Epilogue
BETHANY
Five months had passed since I started working at Gavin’s office. I re-enrolled in college to finish my last hours so I could graduate and start my career as a teacher. Principal Jones called me out of the blue last week and asked me about my progress. Once I told him that I was close to finishing, he said that there was another district he could refer me to. Things were too hard for him to keep me hired at Morris Elementary, but there were other districts that weren’t as strict. I was grateful for the opportunity, and I let him know that as soon as I became available, I would reach back out to him. Things between Gavin and I were moving along as well. As time passed, though, I completely put the question out of my head of whether or not he was going to propose to me. It had been months since I saw the website in his office, and I figured that if he didn’t ask by now, maybe he wasn’t going to.
I arrived at April’s home. She’d had a baby boy a month ago, but I was so busy that I didn’t have the chance to come by and see my new nephew. When I got to her house, I pulled my gifts out of the trunk, then headed inside. When I opened the door, April sat on the couch nursing Mark Jr. “Close the door, girl. I don’t want the whole neighborhood to see my tit.” I laughed then closed the door behind me.
“Aww, look at him,” I said, placing his gift next to the couch. “He is so little and cute.”
“He is sucking the hell out of my nipple. This stuff hurts so bad, but I am going to just deal with it for now. I hear that natural milk is better than Similac, so I don’t have a choice.”
“Yeah, it is better. It is healthier, you know? Gives the baby more nutrients.”
I sat down on the couch and watched him feed. He looked so small and innocent. I couldn’t wait to have one of my own, but at the rate things were going, it didn’t look like I was going to have one. “So, how’s life?” she asked.
“It’s okay. I am close to finishing school, and the principal at Morris called me earlier this week. He said he could possibly have a job for me in another district once I completed my degree. So, maybe I will have an easy road to the teaching career. But we will see.”
“That’s good. I am glad you finally buckled down and got serious about school. I knew it would open up doors for you.” Mark Jr. finished eating, so she propped him over her leg and tapped his back until he burped. “Oops, that was a good one,” April said, laughing. She picked him up and extended him towards me. “Now, this is your Aunt Bethany. She has been too busy for you in your first month of life to come visit you at home, so I think you need to spit up on her once or twice to welcome her.”
I laughed. “It’s okay, little one; you can spit up on me if you feel like it, I don’t mind. I will still love you the same.” I took him out of her hands and held him close. He opened his eyes and looked at me as if he was trying to figure out who I was. “He is beautiful. He has Mark’s wide nose and your eyes.”
“Yeah. I was hoping he would get my nose because Mark’s nose is like a curse.”
I laughed, “You are so mean. I thought you would get a little nicer after your pregnancy.”
“Well, you knew I was sort of an a-hole before I got pregnant, so I think I am rounding back into form.” A few moments of silence passed. Mark Jr. made gargle noises for a moment before he drifted off to sleep. “So, how are things with you and Gavin?”
I sighed. “Things are okay. I mean, I will say that they are moving kind of slow. I figured that he would at least have proposed by now, you know? Remember when I told you about seeing that website on his computer?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what that was about, but apparently it wasn’t about moving forward with me. I guess I need to be patient, but it is hard because I know what I want. Now, I am questioning if he wants the same thing.”
“Yeah, I hear you. But you’re right; you just need to be patient, that’s all. Don’t start doubting yourself or his love for you. I know he loves you. I only met him the one time you two visited the hospital after junior was born, but he seemed like a good guy. I could tell by the way he treated you that he loves you, so don’t give up. I think you two are a good fit.”
I looked at her with curious eyebrows lifted to the middle of my forehead. “Um, okay, that is weird. You’re not usually like this when it comes to me with other guys.”
“What? If you forgot, I am the one who set you up on that website to meet Gavin. I just didn’t like your ex-boyfriend. That bastard. Is he still in jail?”
“I believe so. I hope so. Last I heard, he was doing years for drug charges.” Mark Jr. fidgeted, so I got up to lay him in his bed. “So, I’m sure I won’t hear from him anytime soon.”
