Chapter Twelve
Samson stayed out of the office for the rest of the week. He was still too angry with April to deal with what had happened. Moreover, he was too angry with himself. It was true that he’d been getting impatient for their relationship to progress, but taking out that impatience on her, for a situation that was out of her control, had been so far beyond how he ever imagined treating her that he felt he didn’t really deserve the comfort of her warm embrace or her fond teasing.
Still, he missed her. It was only a matter of days, but he ached without her near. He did his work from his apartment, sent messages to the office, and kept to himself. He went through more bottles of wine that week than he cared to admit.
The next Monday, Samson steeled himself to return to the office. It was time to be a man. It was time to see April and work this thing out. During his time away, he had done some thinking. Of course, he couldn’t possibly have her get an abortion. He would never do that to her, given how she felt about the baby already, and knowing how she grew up, it would be cruel to force something like that on her. Not too long after that, Samson realized that he wouldn’t want to get rid of his own child.
His main difficulty with the whole situation was that after everything, he would have to actually be a father. He wasn’t sure their child deserved that.
Regardless, his insecurities were no reason to punish them both. Nothing would be worked out by simply sitting around and feeling sorry for himself. He picked up a triple espresso latte and headed into the office determined to put things right between them.
When Samson reached their floor, however, nothing felt right. Many of the staff were staring at him. Quite a few of them were shooting daggers. He approached Babette’s desk, and she jumped as though she’d been stuck with a pin.
“Sir,” she muttered.
“Could you collect my messages, Babette? I have quite a bit to catch up on.”
“Absolutely, sir.” Babette fumbled through her organizer.
Samson furrowed his brow at her. “What’s going on? Why is everyone acting so strangely? Is it because of my absence?”
“Well, probably the reason for your absence.”
Samson blinked. “What would you know about that?”
Babette stared at him for so long that he snapped, “Spit it out!”
“April left. I-I don’t know.” Babette rubbed her lips and then looked up at him with a strange expression. “I have no idea why. You should talk to her team.”
“Fine. Get those messages together.”
Samson swept through the office like a dark cloud. What had she meant that April left? April wouldn’t leave a job like this. She was pragmatic. There was no way that she would leave a job like this. Especially since she now had a child to think of.
“Garcia.” Samson appeared in the office where Garcia was sitting on the edge of his desk and talking to Jessie and Katy, the new hire who had been added to their team. “I need an update. What is this about April leaving?”
Garcia leveled an incredulous look at him. “You ought to know.”
Samson tilted his head to the side. Jessie was staring him down, too, while Katy looked between everyone curiously.
“What do you think happened?” he asked.
“We figured out you two were dating a few weeks ago,” Katy offered.
“You asked me for where to take her on dates,” Garcia said.
“You dumped her, and now she’s gone,” Jessie said.
“That is not what happened,” Samson said peevishly. “Don’t go spreading rumors.”
“She came in here a week ago, very upset, and told us that she couldn’t work here anymore,” Garcia said. “I tried to argue with her, but she said it would be impossible for her because of how things were with you. I told her she could just wait you out. You’d be out of our hair in a few months, but she wasn’t having it, and I gave her some contacts for a new job.”
“She’s probably heading back to New York by now,” Jessie said.
Samson almost dropped his coffee and actually stumbled backwards. “Why would she go back to New York?!”
“She has contacts there. She’s always talking about how she likes it better up north,” Jessie said.
Samson stepped up to Garcia’s desk, causing the man to hop off and step back. He slapped the desk hard. “You are going to give me the leads you gave her. And I’m going to go get her back.”
***
Samson spent the next hour on the phone. Although he called April first, he kept getting her voicemail. After three messages, he gave up and began following up on the contacts to figure out where she might be headed.
One answer seemed obvious. He should simply go over to his sister’s apartment and demand to know where April was. He wanted some kind of hint that he had April’s consent to talk to her first. He simply didn’t know what to do after that kind of fight. Clearly, she didn’t either, if it had caused her to separate completely from the elements in her life that touched his. How would that even be possible now that she carried a part of him with her?
And how had that even happened? Samson opened up his desk and started sifting through his condoms, looking carefully. It probably wouldn’t help. This box was a new one. He would have to examine the old ones, and those were long gone. Maybe Babette would know where they’d come from, or have a few extras squirreled away. She was the one buying them, after all, along with a number of his other daily supplies.
He went back out to her desk, and she jumped again when she saw him.
“Sir! Are you ready for those messages?”
“No. I have some fires to put out here, first. Do you happen to know where you bought the last batch of condoms? The Trojan ones with multicolored wrappers?”
“W-were they not what you wanted?” Babette peeped.
“The brand and type was fine. I just need to find out if they had a recall, or if something happened. I might call the company.”
“I can get you on the phone!” Babette said eagerly. Very eagerly. Why was she sweating?
