Chapter Eleven
Brent
#BigPlansformyOmegaMan
“Hi. It’s Brent. I’m trying to figure out where the video of Jay started, but I am lost in all the shares. If someone sees this and can find it, that would be awesome.”
I reached over and hit stop. I was so freaking lame. I couldn’t find Brent even with all of the social media realm helping me, and then I tried to make a video only to have it suck monkey balls.
In the two days since Kayson found the video, I had done nothing but re-watch it, try to backtrack on all the shares, and jerk off.
True, the last was beyond unhelpful, but seeing his face and hearing his voice did things to me.
Mom asked me straight out if I was pretending not to be able to find him out of fear. Fear that what we had was a fleeting moment of some shit. I stood firm and told her it had nothing to do with that and more to do with privacy settings of the people who shared the video, but then that idea wormed itself into my head. What if I was scared?
It wasn’t as if it was just me, now. I had a baby growing inside me. I was going to be a dad. Under the best of circumstances, that had to be scary as shit, but after a one-night stand with someone I didn’t even know, the location of it morphed into abject terror.
The possibility of him freaking out at my pregnancy was all too real. Sure, he’d been on social media looking for me and sure, he sounded sincere, but that was when he was looking for a single omega and not a prego.
Practically speaking, the pregnancy should upset me. I was not financially sound. I still had to finish school. I was single. The thing was, I was so beyond happy. I was going to be a dad. Me. My only concern was if Jay would be happy, too.
My phone rang, and a glance told me it was my cousin. He seemed to be playing protector lately. Which was nice. He even promised to come with me to tell my mom, something I really needed to do. I knew she’d love a grandbaby of her own. She’d all but adopted Rose as her grandbaby and was the epitome of a doting grams. But that was different than having your own son, who still was not standing firmly on his own two feet yet, having a child.
I also had feared that she would blame Henry for sending me to NOLA. Which was irrational but still festered in the back of my mind.
“Hello.” I was a little snappy, but I couldn’t help it. Between the pregnancy hormonal uproar and nausea and my being so close yet so far away from finding Jay, I was a hot mess of messiness.
“Hey, little cousin. I need your help.”
“Babysitting?” Not that I would mind. She was pretty amazing.
“No, nothing like that. This is a paid gig with extremely high earning potential.” Kayson went all used car salesman on me. That never boded well.
“Sounds sketchy.” I plopped on the couch.
“Or like I’m desperate.”
“That.” I huffed out a laugh as I lay down, my feet hanging over the arm of the couch, just dangling there.
“What is it?” I sighed. I’d do whatever it was. He was my cousin, but I really hoped it wasn’t a right-away favor because I could use a nap.
“Just some deliveries.” “Just,” never was with Kayson. Last time I helped him, I had to set up for a wedding—alone.
“Really?” My grumbling had him in stitches. It wasn’t funny. “I hate delivering flowers. Please tell me it isn’t wedding stuff.” Because then I might say no. Maybe. Probably not, but I’d think about it.
“No. Not weddings.”
I did a little fist bump with, well air.
“And you have to say yes. It’s your fault.”
“How exactly is it my fault?”
“Hashtag ViviansRoses is how.”
“You did that, buttwad.” It may or may not have helped me almost find Jay, but that was beside the point. He totally used my heartbreak as a promo op, so I wasn’t going to feel sorry for him because it worked.
“For you. I did it with love.”
I sat up. It looked like delivering would be in the works, even if it was the last thing I wanted to do. Maybe it would at least distract me from the stupid reels of what-ifs running through my head.
“Whatever.” I sat up, all thoughts of a nap gone. Too bad the smell of coffee made me want to puke because I could’ve used a cup about then. “How many?”
Please be less than a dozen, I inwardly begged.
“I got most of them done, but I need to get some fancy centerpieces for a sixtieth anniversary ready so like three.”
Like three wasn’t three, but it wasn’t a plethora, either, so I at least had that going for me.
“Three, I could do.”
I got in the car and made the deliveries. Three was accurate, but they weren’t all at the hospital or some other equally easy to deliver-in-a-row location. They were dispersed across town, not that town was large. And my idiot of a cousin set them up in an order that had me going back and forth and back again.
I plugged the addresses into my GPS and decided beggars couldn’t be choosers. I was going to deliver them from farthest to closest so I didn’t spend all afternoon driving, especially since he had already packed the van I’d so much have rather taken my car.
They’d better tip well.
The first delivery was to the nursing home, and it made the whole ordeal worth it. Mrs. Frederick’s was a bundle of sunshine, and having her niece send her flowers only added to that. I remembered her from when I was a kid and she ran the story time at the local library. She liked to remind me often about the time I thought coming out of the bathroom with my pants in my hands because I couldn’t figure out the button was hilarious. I was three, so it kind of was, but still.
My second delivery was to the hotel, which was a pain in the neck because it meant parking in the delivery’ section out back because the van was so big, but at least I wouldn’t have to wait outside in the chilly weather.
I knocked on the door to room 415, which amused me to no end because it was on the second floor and the only one in the four hundreds. I guess the hotel thought it made the suite look fancy or some shit.
The door swung open and there stood Jay. The flowers fell to the floor as I reached out to touch him, needing to know he was real. My touch quickly turned into a hug, needing his scent to cover me completely. My Jay. Tears arrived unbidden, and Jay pulled back long enough to wipe them from my eyes.
“I have so much to tell you,” I whispered, terrified he was going to reject me after I’d finally found him, and in Mapleville of all places. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he would come to me. Maybe I forgave my cousin for his #Viviansroses after all.
“Your cousin told me everything. It will all be okay.” He pulled me back in for another hug.
I—my cousin—it was too much to wrap my head around.
“So, you’re fine with the baby?” I blurted back, and he jumped away quickly, grabbing my hand as he did so. Rejected, but not. I didn’t understand.
“The baby?”
Stinks. I’d just announced our baby, with no lead-in, in the hallway of a hotel.