“Good. So, what do you have going on later?”
“I don’t know, but Gavin wanted me to come to his house. Apparently, he has something that he wants me to see, so I’m going to go over there and check it out.”
“Right. What time? I forgot about that.”
“About what?”
She paused. “Oh, um, never mind. I was thinking about something else.”
“Okay, weirdo.”
I stayed there with her for another hour until I got up to head for Gavin’s home. I didn’t know what he wanted me to come over for, but I was excited to see him. I had been so busy with school for the last two months that we barely had time to see each other. A part of me felt like we were drifting away, but I was just panicking. I knew that he loved me; I only hoped that he loved me enough to want to spend the rest of his life with me. “Hey babe,” he said as I walked through the door.
“Hey, sweetheart. How are you?”
“I am good.” He kissed me on the lips.
Just behind him, Mike and Stacy sat on the couch right next to each other. I thought it was cute how Mike said that he wasn’t going to settle down at all, but now, he was starting to get serious with another woman. It gave me hope that love would find anybody when the time was right. “Hey, Bethany,” Mike said from his seat, “good to see you.”
“Hi, Mike. Hi, Stacy. What are you two doing here?”
“Just hanging out,” she said, “shooting the shit until you got here. We were in the neighborhood, so we just swung by.”
“Oh. Okay, that sounds cool.”
Just then, Vinny ran out of his room and met me in the front. He wrapped his arms around me, “Hi, Bethany. I’ve missed you.”
I kissed him on the top of his head, “I missed you too, Vinny. I’ve just been so busy with school work. I’ve barely had time to do anything else.”
“Yeah, that’s what Dad said. It’s okay, though. I understand.”
“Your dad tells me that you signed up for a pee-wee football league?”
“Yeah. I figured I’d try it out. I like football, so I just wanted to see how good I could be at it.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” I smiled as Gavin put his arm around me and led me to the couch. Things seemed different. It felt like something was going on, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Mike and Stacy smiled at me awkwardly. My eyebrows wrinkled as I glared at them. “Um, what are you guys smiling at?”
“You and Gavin,” Stacy responded. “You guys make a great couple. Don’t you think?”
“Um,” I looked at Gavin as he shook his head. “I guess so. I mean, I don’t know. Why are you guys acting weird?”
Mike stood up, “Well, I don’t know about you all, but I need a brew. Anybody else want one? Stacy? Gavin? Bethany? Vinny?”
“Vinny?” Gavin said.
Mike laughed, “Come on, man, you know I am just fucking with you. Get your fucking panties out of a bunch.”
Everyone laughed as he walked to the kitchen. “Wait, what the hell is going on, guys?” I looked at Gavin. “And why did you call me over here? What did you have to show me? Everyone is acting weird, and I don’t know what is going on. Are you guys about to play a prank on me or something?”
Stacy laughed, “Girl, calm your ass down. You are losing it. Nobody is going to play a prank on you at all; we are just here hanging out. That’s what friends do, you know?”
I looked at Gavin. Just then, his phone rang. He picked it up, “Hello? Yeah, we are all here. Sure, not a problem, come on by. Okay.” I kept my eyes on him, waiting for an explanation. “What? It was just one of my friends that you haven’t met yet. They are on their way over here to meet you.”
“Meet me?”
“Yeah. They are in town for a little while, and I told them all about you. No biggie.”
“But–”
“Alright, brewskis for everyone.” Mike tossed them to everyone in the room. “Oh, shit Gavin, what were you telling me earlier? I forgot.”
Gavin smiled. “Yeah, I was telling you how much I loved Bethany.”
He laughed, “Yeah, right. That’s what it was.”
The doorbell rang again. Gavin got up to answer it, but at the moment, I was desperately trying to figure out what was going on. Everyone was acting strange, and I didn’t understand it one bit. I looked towards the door. Gavin stood to the side and let Mark Sr. and April into our home with the baby. I rubbed my eyes as if I had to be clear of what I was seeing. “April? Mark? Okay, guys, what is going on? Somebody better tell me something!”
