Boss Daddy: A Secret Baby Romance by Black, L. (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

I wiped down a table and turned it over, I thought about how Hannah was probably at home, alone, with my baby inside her and no one to help her or protect her. It drove me mad, and I could feel futile urges of protective rage fill up inside me with no outlet. I couldn’t be angry or mean or sad. I had to just get on with the job and try not to screw up the new bar with my attitude.

When the night finally ended and we closed up shop with little fuss, I turned to Matt, who was talking animatedly with Cris. I walked over to them, putting on my jacket and checking for my keys. Matt looked over at me, seeing me in my jacket, and looked at me curiously.

“You heading out?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Long day going back and forth. Need some sleep. You should get some rest, too, you know.”

“I know,” Matt said. “Can’t pour from an empty cup. I’ll get out of here soon.”

“Alright,” I said. “I’m out.”

“Hey, make sure you get up earlyish tomorrow. I have something we need to go do,” Matt said as I walked away. Rather than ask what it was, I simply pointed my finger up in the air and kept walking away, acknowledging I heard him without turning around.

I got into my car and drove to the hotel, thoughts of Hannah and my baby swirling. I hadn’t been able to get them off my mind all night, and I had come to the decision that something needed to change. I wasn’t going to be able to leave Hannah alone during her pregnancy for so long. It just wouldn’t happen. There was only one person to talk to about that, and I needed to just find the confidence and make the call. When I woke up in the morning, I was going to give Tom a ring and sort this whole thing out.

I fell into my bed just after four and slept like a rock until my alarm went off at noon. Not thirty seconds later, there was a knock on my door.

“Hang on,” I said, getting up and sliding into my shirt. I opened the door to the grinning face of Matt, a coffee in hand.

“I said earlyish,” he said. “Noon is not earlyish. Why are you still asleep?”

“I’m not asleep. I’m standing here,” I said, taking the coffee.

“That was mine, but fine,” he said, coming in and going directly to my coffee maker to make a replacement. “I’ve been thinking.”

“That’s dangerous,” I quipped. I was proud of myself for that one, considering I was still mostly asleep until half the coffee was in me.

“Funny,” he said. “I’ve been thinking we need to go apartment hunting today.”

“Eh,” I said. He was right, and I knew it, but I just didn’t want to face it. I didn’t want to find an apartment in Portland. That seemed too concrete, too final. “I suppose so.”

“You sound thrilled,” Matt said.

“Yeah, well, I just woke up.”

“So, you were asleep.”

“Can we just not?” I asked.

“Get your clothes on. I’ll be back in twenty minutes and we can head out.”

I grimaced into my coffee but kept drinking. It was terrible stuff, but it did the job. Eventually, I downed it and got up, stretching for a few minutes and doing a two-minute workout. It wasn’t going to be enough for the day, but I had to do something or else I’d feel off all day. After that, I hopped in for a five-minute shower, got dressed, and was ready to go when Matt knocked again.

“I am genuinely impressed,” he said as I opened the door and walked out. “I had it at about eighty percent chance you lay back down to go to sleep.”

“Can’t,” I said. “Marines. Once you’re up, you’re up.”

“Ahh, yes, the desert,” he said. Matt was probably the only person in the world who could poke fun at that and I wouldn’t get offended. I knew he respected my choice to go, but he also liked to rib me for being dramatic. It was how he dealt with being uncomfortable. We had never talked about my time there, and he had never asked. The others had, but never Matt. He just poked fun at me, and I laughed. It was understood.

The first place we visited was awful, but the next few weren’t so bad. One, just a couple blocks from the bar, bowled Matt over, and I could see he was about thirty seconds from saying yes when I took him aside.

“Hey,” I said. “I don’t want you to get offended, but I think we should have separate places.”

“Oh?” Matt asked. “Planning on having a string of ladies over you don’t want your little brother screwing up? I get it.”

“No, it’s not that,” I said, smiling. “I just… I don’t know if Hannah is going to want to come up and spend some time up here, and I have nightmares, and neither one of us do well living with other people. You almost threw your last roommate off the roof, remember?”

“Well, he was on the roof playing a bagpipe at three in the morning. No jury would have convicted me.”

“That might be true, but you and I both know we’d be at each other’s throats if we lived together and worked together all the time.”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “But I’m getting a place here. My only rule is you can’t be more than five miles from here. That way we can coordinate easily even if there’s bad weather.”

“Deal,” I said. “Now go get your keys.”

Matt walked away and finished up with the agent, taking an apartment on the top floor.

It took three other places before I gave up and accepted an apartment just a few blocks away from Matt and a little further down from the bar. It gave me a better walk in the morning, which I liked, and it kept Matt and me from being on top of each other.