Samson sat on her desk and looked at her square in the eye. “Babette? Do you know if something happened with my condoms? Did you get a notice?”
“No.”
“No, you don’t know? Or no, you didn’t get a notice?”
“I, um…” Babette looked down.
Samson leaned over and tilted her head back with two fingers. “Babette. What happened to them?”
She blinked rapidly.
His voice grew deeper and slower: “What. Did. You. Do?”
“I didn’t mean to do any harm. I was just angry because you brought me here, and then you were with all of these other women.” She jumped again as he began to lean forward. “I may have put a needle through some of your condoms.”
“You what?” Samson boomed.
“Maybe a whole box?”
For a moment, Samson couldn’t feel anything. Not a damn thing from head to toe. It was possible there for a moment that he would lift Babette up by the neck and slam her into the wall. Only his barely functioning higher brain structures kept him from launching himself at her. She would never understand the damage she might have done.
“Get out, and don’t come back,” was all he said before he flew out of the building.
***
The week since he had found out that he was to be a father had been one of the most stressful of Samson’s life. This day was competing for the worst. He tried to call his sister and was still sent to voicemail. He got a speeding ticket on the way over to the apartment. He still didn’t know if April was okay or even in the state.
If only he’d pulled himself together sooner.
Samson was a bit out of breath when he reached the door, which opened to reveal his sister holding a kitchen knife.
“Would you stop that? This isn’t funny,” he snapped.
“No, it isn’t. Unbuckle those pants, mister.”
“Get out of my way. I need to talk to April. Is she here?” His voice grew quiet. “Is she all right?”
“She’s broken-hearted, you asshole. She’s not all right. I can’t believe you!”
“Give me a minute to breathe, Lana! I had no idea this was going to happen!”
“You had the sex!” Lana pointed out, gesturing her knife toward him. “You can deal with the consequences!”
“We were using condoms! I didn’t know my secretary was poking holes in them!”
Lana let her hand drop. “Oh my God. Are you serious?”
“Yes.” Samson pushed his fingers through his hair and shook his head wearily. “I don’t know… I genuinely never considered she would go that far. I didn’t intend to lead her on. I was very clear when I told her about the job…”
“Don’t blame yourself. Who would suspect her to go that psycho over you?”
Samson pursed his lips. “So, April is here?”
Lana pinched her lips to the side and then finally stepped back. “Go easy on her. You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be in this situation.”
“I have some idea of what it’s like to shockingly be put in the position of a parent, yes.” Samson tried to fix his hair and his clothes.
“You’re fine. She’ll just be happy to see you.”
“She blocked my number.”
“She was pretty sure you were done with her.”
Samson spun around. “How? How could she think that? I told her how much I love her!”
“Because, Sammy. She spent most of her life not being loved.”
Samson felt his shoulders slumping from the weight of the difficulty in front of him. With any of the girls in any of the cities he’d been in, he would never have felt the burden of teaching them what it felt like to be appreciated and loved. He would never have cared enough to do so.
“Thanks, sis,” Samson said. He headed for April’s room.
Inside, he could hear some soft jazz music. It was from a band they’d heard play several weeks ago. It was hard for him to believe that they’d only been dating since the middle of the summer. Samson felt like April had become such an integral part of his life. He rapped on the door.
“I’m decent,” April said.
Samson poked his head in. April was sitting on the floor in the middle of several boxes, clothes in different piles, and a little black dog sniffing around each. “It’s me.”
“I know. I heard you yelling. Your secretary needs therapy.”
“She needs to be blacklisted and sued into the ground.”
“You would know better than I about the legal ramifications of birth control sabotage. Or the legal ramifications of anything. It’s not my specialty.”
Samson came over to sit next to her. “April, I don’t want to talk about her.”
April kept starring down at the dress in her hands, her brow scrunched up as though she didn’t know where to put it.
“Are you leaving? Are you going to New York?”
That caused her to look up. “What? I’m not going to New York.”
“Then why are you packing?”
“I’m sorting clothes that I need to put away until after the baby comes,” she said flatly. “And looking through some that Garcia’s wife dropped off, since apparently I can’t keep a secret about anything. I don’t know how you kept me out of the tabloids.”
“Money. Bribed ‘em.”
April laughed softly. “That’s not true.”
“It is. I knew how important it was to you that our relationship not affect your work. Imagine my surprise when you left the job you love.” Samson started to move closer, but the dog barked at him. He stared at it until it hopped in place and then hid behind the chair.
“I can’t work there. Not with you, not if… Not if we aren’t together. It’s too hard.” April covered her face. “I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m just, you know, knocked up and all that.”
Samson tentatively put a hand on her knee. “You can cry if you want to. I will admit to drinking a lot of wine over the past week. With whatever emotional outpourings that might lead to.”