April kissed me on the cheek as Mark shook Gavin’s hand, then took a seat next to me. “Bethany,” Mike said, grabbing my attention.
I faced him with a curious glance. “Yes?”
He smiled and took another swig of his drink while I waited for him to open his mouth. Suddenly, I heard Gavin’s voice to my side. When I turned towards him, he was on one knee with a small box in his hand. My heart fluttered inside of my chest as everyone took out their phones and started recording. Vinny stood to his feet with a bright smile on his face. I put my hand over my chest as Gavin spoke, “Babe, I’ve had this ring for months. I was waiting for the right time to ask you this question and, in the middle of searching for the right way to do it, I realized that I couldn’t come up with it. I realized that the best way to do it was to face you like a man, in a room full of people who love you. People who care for you. I wanted you to feel the love in the room before I said one word.”
My eyes filled with tears of joy as he continued. “I’ve known from the very first day that I sent you the message on the internet–”
“I can’t believe you two met on the internet!” Mike blurted out.
“Mike, you shut your ass up right now!” I snapped.
Stacy snickered as Gavin continued, “Ever since that day, I knew you were beautiful. But, what I didn’t know is that you were beautiful inside and out. It only took a few dates for me to realize that you were the perfect woman for me. Bethany, I can’t see my life without you in it, and I don’t want to imagine what it would be like if you weren’t around. You complete me. You are my better half, and it would do me a great honor to be able to call you Mrs. Gavin Wallace. Baby, will you marry me?”
I didn’t say a word. An uncomfortable silence filled the room as he kneeled in front of me. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, I can’t. I’m sorry.” The smile on his face dropped to the ground like a bag of bricks. April was confused, and Mark searched for the words to fill the awkwardness. Vinny was on the verge of tears while Stacy and Mike sat with their mouths halfway open. “And that’s what you all get for creating all of this suspense when I got here!” I smiled, then extended my hand to Gavin for him to put the ring on my finger. “I would love to be your wife, Gavin.”
There was a brief pause. “So, is that a yes?”
I wiped the blurry tears from my eyes, “Yes, Gavin! Yes, I will marry you! I will marry the hell out you!”
I lunged forwards and threw my arms around him, knocking him down to the floor. I guess dreams did come true, and as far as those books went? I tossed them all in the trash. There was no longer a reason for me to read any more of those books because now, it was officially my reality.
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BEST FRIEND’S DADDY
By Naomi Niles
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Naomi Niles
Chapter One
Harrison
The steam rose from the cup of coffee as I placed it on the table in the kitchen next to a plate of toast and a bowl of oatmeal. My phone sat on the table as I grabbed the morning paper and flipped it open to the first page. I was sure that I was one of the only people to receive the periodical, but I was an old school kind of guy. Before I could digest the first story, my phone buzzed next to my cup of coffee. I smiled when I saw her name flash across the screen.
“Hey, sweetheart. You’re late.”
“Geez, Dad. Two whole minutes. It just turned 8:02.”
“Well, you know I am used to hearing from you at the same time every morning. Once you put an old man like me on a routine, you can’t break it and expect me to be alright with it.”
“Well, Dad, I am sorry. You big baby.”
I smiled. She was the reason I’d worked so hard to build a successful company. Her mother decided that she wasn’t cut out for motherhood, and one year after she was born, she disappeared out of our lives. I was only 18 at the time, so I barely knew what to do to take care of a young girl, but I wasn’t going to leave her. She was my responsibility, and I refused to walk out of her life like her mother did, so I did what I had to do to make sure she was taken care of.
I had only spoken to her mother a handful of times since she’d left. She would call here and there to check on her, but she didn’t want any part of her daughter. After the fourth year since she’d left, the calls stopped coming in. Sarah would always ask about her mother, and I would just tell her that she was at work. I couldn’t find it in my heart to tell her the truth at such a young age, but when she turned 8, I told her the truth. She was hurt when I told her, and I figured she would try to contact her in her own time, but to my surprise, she wasn’t interested.
