Chapter Eleven
April hadn’t asked Samson to intervene. She wanted to handle it herself. But after watching him breeze in and take on the Wicked Witch of Imperial Valley Drive, she couldn’t help but be both proud and impressed. This definitely wasn’t the kind of property most businesses would take on unless they were looking for some good PR.
After they got back in the car and Samson assured her that he had the new management coming up that afternoon, she talked his ear off about what they could do to make the complex both better and more profitable. He listened, but he was also smiling this odd little smile. Not quite smug, and not quite happy, but quietly both. He snuck glances at her whenever he could.
When she asked him to pull over to a Sonic, he laughed outright.
“I’m hungry,” she whined.
“I can take you someplace nice.”
“I don’t want something nice. I want a burger and fries, and a cherry limeade.”
“You’re lucky you’re so cute.”
Bowing to her command, he pulled into the Sonic and rolled down his window. “Is this really food?”
“Yes! Don’t be a snob.”
“Fine.” He reached over for the button. “We would like a cheeseburger—”
“Double cheeseburger, no onions, extra pickle,” she clarified. “And fries. No! Tots.”
“Right. That, plus a cherry limeade,” He looked to her for confirmation. “And then I’ll have… a grilled chicken wrap, and I guess I’ll try a frozen cherry limeade.”
When the food came, April sighed contentedly and leaned on his shoulder as she sunk her teeth into her burger. “Mm, God. I love how you humor me and my trash tastes.”
“You aren’t usually this bad.”
“Just wait. When we get back to your place, I’m going to make you watch garbage reality TV on Bravo.”
Samson kissed the top of her head and tried his drink. “This isn’t bad. It’s probably diabetes in a paper cup, but it’s not bad.”
“It’s fine. Ohhhh,” she groaned.
“You should’ve told me that I could make you come from a burger. I’ve never even seen you eat a burger. It’s always salads and spring rolls and the occasional bit of fish.”
“I don’t usually eat red meat. I just crave it sometimes when I’m about to… Um.” April stuffed a tot in her mouth.
“About to what?” Samson looked down at her in confusion and then chuckled. “Oh. Right.”
“What do you think you’re right about?”
“I have a sister and have dated a million women. Shouldn’t you have been craving a burger by now? We’ve been dating longer than a month.”
“If you’ve dated a million women, you know that some of us are sort of hit and miss with the timing of our burger cravings. But when I do get burger cravings, they are intense. I once had a clinic doctor tell me I should go on birth control to even things out, but I never had real insurance until now.” April wiped her mouth.
“I’m always safe, so you don’t have to unless it helps your overall health.” He stroked his hand down her shoulder.
“I have been looking through our network for a doctor. I’m overdue.” April picked off a pickle and ate it, enjoying the crunch. She didn’t usually worry about being a little bit late with her period, but now that she thought about it… She was very late. It couldn’t be possible, though. She watched him put a condom on every time. He was a fanatic about it.
The thought nibbled away at the edge of her consciousness for the rest of the day. It caused her to second guess every twinge in her body. It should all add up to hormones, but what kind? If it added up to a baby, what would Samson do? Was he still against having children? Would he leave her? Could she force herself to get rid of it, just for him?
That night, she lie awake staring at the ceiling and wondering what she should do. Of course, the obvious answer was that she should find out for certain and have a talk with Samson about it. That was the most rational answer. Part of her wanted to ignore it and hope that it was just her body being out of sync due to stress again.
Part of her knew. She moved her hand down her stomach to her lower abdomen. It was warm and firm and, in spite of her odd eating habits over the past week, mostly flat. But chances were, it wouldn’t be for long.
April slipped away Sunday afternoon, claiming she needed to take care of some things back at the apartment. It frustrated her a bit because she was excited to get started on revamping Imperial Apartments, but she couldn’t wait to find out if her life had changed.
She picked up the test in a convenience store on the corner a block from Lana’s apartment and pulled into a space next to their building with a squeal of tires. She ran upstairs and, finding an empty apartment, and locked herself in the bathroom. Roughly three minutes later, she sat on the edge of the tub, numb and dumbfounded.
