Chapter Fifteen
~Mahogany~
At seven on the dot, I woke, well rested for the first time in a long time, feeling like there was something missing… besides Chance that is. Majestic. It was a lot later than I wanted to get up, but I didn’t regret the forty winks I got. Plus, I trusted Dania to take care of my baby girl along with the hospital staff. A little darker in the room than it should’ve been for this early in morning, too. I readied myself to face an overcast if not rainy day and a slowly-slipping-away Chance before crawling out of the bed. It was going to be a good day regardless. Majestic was coming home.
On the way out of the bedroom to the bathroom, I peeked into the living room and got a glimpse of empty boxes stacked in front of the couch. Behind it was two clothes racks loaded down with apparel of all kinds. It took two seconds for what I was seeing to register fully, causing me to skid to a stop in the bathroom’s doorway.
“What the hell! Chance!” He hadn’t had clothes delivered for me to try on since before we broke up.
I had been down this road before with him, the old Chance, who wanted me to have whatever my heart desired, including him, but the organ in my chest was a fool and couldn’t afford to be toyed with. The more he gave me, the more it wanted to give him. No point when he only wanted one thing, to be free of me. Unless Chance was going to hang himself from a hanger on one of those racks. Even then, he would unknowingly provoke my heart into putting its dukes up for him when I was committed to letting him go for good... eventually.
No, not eventually, Mahogany. Soon! Sorry, conscience, but I just can’t get with that yet. I tried to though, with a war waging between my heart and head the whole time. It might just be easier on both if he left already, but then, I’d regret the time I didn’t spend with him. I had enough regrets already.
“In here, sweetheart!” he hollered from the kitchen.
That was the umpteenth sweetheart he had called me. You don’t call people who you don’t want that, so who the hell was in the kitchen and what did they do with my Chance?
Your Chance? Well, he’s mine until he’s gone.
I speed walked to where he was fully dressed and pouring coffee into a mug on my table, seeming at home. His hot gaze fell over me, burning me as his eyes roamed from the top of my head to my feet then back up. Then I remembered that I was bare assed. Well hell, no reason to be modest now. He had seen the goodies with Majestic’s mark on them at least twice at this point.
I flung a finger in the direction of the clothes racks parked between the kitchen’s doorway and the couch behind me. “What is that?”
“Ah, that would be racks with women stuff on them.” Then he placed the coffee pot back on its base situated on the peeling countertop and sipped from his mug.
“You know what I mean, smartass! What are they doing here?”
“Waiting for you to get up and pick what you want off of them.”
“Wait. What? This isn’t what you do for people you can’t even see yourself being friends with, Chance. This is what the old Chance would do, but he’s dead.” Which makes me a freaking killer.
I didn’t want to be that and I’ll be damned if Chance and I weren’t finding more and more common ground to stand together on when he didn’t want to stand with me at all, except it didn’t seem that way anymore.
I’m so fucking confused.
He peeped at me over the rim of his cup. “Who said the old Chance was dead?”
“I said it.” Then I redirected my finger towards him. “You’ve just been acting like it… or you were all the days before yesterday.”
“Why can’t there be a combination of the old Chance and the new Chance in here? People have layers like onions, Mahogany. They don’t shed their old selves like snakes do their skin.”
“I like the old Chance better.”
“Well, the old Chance was broken into angry pieces, remember? But the new Chance thinks you should give him a chance to be friends like you and old Chance should’ve been, friends that communicate. The new Chance is better, a father who’s been built tougher, stronger, and smarter because of it.”
Is he a Ford truck or what now? The only thing I knew for sure was that he was scrambling my brains with the back and forth of his personality.
“What are you talking about a chance? The other night, there was no chance for us to be more than fuck buddies until you felt better about wanting me or didn’t want me anymore. The new Chance told me he couldn’t be with someone that doubted him. I can’t just be friends with either of them either, so give him whoever you are at the moment a chance to be what to me?”
He slanted his head to the side. “There’s just no easing you into anything, is it?”
“No, I like to know what the hell is going on at all times now.”
“Noted, and no, I can’t just be friends with you either, because I most certainly want to be your fuck buddy. I know you don’t doubt me anymore because you said so. You wouldn’t have if you didn’t mean it and that’s what I love about you. What I want to be to you is a lot sweeter than ever before and more loving while adoring you therefore the designer clothes, purses, and shoes. However, when it’s time to pack the boxes with yours and Majestic’s things, I’m going to magically disappear so you can’t ask me to help you. Just kidding… sort of. I will go missing a lot of the times though. Women have too much shit.”