She said that if she wanted to be a part of her life, she would have made an effort, and she didn’t want to force her to be a mother if it wasn’t in her to be one. I could tell it caused her some pain though, because she was my daughter and I knew her better than she knew herself. She couldn’t hide it from me if she wanted to. Her mother’s absence in our lives strengthened our bond, though. I didn’t know what the hell I would do when it came to raising a young girl, but I figured it out along the way. We bumped heads from time to time, but one thing that always remained was my love for her. She was my little girl. My sweetheart. I loved her to death, and I wouldn’t change one thing about our lives if I had to do it again.
“Big baby, huh? Yeah, I guess I am a big baby when it comes to you. I am spoiled. I just love hearing from my little girl to start off my mornings.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I love talking to you, too, Dad.”
“What? Did you party too hard last night?”
“Party? No. I mean, I hung out with Caroline for a little while, but we didn’t do much. Just hung out around campus with a few friends. That’s it.”
“Caroline, huh? How is she? I haven’t seen her in a few years. When is she graduating?”
“This year, Dad. We are the same age. I swear, you are getting old. We just had this conversation yesterday. I was telling you how we were going to graduate this year and then move out to California.”
I narrowed my eyes. I hated when she talked about moving further away. She went to ASU in Tempe, Arizona, and it was almost two hours away from me. I felt that was long enough and I almost made her stay home and go to a community college just to keep her near me. There was no way that she would have listened to me, though. The thing I admired most about her was the fact that she was a go-getter with an incredible amount of willpower. If somebody told her she couldn’t achieve something, she would go out of her way to prove them wrong. It showed with her 3.9 cumulative GPA that she touted at ASU.
I told her that I didn’t believe she could do it, but it was just reverse psychology. I knew she could, but I knew that if I told her she couldn’t, she would work harder to do it. By the looks of it, at the end of this semester, I was going to owe her a brand new car. That was a small fee for such an accomplishment. “California? Noooo, no. We talked about this, Sarah. Now, I let you got to ASU, and that is far enough. Can't you find a job in Tempe? I know there are a lot of companies that are looking to hire young, enthusiastic people like you.”
“Daaaad, come on. You are not going to spend this whole morning trying to beg me to stay closer to home, are you? Because if you are, then I can just hang up and replay our conversation from yesterday in my mind.”
I sighed. “No, no. I’m not going to do that. I don’t want you to go, but I know that you will. My little girl is growing up and you know I have a hard time letting go. It’s been that way since you had to go off to kindergarten.”
“Oh, Dad, not the kindergarten story again. Really?”
I laughed. “You were walking to class with your little bookbag on your shoulders, and you were holding my hand as we walked through the hallway. You had tears in your eyes and–”
“Dad!”
“–I was ready to turn around and take you back home because I was starting to tear up, too. Then all of a sudden, Ms. Caven came out into the hallway and looked at you–”
“Dad…”
“–And then she asked me which room you were headed to. My God, she was beautiful…”
“Dad! No! Stop! I do not want to hear about how you met my kindergarten teacher and banged her later! Ugh! I am hanging up the phone.”
I laughed out loud. “Oh, come on, sweetie; we are both adults now. Yeah, I had sex with your kindergarten teacher. It wasn’t illegal, but she was smoking hot, and you knew it.”
“I knew it?! Dad, I was barely 5 years old!”
“No, I meant when I told you the story after you got older! Hell, from what I can see, she is still pretty hot now. Married, but still hot, nonetheless.”
“My goodness.” She snickered. “You know what? I am done with this conversation before you bring up any more old flings. I can’t believe how many of my teachers you had sex with, Dad. You are ridiculous.”
“Hey, a man has needs, sweetheart. A man has needs. You just make sure you aren’t one of their needs!”