***
It was hard to focus on anything now that April knew. Her top priority should have been finding a way to tell him, but somehow it had quickly become sorting out her loosest clothing and making sure that her coworkers didn’t suspect anything. Her second priority became finally finding a doctor and setting up an appointment.
Between that flurry of panic and decision-making and work, somehow another week and a half slipped by before April was able to devote time to what she should tell Samson. Truthfully, when she started needing to pin her skirts in the back because they wouldn’t close properly, she thought Samson might figure it out and say something before she could. However, it was still early and she wasn’t showing much yet. Aside from how swollen her breasts had become, Samson remained blissfully ignorant.
In fact, he seemed blissful all around. He had never seemed more content, even when she dozed off on him and they went to bed curled up together without the heat and sweat that had been common for them. Things were so wonderful with him. She didn’t want to ruin it.
“I don’t think I’d ever be interested in any of those things.”
“And anyway, even the most gorgeous model, after popping a baby or two?” He looked to the audience and grimaced. “I’m just not that fond of children anyway.”
April slipped a white and blue sundress over her head and examined her silhouette in the mirror. Samson was a tall man. Even Lana was tall. It stood to reason they would have large babies. She hoped she would be able to handle it. With no family history, no knowledge of what her mother or grandmother had gone through, April didn’t know what to expect. Her fears of losing Samson were beginning to be eclipsed by her worry for things that might be wrong with this baby. Things lurking in her DNA that she could never know about until a test revealed it.
But even if her doctor’s appointment revealed the worst, and her child needed a series of surgeries like April had when she was a baby, she found that she didn’t care. This child, however it had manage to sneak through Samson’s sea of condoms, deserved parents that wanted her, or him.
“Please don’t leave me,” she murmured.
April pinned her hair halfway up, allowing some of her curls to spill down around her face the way that Samson liked. She applied her makeup lightly and avoided her perfume, which was so bothersome now that she might as well go without it. Tonight she would tell Samson that he was going to be a father, and let him opt out if he really wanted to.
***
The intensity of the Texas summer was beginning to abate that evening. April could feel a breeze over her shoulders as she and Samson stepped out onto the rooftop patio of B&B Butchers. The carefully arranged lanterns lit up the empty patio, but the sky was still getting dark enough for April to appreciate the view. She could see the entire skyline of Downtown Houston. This far from the traffic and cracked streets, she could appreciate the towering buildings and multicolored lights. She could even smile at the huge, glowing ferris wheel that rotated from the Downtown Aquarium.
Because, why not have a Ferris wheel at an aquarium? Houston had a lot of flaws, ones she was becoming intimately acquainted with as she took on more design projects, but lack of creativity was not one of them.
“This view is gorgeous.” April let Samson pull her chair out for her and smoothed her dress underneath her as she continued to gaze at the skyline.
“It is. You can thank Garcia for this one. I asked him where he’d take someone special.” Samson leered.
“And those plans fell through? Thanks for thinking of me.”
“Stop joking. Tonight is special.”
“Is it?” What was he planning?
The waiter came to take their orders, and April declined trying out the raw bar, to Samson’s disappointment.
“Oysters look like snot, and you and I have never needed an aphrodisiac.”
Samson suppressed a laugh. “Now I don’t know if I can ever eat them again.”
“Good.”
Ultimately, they settled on crab cakes for an appetizer, and April let Samson do the ordering for their steaks. He also insisted in ordering a couple of lobster tails and a bottle of wine.
“You are a man of excessive tastes,” April informed him.
“I drank a cherry limeade for you. You can eat lobster for me.”
“I win in both of those situations!”
“That’s just fine.” Samson reached for her and gave her a silly smile. “I like it when you win.”
April grinned stupidly as well. She couldn’t help herself. She loved him. She wanted it all. The job, the man, and the baby. She wanted her stable home and family, and creative fulfillment, and a squirming little version of Samson, and lots of orgasms.
