Rodney
I woke up with Danielle on her side with her back to me, her haired fanned out on my pillow. Her feet were intertwined with mine. It was the only place we were touching, but it was strangely intimate.
I loved waking up to her. I had been such an idiot, fighting it for so long. I should have given in from the start. Now that we were together and the sky hadn’t fallen, I realized it wasn’t as bad as I had thought it might be. It was just the two of us, together.
Sure, when Tommy came back from my mom’s, it would be a little hard to explain why Danielle was here and sleeping in my bed. Because I wanted her to stay here with me throughout the pregnancy, and afterward. He was old enough to start wondering about these things, but we would have to tell him soon that he would have a brother or a sister. He already liked Danielle, at least. I could only hope for the best.
Tommy and I had made it this far, and it hadn’t been easy. If we could do this, we could do anything.
I wormed out from underneath Danielle to let her sleep a little longer, and I found my phone. It had died. I hadn’t connected it to the charger last night. I had been a little distracted. I plugged the phone in and walked to the kitchen to make some coffee. I switched on my laptop to check my work emails.
When the coffee was brewing and returned to my laptop after it had booted, I opened the Techsider, a magazine that covered the latest software. An article suggested my software release would be delayed due to personal issues. I frowned.
My phone went off, messages pouring in, and I ran to the bedroom to grab the phone before it woke up Danielle. They were all from Mark.
What the hell is all over the news???
This better be a fucking joke
You’re dead.
My phone rang. I didn’t answer it. Something had gone wrong. I couldn’t deal with it if I didn’t know what it was. Another message landed in my inbox.
Answer your fucking phone!!!!!!
I opened the magazine app I used to cover all the different online magazine platforms, and my stomach sank. I was plastered all over the place, featured in a picture of me and Danielle in the rain. Kissing.
Except, we hadn’t been kissing. I had tried to shelter her from the rain. It had been at the restaurant where I was supposed to have been safe. But whether I had kissed her then or not, I had kissed her at some point. And then some. And it was out there now.
My head started throbbing dully as I read the first article that popped up. They knew who she was. I didn’t know how they’d found out who Danielle was and that it had been her I’d been out with. I guessed anyone at the restaurant could have vouched for that. An interview with Monica was posted on another page where she told the story of Danielle throwing up and that she had thought it to be morning sickness.
I lowered my phone and pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. What if it had only been food poisoning? Monica hadn’t known anything. But if it had been food poisoning alone, we could have squashed the rumor. But it wasn’t. She was pregnant with my child.
And now the whole world knew that it was a possibility. The worst case scenario had happened.
I walked to the bedroom to wake Danielle. I had to talk to her about this. When I opened the bedroom door, Danielle sat up in bed, her eyes wide and panicked.
“My dad has been trying to call me non-stop,” she said. “What’s going on?”
She knew something was wrong. He’d tried to phone her yesterday, too, but it hadn’t been the same.
“It’s out,” I said. “It’s in the news.”
Danielle frowned, shaking her head as if she refused to believe it. “I don’t understand,” she said. “How?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but a hammering on the door cut me off. Danielle’s eyes widened.
“Danielle, open this door!” Mark shouted outside.
“Oh my God,” Danielle whispered.
“Rodney, you piece of shit! Face me like a man!”
I made to stand, but Danielle grabbed my hand and shook her head.
“We can’t hide in the room forever,” I said. “We have to deal with this. We got ourselves into this mess.”
I stood and left the room with Danielle calling after me to stop. I walked to the front door, my stomach turning to stone. I had wanted to hide in the bedroom like Danielle, but I had to face this. Sooner, rather than later.
When I opened the door, Mark stood before me, fuming.
“Do you want to tell me why you’re all over the news, kissing my daughter?” Mark shouted. “What the fuck is this shit?! Where is Danielle?”
I lifted my hands. “Mark, calm down. Come in, so we can talk about it.”
“There’s no fucking way I’m having any kind of conversation with you, you backstabbing, two-faced, perverted son of a bitch!”
He continued to swear at me, calling me every horrid thing under the sun.
“Let me explain,” I said when I got a chance, but Mark wouldn’t hear any of it.