“And this is where I end the call. I love you, Dad. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Sarah! Are you any man’s needs right now?!”
“I love you, Dad.”
“Sarah!” I paused. “I love you, too.”
Moments later, she ended the call. I thought about redialing, but I knew she was headed to her first class for the day. I looked forward to our conversations every weekday. Besides my cup of coffee, it was the one constant that I needed to get my day going. Afterward, I finished my breakfast, then got myself ready to get to work.
I was usually the first person to arrive at the office. It was the way I set the example for the rest of my employees. If I was the first one to show up and the last one to leave, it showed that I wasn’t afraid to put in the necessary work to keep the business going. Harrison Construction had been in business for the past 15 years, and we had worked on everything from the main buildings downtown through government contracts to neighborhood centers throughout the city. In Cottonwood, Arizona, we were the go-to construction company, and it took a lot of hard work to get the company to where it was today.
My office was on the fourth floor of a small building, 20 minutes away from my home. It was the place where we took care of our administrative duties, and the parking lot housed all of our construction equipment. I opened the blinds and stood in front of the window that overlooked our construction vehicles, thinking back to how we started off with one dump truck, an excavator, and a cement truck, and now, we owned fleets of everything.
Just as I grabbed one of the building plans for a project we had just taken on last week, we were set to begin construction on another large building downtown in just a few days, so I had to make sure we had the necessary manpower to get the job done. There was a knock on my door as soon as I sat down, and before I could give the go-ahead to enter, Brian walked in.
“What’s up, man?” he said with a smile on his face. “We ready to knock this fucker out today?”
“Ready? I was born ready, man. You know it.”
He sat down in one of the leather chairs just before my desk and tossed a honey bun in front of me. “I picked up one for you. Now, I know you are trying to watch your figure because you are a hop away from 40, but you can spare a honey bun.”
I glared down at the treat as it sat on my desk. The glaze seemed to call my name as it sat inside the package. “No, man, I think I’m going to pass on it.” He twisted his mouth to the side, and as he reached for the treat again, I put my hand on top of it. “On second thought, maybe it won’t hurt to take this one in.”
“Jesus, man, I was about ready to check between your legs and see if you still had a pair down there.” He popped open his wrapper and took a bite of his honey bun. He still found a way to get his words from out of his crowded mouth. “So umm, yeah, about that account I told you about. Um, the Lancaster account… If I can close that one for us, then we will be sitting pretty for the rest of the year. That contract is worth almost 100 thousand, man.”
He shoved another bite into his mouth. “Shit. We can all take vacations if we get that. Hell, you can buy Sarah two or three cars for her graduation later this year. She’s still up for that, isn’t she?”
I finally ripped the packaging from my honey bun. “Yeah, she’s up for it. It looks like she will graduate with that 4.0 GPA, too. Shit. She’s gonna want something nice, though and I’m going to make sure she has it. She deserves it.”
“Hell yeah. A fucking 4.0 GPA? Shit. I was lucky to get a 2.5 in my day. If I got a 4.0, I think my parents would have died from a heart attack as soon as they saw it.”
“Either that or just been thankful for whoever you were cheating off of.”
He laughed as he propped his leg over the other. “Yeah, that, too, shit. But I know you’re proud of Sarah. After all she has been through and still managed to bust her ass in school? That is a special girl, man. A very special girl.”
“Yeah, I know it.”
I took another bite of my honey bun as I glanced at a picture of Sarah on my desk. Her long, curly, sandy blonde hair dropped just beneath her shoulders and her eyes were stained with blue like the sky above. She looked just like her mother, Susan, and that was the only reason I couldn’t hate her for leaving as much as I wanted to.
“Harrison? You alright?”
I looked at Brian as he sat in the chair with one eyebrow raised above the other.
“What?”
“I’ve been talking to you for the past minute, but you’re just staring off into space.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine, man, I’m good. Just thinking about my baby girl, that’s all. I’m proud of her.”