fitting polo shirt that was apart of his uniform. He looks like a college admission counselors dream. Who did he knock up?
The clerk chuckled and said, “She’s paranoid. You know how it is, right? Gotta keep them happy and worrying as little as possible.”
The clerk tossed the pregnancy test into a small bag and Rocco said, “Yeah, gotta watch out for them.” He looked over his shoulder and spied Hailey wandering near the restrooms. She leaned against the wall and looked to the right and left of her. If he hadn’t known her, he would have mistaken her for someone in a much younger crowd, she seemed so small, and so lost, like she needed someone to look after her.
Rocco shook his head. I’m the right guy for the job. He ignored the thoughts in the back of his mind that protested otherwise and grabbed the small, brown bag out of the clerk’s hands.
He nodded to the young man and mumbled, “Thanks.”
Rocco turned on his heel and headed towards the back of the pharmacy. Hailey’s eyes lit up upon seeing him and she pushed herself off of the solid white wall behind her. Her nostrils we flared and her chest rose as she took a deep breath, and she pointed at the bag that sat in between Rocco’s hands.
“Is that it? Are we good to go? Right here?” Hailey asked. Her round, blue eyes were wide enough for Rocco to fall in.
Rocco dragged a hand through his raven strands and said, “Yeah.” He shoved the bag into Hailey’s chest and said, “Unless you’d like to piss on this thing with Clyde sitting twenty feet away from you.”
Hailey groaned and snatched the box out of Rocco’s hand. She pushed down on the cool, silver handle to the ladies restroom and stepped inside. Pop music flowed in faintly through the speakers. A single toilet and sink stood in front of her.
She sighed and pulled the pregnancy test out of the bag, and dragged her fingernails along the edge of the box. Hailey moved over to the toilet, and balanced the pregnancy test in one hand and unbuttoned her shorts with the other. While her pee splashed against the toilet bowl, she looked straight ahead at the bathroom door.
You’ve gotten this far. You can handle seeing if this thing reads positive or negative. With trembling hands, she moved over to the sink and sat the pregnancy test on the edge of the it. Hailey raised her head towards the mirror, and winced at the sorry state of her appearance as she lathered and rinsed her hands.
She twisted the sink handle and stepped back with a heavy sigh. The rosy color that usually decorated her cheeks had been washed away, and replaced with skin as pale as the underside of a fish’s belly.
Hailey curled her fingers into a fist and leaned against the wall beside her. The digital screen on the pregnancy test had yet to budge with the results. She sighed and mumbled, “I thought that these things took two minutes or less.”
She gasped as words began to form in the digital window. Hailey pushed herself off of the wall and snatched the pregnancy test off of the edge of the sink. A rock sized lump formed in her throat as the rounded curve of the P in PREGNANT appeared on the screen. Hailey’s hand fell to her lower belly, and the strength seeped out of her knees.
Her voice was a strangled mess as she whispered, “Pregnant.”