April arched a brow at him skeptically. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to move in. April, I love you. A baby doesn’t change that.” He reached over and wiped some wetness from her blotchy cheek. “It was never that I didn’t want you. And I would never want to do anything to hurt you or make you leave. It was only that, because I have no relationship to speak of with my father, I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”
“Well, you’d better get ready, Samson! Or get out! Because if you want me, the baby’s part of the deal now. I know you didn’t choose it, and neither did I, but this is where we are.” Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, and she sobbed once before spitting out, “Dammit!”
Samson slipped in behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “I just have to admit how I’m feeling about being a father. I’m not ready now, but we have time.”
“Not that much time.”
“Given that we were already moving towards some kind of commitment, or we would have if I’d been able to convince you to live with me, I think we were already on this path. It’s simply new and very, very shocking.” Samson kissed her temple, and April sobbed again, then buried her face in his chest.
“I thought I’d done something wrong. I thought I’d ruined it.”
“No.” Samson cupped her cheek, and she looked up at him again. He found her beautiful, even like this. “You are everything, April. You are my night and my day. You are my lioness and my mouse. You are my person.”
April laughed and leaned up to kiss him. “You finally got it.”
“We may not have had the families we wanted, but that’s no reason for us not to try to build one. That’s what we do every day. We take what’s there, and we make something new and beautiful.” Samson pulled her closer to him. “Unfortunately, you’re going to have to pick up the bulk of the work on this one.”
“I don’t mind. I love her already. Or him.”
“See? You’re already so good at this. I’m going to have to let you take the lead once again.”
Samson watched her distressed eyes slowly growing warm and full. The tears that came now were happy, and Samson and April began to kiss, moving toward one another at the same time. He kissed the salt of her tears from her face and stroked her hair, determined to make sure she knew how precious she was to him.
Fatherhood would come. His own father had grown into it, albeit it had taken him twelve years. Samson fancied himself a quicker study that that, and he had April, who knew how to fight for what she wanted when she had the confidence to do it. He had no doubt that April would fight for him and their child with an unrivaled ferocity.
Samson lifted her onto the bed without breaking their kiss. He couldn’t stop touching her. It had been too long, and he had needed her too much. She pulled her blouse over her head in a fluid motion, revealing breasts that were spilling out of her bra. Samson blessed each with careful kisses, knowing they must still be sensitive.
His kisses descended in a line from her perfect, swollen breasts, to the sweetest little curve rising up from her pelvic bone. They were one now. It had been true before, but now they had to try even harder to make their foundation a strong one. He placed a kiss right at the curve and looked up at her meaningfully.
She unfastened the safety pin holding her shorts together and slipped out of them. Gratefully, Samson began to nibbled and lick along the inside of her thigh. She sighed happily and reached out for his hair. His hands cupped over her buttocks, appreciatively squeezing, and he moved his face closer to her lips.
She smelled different. Good, but more intensely sexual. Her body had been at work, changing and preparing. All Samson could do was worship it. And so he did, spreading her lips with his fingers, and administering broad laps inside. He’d been with her long enough to know that it would drive her the wildest if he alternated his lapping, not letting the sensation become too intense on either side. Just bringing her up to the edge, over and over, moving around, and all the while, gently rubbing her mound where soft blonde hair curled shyly.
Her fingers tightened in his hair and her panting grew higher, more needful. Her body was calling for more, and he gave it, lapping faster, and slipping two fingers inside her to rub at the back of her channel. Soon, her whole body was quivering as she moaned and her thighs clenched against his head as though to keep him at his work.
Samson didn’t slow, falter, or rest until his job was done. She was gasping and sweating and her fingers had clamped down on his hair, and all he could thing was how luscious she was, and how much pleasure he would give her for the rest of her life.
A bit proudly, he felt her come twice before he left her off the hook. Even then, he remained in position for a few minutes longer, enjoying the twitch of her lips against his, before he crawled up into the bed with her.
“You are a master.” April made a bowing motion with both hands.
“The pleasure is all mine. Well, most of it is.” Samson curled up against her and rested his hand on her side. “I owed you a bit of relaxation, after all the stress of the last week.”
“There’s going to be more stress. For instance, where will we live after you’re done in Houston? Will I come with you? Will we travel with the baby? What about—”
Samson pressed his head against hers. “It doesn’t matter. We’re both good planners. We will come up with a plan.”
“Okay.” April nuzzled against him. “I’m so glad Lana didn’t stab you.”
“That was a close one.”
Samson trailed his fingers along her stomach, wondering at how she had crashed into his life one day in a tank top and cut-offs and changed everything.
“I never thought I was a man meant for love,” Samson admitted. “I thought I could do without it. Until you.”
“Oh yeah?” April smirked. “Well, you’re welcome.”
“Thank you.”