CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - KAMI
“Kam?” I heard footsteps approaching as I rolled over, still in bed. After I’d looked at the date on the calendar, I’d run to the drugstore and got a test, which confirmed my worst fear. I was pregnant with Tate’s baby. Those two unprotected times were all it took to change my life forever.
I never expected to get myself knocked up by a man I’d fallen so deeply in love with, only to have my heart smashed into bits by him.
I’d cried myself to sleep again afterward. That weekend had been filled with so much hope and love, and now I was left with a permanent reminder of it. I found myself totally lost.
Rain sat down on the edge of my bed and smoothed my hair away from my face. “Are you still sick?” she asked, feeling my forehead?
I shook my head, and the motion made me queasy all over again. I bolted up and out of bed, slapping my hand over my mouth as I ran to the bathroom. Rain followed me and held my hair as I puked, then offered me a cool cloth for my forehead.
“No,” I said, when I regained my composure. “I’m not sick.” I opened the drawer and pointed to the stick that lay in the bottom. I watched Rain’s eyebrows knit together as she leaned down to look, and then shoot up almost to her hairline when she realized what she was seeing.
“Oh my God, Kam!” she shouted.
“What am I going to do, Rain?” I asked her, tears falling down my cheeks.
She grabbed my hand and led me to the living room, pushing me gently down onto the couch and sitting next to me. “It’s going to be ok,” she said reassuringly.
“How?” I asked her. “I’m so stupid. I went and got myself knocked up by a liar and a womanizer. I’d wanted to get pregnant so badly and it happened in the worst way. How is it going to be ok?”
“Yeah, about that,” Rain said. “Look, don’t be mad, ok, but I went over to Tate’s house earlier.”
“What? Why” I asked her.
“Because I wanted to give him a piece of my mind,” she said.
I couldn’t help but smile. I loved how much Rain loved and protected me.
“Listen, Kam, there’s a whole story that you don’t know—”
“Oh God, not you too,” I groaned. “Please tell me that you didn’t fall for his bullshit, Rain?”
She shook her head. “No way, you know me better than that. I listened to what he had to say, and then I went and got my own proof.”
“Proof of what exactly?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
“It seems that though Tate was working on the Matched site, he wasn’t on there to meet anyone. The site is owned by his best friend who hired him to help increase traffic by engaging women who were either new to the site, or weren’t getting a whole lot of attention.”
“Ew, that’s gross,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. And actually, Tate felt the same way, but he saw it as a way to kill two birds with one stone.”
“Two birds? What does that mean?”
Rain took a deep breath before diving into the story. “He told me how he came to have his money. Apparently, his grandmother left him a trust when she died, but it came with a stipulation. In order to get the full amount, he has to be settled down and have a kid by his thirty-fifth birthday. His friend convinced him that he could both help him out, and find someone to have a kid with.”
“Oh my God, that’s disgusting,” I said. “But at least it explains the comment his dad made. I can’t believe he was just using me to get his money.”
“Maybe that was his first intention, but he really does love you Kami. And he’s really sorry that he hurt you. Like he’s pathetic right now. Super pathetic. You should see him, he looks like shit.”
“Good,” I said, trying not to smile at his discomfort.
Rain laughed. “Seriously though, Kam. He knows he should have been honest from the beginning but he didn’t want you to think he was using you.”
“So the messages to the other chicks were just to help out his friend?” I asked.
“Yeah. He wasn’t even getting paid to do it. His role was to reach out to these women, send a message or two and move on. He never met up with any of them.”
“Never?”
“Apparently, no. I talked to Samantha after I left his place and she confirmed that other than a few harmless messages, nothing else happened. She had also found out that another friend of hers had talked to him too, and said the same thing. His responses were pretty generic actually.”
“And you believe him?” I asked her.
“I do,” she said. “Plus his sister was there, and she vouched for him. I mean, I get that she’d probably have his back either way, but she doesn’t strike me as the type who would lie for him.”
“No, she’s pretty straight with him,” I said.
“See? Listen, Kam, I don’t agree with what he was doing. I think it’s pretty sleazy and demeaning, but as far as you are concerned, he loves you and he’s not been unfaithful to you.”
I sat and absorbed everything she’d just told me. So Tate had been faithful to me. If Rain believed him, I knew that I could too.
But what about the baby? That was a huge game changer. He might be ready to give up his playboy lifestyle for me, but would he be ready to be a father?
“So what are you going to do about the baby?” Rain asked softly.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. It hasn’t fully sunk in yet I don’t think. I mean, of course I’m going to keep it, but that’s about as far as I’ve gotten.”
“You have to tell Tate,” she said.
“I know.”
Rain leaned over and gave me a big hug. “No matter what, you’re going to be OK.” She bent her head down and patted my belly. “Auntie Rain is gonna spoil you rotten, little one,” she said with a huge smile.
I rolled my eyes and groaned. “Just promise me that he or she won’t come home with purple hair one day.”
“I make no such promises,” she declared as she rose to go.
I sat for a few minutes after she left just thinking about everything she’d told me. Though what Tate had done had been gross in its own right, he had never cheated on me. He really did love me. The realization flooded me with relief. Now I just had to tell him about the baby.
I got up and walked over to the counter where the mail was sitting from the past couple of days. I picked up an envelope with a familiar address and turned it over in my hands. I knew exactly how I was going to tell him.