But he never said he wasn’t still going home and I won’t add more meaning to his words because my heart couldn’t take it if he rejected me later, so I dead-eyed him who’d changed overnight, the other night. “I never thought the day would come when I’d find an alien in my house, and I don’t have a lot of anything. The furniture isn’t even mine. Majestic on the other hand has it all and toys. All would fit neatly in a car if you hadn’t brought the gigantic boxes and stayed around long enough to help me take that damn crib apart. I should just throw it away really.”
He grinned with one side of his mouth. “That’s noted too, and an alien is not what you called me last night… and yesterday or the day before that.”
“I knew who I was getting before… I think. This morning, I’m not sure who you are at all.”
“You’ll find out soon enough, and it’s not this morning. It’s seven in the evening.”
Shock smacked me in the face. “It’s… it’s seven in the evening?” I stammered then yelled. “Dammit, Chance! I told you to wake me this mor-ning!”
Being late for picking up Majestic here didn’t leave time to address the new secret he was keeping.
“Oh, I didn’t wake you at all, love.”
“Duh! And what’s with the calling me ‘sweetheart’ and ‘love’ all of a sudden? You’re scaring me. What are you up to? You know what? I don’t have time for this, Chance! I need to go get my daughter! But we are going to talk soon dammit!” With that, I stomped away.
“Our daughter, who’s doing fine and asleep in her crib in the bedroom. You’ve probably woken her up by now though.”
I stomped back to my original spot, to look at him strangely. “Say what?”
He grinned. “She’s here, love. Discharged earlier since twelve this afternoon because she’s doing so well. You’ve been out like a light all day and curled around her whenever she went down for a nap. I think that’s why you slept so long because she was home and she wouldn’t sleep anywhere else but in the bed with you. You knew she was there subconsciously. I think she missed you more today than ever, too. She wanted to wake you a thousand times. Daddy will do when it comes to feeding and changing her, but he’s not you. Then you woke up…” He checked his watch. “…two minutes after I put her in the crib because I was about to wake you with coffee. I’ve been missing you my damn self. You just caught me in the act of bringing you coffee in bed before I took you to an early dinner, but then you started to act up. I kept my distance and drunk some of your coffee.”
Then he extended the cup to me from ten feet away. He outweighed me by a house but he might just be scared of me. Now, that was funny, and I started to laugh, beginning with tiny giggles breaking loose that turned into an explosion.
“No thank you to the coffee. Are you telling me that you took care of her by yourself, Chance? How did you discharge her from the hospital? You’re not…” My hilarity and voice ebbed away because I was about to hit a sensitive subject with a Chance that I didn’t know completely, but his smile that I recognized and loved never faded as he set the coffee down on the table.
Moving to stand in front of me, he hooked his thumbs in his jeans’ belt loops. “Yes, I took care of her by myself here. My mother helped at the hospital… a lot and I believed you were about to say that I’m not legally registered as Majestic’s father or allowed to take my own child anywhere without your permission,” he finished for me, and when put that way, it had to sting him.
“Yeah, but those weren’t the words I would’ve used.”
“You may have found a diplomatic way to say it but I’ve been working on fixing it.”
“What does that mean?”
“Dr. Blane started the process for discharging Majestic yesterday after you left. He found a fourteen-thousand-dollar bill added to the paperwork. He discreetly brought it to my attention that Majestic’s hospital-stay and medical bill had exceeded the state’s portions of her insurance.”
My stomach bottomed out. My credit was okay for now, but it wasn’t going to be. Weekly checks from Tommy’s Cuisine and the little money left over from the financial aid for school provided necessities and a few extras, but not enough to pay for a five-day hospital stay that costs more than my car when it was brand new.
Chance’s expression switched from amused to concerned. “Mahogany, I can see the thoughts whirling around in your head like a tornado, but everything’s okay. The bill’s been handled, and I have to tell you something. With the bill, I saw an opportunity to get something done that would be to yours and Majestic’s benefit, so I took advantage.”
I stopped panicking about what I was going to do about the hospital bill, and start worrying about what opportunity had the debt presented for Chance. “What did you do?”
“I struck a deal with Dr. Blane: I would pay her doctor bill in full right then if he could start the paperwork to unofficially make Majestic a Jefferson-Middleton on her birth certificate, or he was going to get installments. Everyone likes paid in full better.”
“You applied to change her last name without asking me first?”
Nothing would change unless I signed on the dotted line too, but I was impressed with Chance for taking to being Majestic’s daddy like a duck would to water: effortlessly. Doing things for our daughter without consulting me first sounded just like a daddy and him. I’d rather argue with him for doing too much than not enough for her.
