Jaycee stalked off to her bedroom. Beck gritted his teeth when she slammed her door.
“Well, she’s… feisty,” Pine said.
Swiping his friend’s hand from his shoulder, Beck stormed over to the fridge and pulled out another beer. He didn’t usually like to drink too much before a shift, but if any woman could drive a man to drink it would be Jaycee fucking Kirk.
“She’s a pain in the ass,” Beck said, slugging down the liquid to let it relax him. “Why the hell is she so caught up in screwing around?”
“Uh…” Pine ducked, his head moving forward before his body did. “Screwing around? You’re not in a relationship. You have to be in a relationship before you can screw around on someone and she does have a point.” Sucking in a breath, Beck was ready to give Pine a piece of his mind. Except the lawyer held up both hands in surrender. “So do you. Both of you have a point… But you’re going to have to find a way to live with this woman if you want her to do this… You do know how big a deal this is?”
“Of course I know,” Beck snapped, why was everyone on him today? “I fought all you bastards about this for months before you agreed to help me out.”
Pine sat on his stool again. “For her,” he said. “I meant you do realize how big a deal this is for her… You went to that meeting with the doc today and what did you have to do? Sit there. You’ve been through all the tests and procedures, had a bunch of talks, you know what the hell you’re doing, and you’ve had a chance to get your head around it. She probably feels kinda violated right now and then I hand her a contract that basically states we’re taking over her life.”
Beck steadied his breathing and looked toward the hallway again. She’d agreed to have his baby. It had been more than he could’ve hoped that she’d say yes. But her initial no had still hurt him. He was just getting over it when she’d walked up to him in AD and made his dreams come true.
He was more grateful to her than she’d ever know. This was all he wanted, a family, a kid that he could love the way he’d always wanted to be loved. Beck wanted to prove that he was more than the dumb kid who was passed from home to home and deemed unadoptable.
A child would give him a clean slate and prove that it was possible to have unconditional love, for him and for his kid.
But it was only possible because of Jaycee.
The woman was nuts.
He’d done his best at AD to find out what people knew about her and his PI had filled in a few blanks, but she’d still surprised him upstairs the other night. The way she’d reacted to his work was intense; she was a full-on art lover. Not a calm, reasoned critic, no, and some of her thoughts were a bit out there. But he could honestly say no one had ever asked to lick The Abyss before, no one until Jaycee Kirk.
And how the hell had she predicted the Limitation Shroud when no one else even knew it existed? He’d ripped it off at the last minute on one of his more dramatic days.
But Jaycee had felt it. That’s what she’d said. She felt it. What the hell did that even mean? It was the kind of thing an artist would say about their own work, not something a layperson said to the creator.
There was something about her. Beyond the facts, something shimmered around her, a quality that could be passed down to his child. God help him if he had a daughter.
The medical files were clear. Jaycee had no psychiatric conditions and yet… The woman was fucking nuts.
“So we take it out?” he asked, preoccupied with the space that led to Jaycee.
“Or you agree to join her,” Pine said. “One of the two.”
“I don’t give a damn about sex… Some things are more important.”
“Yeah, and I’d go over all the reasons I think this surrogacy thing is a bad idea again, but I know you won’t listen,” Pine said.
Beck finished his beer and took the bottle to the recycle box thinking that he should probably shower too. “Good. Then I’ll sign it as well.”
Heading off toward his own bedroom, he thought about Jaycee in her own shower and wondered whose water pressure would yield to the other, ‘cause if it was a battle of their occupiers’ wills, neither would give an inch.
“Beck,” Pine said. The softness of his lawyer’s voice made him turn around. “That means each other too.”
“What do you—”
“You’ve never cared about a woman enough to really argue with her,” Pine said, picking up his pen as a distraction. “But you just stood toe-to-toe with Jaycee.”
“She’s gonna have my kid,” he said.
But Pine didn’t hear him, or chose not to understand what he meant. “I’d love it if you’d do this the real way, so if you fall in love with her, that’s fine with me… But it complicates the legalities. If you both have sex, in contradiction of the contract, even if it’s with each other, you could void the whole deal and then she’s just a woman who’s pregnant with your kid. So if it happens, if you fall for her, you’ve gotta let me know… right away before anything happens between you, understand?”
Beck wanted to ask what his friend had been smoking. “Is insanity contagious? Did Jayc give you something with that massage?”
Again, his friend just washed right over his words and his incredulous attitude. “You know what really scares me about her,” Pine said. “She challenges you. She’s not interested in worshiping you or controlling you and you can’t stand that she’s so not like you.”
“Not like me?”
“You keep everything inside. She lets it all out. She’s the antithesis of you… Jaycee stands up on a stage in front of people. You hide behind anonymity. She spends her days touching people. You spend yours alone, pushing people away. Jaycee has a thought, she opens her mouth and says it. She doesn’t apologize for who she is and you… still hate yourself.”
“Ok, one doctor visit is enough for today,” he said, waving his friend away. “Finish your beer and split. Guy and Girl are out of here in ten minutes.”
He said the words while at the same time wondering if Jaycee would be ready to leave at the same time he was. He doubted it, no woman was ever ready.
Except if Pine was right, Jaycee wasn’t like other women, and that might be exactly why he was so sure that she was the right choice for this task.