“No, let me,” Mark said. He pulled back, his hand balled into a fist, and swung at me. I managed to evade the blow. Behind me, Danielle screamed.
Mark tried to come at me again and again, but I was stronger than him, faster than him, and fitter than him. Mark had lived a happy life, filled with food and alcohol and lazing around. I had spent all my extra time working out to run away from my problems, to somehow undo them. I would never have thought I would end up using my skills and my fitness against my own friend because I had slept with his daughter.
“Stop it, Dad!” Danielle kept wailing whenever Mark tried to hit me. I managed to spin him around and pin his arm behind his back so he couldn’t move. He squirmed and grunted and growled, until he finally calmed down enough for me to risk letting him go.
When I did, Mark yanked his arm back and glared at me. Danielle stood in the doorway, her cheeks wet with tears. She had pulled on jeans and a t-shirt, and I was glad she hadn’t decided to come in wearing something more condemning, like my T-shirt or a robe.
“Is it true?” Mark asked Danielle. He was breathing hard, defeat in his voice now. He rubbed his shoulder, and I wondered how badly I had hurt him. “Are you pregnant with his baby?”
Danielle looked like she was going to burst into tears. She nodded.
“I love him, Daddy,” she said.
Mark and I both reacted the same way, our jaws dropping. He was horrified. I was overjoyed.
If the situation hadn’t been so dire, I would have kissed Danielle. To hear her say she loved me, to face her dad and confess it, was music to my ears. Of course, it only pissed Mark off more.
“Who the hell do you think you are? You don’t even know what love is. This is ridiculous!”
Danielle shook her head. She had been panicking about facing Mark before, but now, anger took over, and she was brilliant in her rage.
“I’m twenty-four, Dad. I’m old enough to know what love is, and old enough to make my own decisions. Old enough to have a baby, for crying out loud.”
Mark shook his head, glaring at me with eyes that spewed fire. He turned his attention back to Danielle.
“Fine, if you fancy yourself so grown up, then you’re out of the house. Don’t bother coming back home. There is no place for you there.”
I could see how devastated Danielle was to hear Mark’s words. Standing up for what she believed in had been one thing. Losing family was another.
“And you,” Mark sneered, looking at me again. “Don’t you think I’m going to give you another cent toward your company. I’m pulling all my funding. This is it. This is the end for you.”
“No, Dad,” Danielle cried. “You can’t do that!” She seemed to be more worried about me and my business than she was about herself.
Mark laughed sarcastically. “Oh, can’t I? You just watch me.”
He turned around and marched out the front door, slamming it hard enough behind him that the windows rattled. I wasn’t sure which was worse, Mark storming off after kicking his daughter out of the house, or him threatening to cut off his funding as an investor to Berry Software.
Danielle blinked at the closed front door as if she couldn’t believe what had just happened. Her face crumpled, and she started to cry. She leaned against the wall, sliding down to the floor where she sat cross-legged on the tile. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
I walked to her, kneeling next to her, and stroked her back. I felt awful. All of this was my fault. I had caused this. I had slept with this girl when she had mostly been minding her own business. I had pushed her into a position that she couldn’t get out of. Not only would we be having a baby together now, but her father had disowned her. I didn’t know if there was anything worse in the world.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” I said in soothing tones, but I wasn’t sure Danielle believed me. I wasn’t even sure I believed me. I had known Mark for a long time–he was a good friend and a great father—but when he decided he was done with something or someone, there was no going back for him. Mark barely did second chances, and to him, business was business.
“How do you know?” Danielle asked. She looked small and frail now, sitting on the floor crying. I wished I could do something to make the pain go away, to undo what had been done. But there was nothing I could do. Nothing, other than being there for her.
“I know because we have each other. Together, we’ll get through this.”
Danielle nodded, and she tried to mop up her tears with the hem of her shirt. I knew that my words weren’t good enough. There was nothing I could do or say to take the pain away. All I could do was prove to her that I had her back, and we were in this together. That no matter what happened, no matter how much she’d lost, she would still have me.
Danielle had told Mark that she loved me. She had chosen to keep the baby and to let me into her life. After losing everything else, I could only hope that this would be enough.