“I started the process on changing her name so she’ll officially be my heir,” he explained, “and everything I leave to her and you in my will can’t be contested because she’s mine.”
The forceful way he said ‘mine’ was hard enough to jolt my stomach, hot enough to create a firestorm between my thighs, and make me see him in a different light. The same light I thought would never shine from him when I tried to tell him I was pregnant. What would’ve happened if he had said I was his?
You’d have spontaneously combusted for sure.
“That’s all, Chance?”
He grinned, his eyes dipping to my breasts. “Unless you decide to make her just a Middleton.”
“Just Middleton is fine. Her last name doesn’t matter to me.”
Majestic’s near death had put a lot of things in perspective. Last names weren’t even on the list of things that mattered, but I’d bet my last dollar that her name mattered a hell of a lot to him. She had earned it just by being born. I had screwed up my chances for taking his name, but took comfort that I hadn’t messed it up for her.
“I do have a question though, Chance,” I announced as I palmed my hip and dropped all my weight to one foot. “How did you work all this out with just Dr. Blane? You should’ve had to go through the courts to change her name.”
“Right, but the hospital’s birth records department is just as good as a court if you know the right people. Dr. Blane hooked me up with a very nice clerk that didn’t mind helping me out with the changes for a favor. Once you sign the certificate, she’ll stamp it and file it, making it legal herself without there being a big fuss with a judge. The new birth certificate can be picked up a few days afterwards.”
“Did you say Dr. Blane hooked you up with a… very nice clerk who wants a favor?” If ‘hooked him up’ meant what it usually means, the clerk was going to have to wait her damn turn to get to Chance because I wasn’t done with him yet.
His predatory gleam graced his mouth, but he was about to become my prey. I hadn’t just signed up for the ‘dating pact’ to help him but to help me too, with four days left to perform that miracle. Clearly, I was nowhere near close to it because I was about to go nuclear on somebody. He and the clerk were absolutely cruising for a bruising if they thought I’d share the little time I had with Chance—life would be so much easier if I could move on from him like he had done from me. Or moved with him to wherever he wanted us to go as a couple. Utah didn’t sound so bad either. I would go anywhere as long as I came home to him and Majestic.
Well, you’re not coming home to him so back off that idea, Mahogany. But I couldn’t because I was pissed, couldn’t think straight. And jealous. About to put up a fight anyway for the good guy in my kitchen and the bastard side that came with him whether he wanted me to or not, once I put some clothes on.
“Yes, Dr. Blane hooked me up with someone that could get what I needed done quickly.” Then he stepped closer. “But the sort of hook up you’re thinking about isn’t the way we went about it, Mahogany, and I have a confession. I exaggerated the situation with the clerk. She’s older than my grandmother and was sharp enough to get more out of me than I got out of her. Want to know what that is?”
Damn him and his mind games.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What does she get in return?”
“A donation to a soup kitchen she runs in Spindle.”
He moved nearer until I had to crane my neck to maintain eye contact. His hands slid around my waist and pulled me into his rock-hard chest, then he licked his lips. Suddenly, I needed to cool off, or I’d be climbing his body like a tree to start a real fire from the friction of my mouth on his when I kissed him and me both senseless.
“I’m going to go take a bath before my munchkin wakes up, then we can go back to the hospital to sign her birth certificate.”
“Not yet. I haven’t said hello to you today.”
His hands glided up my back, arms pushing up mine, then he dipped his head. Oh God, he was going to kiss me and I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet.
I quickly covered my mouth with one hand. “.”
“Coffee breath, Mahogany, same length of time.” Then, my hand was down by my side and his lips were on mine.
If I could just resist him. Well, I couldn’t, so I waged war with his tongue until we were both breathless and his phone beeped in his pocket.
*********
~Chance~
With one hand, I dug out my phone and held Mahogany to my chest. The text that had come through frustrated the hell out of me immediately, though I tried to hide my reaction to Julia summoning me back to Utah this Monday, not the next one.
Mahogany’s eyes bounced between my phone and me. “Chance, what’s wrong?”
Damn, she must’ve picked up on my pissiness anyway.
“It looks like I have something else to confess, baby. I have to go back to Utah earlier than I expected for work. It seems Orion Townsend, a potential client I was meeting with when you called me about Majestic, can’t wait until next Monday or he’s going to take his business elsewhere. It’s a big account if I land it. Since children really are expensive, I figure it would be wise to go—” She covered up my mouth with one hand before I could finish.