The sex stuff went out of her head pretty quickly after they got to work. It was super busy, more so than usual for a week night. Tips were up, which was great, and Jaycee had worked hard to charm the crowd. But man, was she ready to go home. Home… Great, home with Guy. Argh. He better not want another fight, she was too tired.
Pete walked up to her at the other side of the bar as she finished counting her tips. The owner of AD was a good guy, about Guy’s age, and he’d always been decent to her. “Good night?” he asked.
“Best one we’ve had for a while,” she said, bundling her money into the pouch of her purse.
“Some of us are hanging around for a drink, you in?”
Shaking her head, she stifled another yawn. “Thank you, but I’ll pass.”
“Brik’s gonna ask Guy to stay.”
Pausing in the zipping of her purse, Jaycee peered at the mischievous bartender. “Why would you say that to me? Why would I care about Guy staying?”
“No one can keep secrets around here,” Pete said, touching her face. “Bout time you two hooked up.”
The bartender walked away and she was just… stunned. After getting over the shock, she grabbed her purse and spun to scan the room for Guy. When she found he wasn’t around, she strode to the stairwell and started up the stairs.
“Guy!” she called out, pissed enough that she didn’t care if his colleagues were up there too, although she was sure she’d registered all the other bouncers in the club itself.
“Yeah?” he asked coming back inside and closing the front door.
That meant the last of the customers were out. She heard the jangle of the keys turning. The door would stay locked until staff wanted to go home and it would be his responsibility to let them out.
It was a good thing that she was already on a role because she kept on going, marching to the top of the stairs in the darkness he’d just plunged them into. When she got to the top, they were squashed in a narrow space, but she gave him a shove to put him against his usual wall.
“Is this part of your plan?” she hissed. “Make sure your contract’s moot because you’ve already peed all over me.”
“I… don’t have a damn clue what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t give me that,” she said, pressing her hand harder on his chest. “You told everyone we were together, which is a complete lie!”
“I never told anybody we were—why the hell would I tell anyone that?” he asked and his anger was rising to hers. “Who the hell said that to you?”
“Pete!”
“Would you stop fucking shouting?” he said, grabbing her arms and urging her back against the wall to get into her face. She couldn’t really see him, but she knew he was there because she could taste his breath. That was how low and near he was. “I didn’t tell Pete we were together. He saw me help you clearing out your crap into my car… And whatever the hell you just said to him made him think—”
“I didn’t say anything,” she said. Yes, he’d been right about the shouting because this stairwell could be a megaphone to the lower floor if anyone pushed past the velvet curtain at the bottom. But she kept her voice in an angry whisper. “He asked me to stay after and I said no and he said that you were staying.”
“Why the hell would he say that? He’s fucking with you.”
“That’s what I want to know,” she said and wriggled against the strength of his grip. “Would you let me go.”
“Are you going to keep it together?”
“Are you going to stop pissing me off?”
“I didn’t do dick,” he said. “You get a goddamn rage on and stop thinking straight. What are you going to be like when you’re pregnant?”
“Emotional, probably,” she spat out. “Get used to it, pal, this was your bright idea.”
One of his hands left her arm, but the other hand slid further up her shoulder to grip it where it met the side of her neck. “I didn’t tell anyone anything about us. I don’t want to pee on you. If you want to start a relationship with some random; start one. But I told Pine to write me into the contract too, so both of us are on the same terms, no sex until after delivery.”
A guy who was willing to forgo sex? And he’d done it without much persuasion. Sure, it had been her suggestion, but he was choosing it over letting her share her body or agreeing to use condoms.
“You… you’re willing to make that sacrifice?”
“I was an asshole, ok? You were right. You had a shitty day, you’ve had all kinds of stress and crap on your plate recently and I picked the wrong battle.”
Jaycee couldn’t even be mad anymore, not even if she tried, she was too shocked. “Are you apologizing?”
“I just did, didn’t I?”
“I didn’t hear the word sorry,” she said and even though she could only see blackness between them, she smiled at the unimpressed scowl that she knew would be on his face. Beck was strong-willed and headstrong, but so was she, he just went about expressing his integrity in a different way.
Beck.
She’d just thought of him as… him.
“Guy,” she said, rubbing his chest to get his attention in case she’d lost it.
Standing in the dark with him was weird. They’d never shared darkness before but there was something comforting about it too.
“Hmm?”
“Can we go home? I don’t want to stay. Not tonight.”
“Sure we can, girl,” he said. “Stay right here, don’t move an inch, the top of the stair is right there… feel it with your foot.” He had no way to know if she really did or not, but there was something parental about the instruction, like he wanted her to know where the danger was before he left, when he couldn’t be here to help her if she fell. “Ok?”
“Ok,” she said, and although she did as he said, he still pushed her hard against the wall.
“Don’t move, I’ll tell Petey we’re leaving and be right back.”
His hand left her neck and she rested against the wall, listening to him descending the stairs. They would have to find a way to talk to each other that didn’t involve jumping to conclusions or leading with emotions.
The last one was her, she knew that. Jaycee would try her best to be reasonable. Except he was right, if she did get pregnant, her hormones would be tossed in a dryer drum, to be heated up, spun around, and bounced around until she didn’t know what was up or down.
Communication.
Wasn’t that what she’d just been worried about? She’d have to find a way to talk to Beck, let him know what she feared, and maybe he’d help to reassure her that even if she flipped out, he’d be around to support her. After what she’d just heard from him, Jaycee felt a real sense of optimism for the first time in as long as she could remember.