Not wanting to ruin their dinner, April carefully kept their topic of discussion on work and travel. Samson seemed content to listen to whatever she had to say, pitching in jokes and compliments as they came up. By the time she made it halfway through her steak and lobster, April was almost too full to breathe. She was going to have to watch that. Samson’s penchant for spoiling her could end up being a bad thing.
“You haven’t had any wine,” Samson pointed out. “That’s not exactly fair.”
“Not really. You pretty much know I’m going to put out, after this kind of dinner.”
Samson kissed her hand. “It’s just as well. I want you to remember this.”
He took a deep breath, knocked back the rest of his wine and dabbed the corners of his mouth. Then, he pulled a small black box out of his jacket pocket.
“Samson…”
“April, you know that I’m the kind of man who makes big gestures, but not big commitments. And I know that you said that things were fine, if we were just having fun...”
April felt her insides turning to ice water. “I know, but I really don’t—”
“I want you to know that I want more than fun with you.” Samson opened the box and slide it over to her.
It was a key.
“I love you, April,” he said.
“Samson, I’m pregnant,” she blurted out at the same time.
“What?” Samson dropped his hand from the table. “What did you say?”
“I said… I’m pregnant. At first I wasn’t sure… But I am.”
The knot in her throat grew with every second of silence that followed. His expression was as forbidding as it had been the day she’d interviewed with him.
“You can’t be pregnant,” he managed.
“I am. I went to the doctor. I have an ultrasound picture.”
“Show it to me.”
April rolled her eyes. “I don’t have it in my purse. It’s at my apartment. We can go get it after dinner, if you want proof. Do you really not believe me?”
“We’ve always used condoms!”
“They aren’t a hundred percent effective. Maybe one had a tear. Maybe we just bucked the odds with the sheer amount of times we fucked in that first week. I don’t know what happened. I’m not lying to you!” April turned her face away and covered her eyes. This was not her best-case scenario. She prayed that she wouldn’t start to cry.
“Hey.” Samson came over to her side and took her hand from her eyes. “I know you wouldn’t lie. I just don’t understand how it happened.”
April felt her head beginning to spin, and she closed her eyes tightly. “I guess we can try to figure out what happened. Take a closer look at that box of condoms. Maybe your swimmers are particularly aggressive lately. I don’t know.”
She felt his hands rubbing her shoulders and thought for a moment that it would be okay.
“Let’s go home. I meant to invite you to live with me anyway. Stay the night, and we’ll think about it more tomorrow.”
April felt a stab of panic and looked back at him. “Think about what more tomorrow?”
“What we’re going to do.”
“Aside from getting a registry going and buying some maternity clothes, I don’t know what you think we’re going to do about it,” April snapped.
“That is not what I meant. I just meant that we need to talk, and you are clearly upset.”
April pulled away from him and stepped closer to the railing. “Of course, I’m upset! I’m pregnant out of the blue, with a man I love, who doesn’t want to have children, ever!”
Samson held his hands up. “It’s true that I have no desire to have a baby at this point in my life.”
“Do you want to have one at all?”
“April, I need time. I need to process this.”
“Just say it. You don’t want this. You don’t want to be a father.” April crossed her arms over herself. “You want to keep merrily taking over the world with your huge company.”
“I love you!”
“You can love me, but if you don’t love our baby, too, it’s no good to me. I can’t get rid of this child. I can’t throw her away like I was thrown away!” April heard her voice break and covered her mouth, trying to catch her breath.
“Oh, that’s it? You’ve already made all the decisions?” Samson boomed. “You’re going to have the child whether I want it or not? What comes next? You’ll tell me where we’ll live? When we get married? I guess whether we do is up to you as well.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” April shook her head. “You can’t compromise on a baby! Either I have it or I don’t. It’s not that you don’t get any input on the situation; it’s that I can’t do anything else. Don’t you see that? I can’t do it!”
She grabbed her jacket and made for the stairs. Samson grabbed her shoulder.
“April, just calm down!”
“No! Your choice here isn’t whether or not you can get me to get rid of a baby. Your choice is whether or not you want to be part of his or her life.” April started down the stairs. “Keep the key. I’m calling an Uber.”
As she descended, she could hear the crashing off patio furniture, and she winced.