The saddest of expressions crossed her face. “Will you consider something for me before you go?”
I reached for her hand to remove it, but she pressed tighter. “Just nod or shake your head, Chance. Don’t s-speak yet.” Her voice wobbled.
I frowned as much as I could around her fingers and nodded, would do anything for her. Would tell her that if she’d let me.
“I need you to work on being friends with me. That’s all I ask of you, not a new car or house, clothes or even money, and it’s for Majestic’s sake, not mine.”
Then she stepped back. I practically heard her heart breaking as she reversed, a bad but good thing. I was finally in tune with my girl again, and she didn’t want me to leave but would let me if she thought it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t.
“I didn’t say I’d been gone for good, Mahogany, I said for work. There’s a difference. Unless…” I pulled her right back into my arms where she belonged. “…you want to go with me to Utah, but I want to live here. You see, I’ve changed my mind, I think you still owe me and I want all I’m due. Your love, your heart, your body, because I need them all so I don’t have to go through another damn day without you while loving you. Not being able to touch you or kiss you. Working myself to death to keep from thinking about you. Not being able to feel anything other than you even while dating useless bodies of flesh so I can feel wanted, but they are not enough. They’re not you, and Majestic has a damn good oncologist here. If she needs him in the future, I want to get her to him faster than I can say I love you, Mahogany.”
Her mouth fell open. “Why didn’t you say that when you first arrived in Arrow? Why let me stay gone for three damn years? Letting me be without you if you felt that way? Missing you and trying to trick myself into believing I could live like that every damn day for the rest of my life?”
“One question at a time, love. I would never force myself on you if you didn’t want me, but when I got here, all I knew was that I had to have you again in any way I could get you. Desperate enough to con me and you into believing you owed me something to get what I was dying for. You.”
“I did owe you.”
“You didn’t. Had every right to do what you thought was best for Majestic, but I took the first chance I got of relieving some of the ache from being without you. Only you could lessen the pain. Then you made a mistake while you were sleep the other night.”
“What did I do?”
“You said yes to me while I was complaining about proposing to you to get me out of my misery. I knew you still loved me then. Now, you’re stuck with the old and the new Chance all rolled into one.”
And then she smiled and lit up my world that felt like it was spinning the correct way on its axis for once. “That’s not being ‘stuck’, Chance, that’s being blessed with a good man who gets really angry sometimes and wants to fuck the pain away, really well I might add, and he just about gives everything he has away, including his heart. That’s all I, we need from you… and your strength. I can’t carry that damn crib by myself, although we could just leave it here for the next single mother. It serves no purpose after ten minutes anyway. Majestic climbs out of it when she’s tired of being in it or wants to get in the bed with me.”
“It’s good you feel blessed because I’m not going anywhere and the next time you run I’m chasing… when I’m not chasing Majestic. Sounds like she needs her own room badly and we need a lock on our door now.”
“The new Mahogany knows to run towards you not from you, Chance.”
No other words sounded sweeter.
“Thank God. That saves me a lot of time and jet fuel. It’s expensive. Although I can afford it, I’d rather be spending the money on my girls in some exotic location we’ve all flown to on vacation… together, the only word that best describes us who should’ve never been without each other from the start.”
“Ditto, baby.”
“There are some other words I like to hear from you though.”
“I love you, Chance.” She didn’t even hesitate.
“And I love you, sweetheart.”
I leaned in for another kiss. A thump in the other room where Majestic was halted my progress. The noise was too close to my child. I turned to walk off. Mahogany caught my waist with both hands, pulling me back into my original position.
“Mahogany, that came from the bedroom.”
“I know. Count with me. One.” She pressed into my side, her hand wrapped around my shoulder, unconcerned.
“Do what?”
“Count, Chance.” I realized she knew what had happened, so I said ‘one’ with her.
On two, Majestic veered around the corner of the bedroom then ran to us. Mahogany was right, the damn crib was useless.
My daughter wrapped around my leg and announced, “Mommy’s woke, daddy.”
I bent over to tousle the curls on her head. “I know, baby girl. Finally.”
“Let’s eat chocolate.”
“No!” Mahogany and I chanted together.
Majestic huffed then eyeballed Mahogany before leaning over to get a good view of her mother’s ass. “Mommy?”
Mahogany sighed. “I know, Majestic. Mommy should be dressed but it’s your daddy’s fault I’m not. He distracted me again.”
Majestic grinned. “Can I walk around naked too now?”
“No!” Mahogany and I hollered again… together.