His Unexpected Baby by Jamie Knight
Chapter Twenty-One - Nina
It was bliss just to wake up. It always heard that money can’t buy happiness but was only beginning to realize how true it really was. I had done the rich girl thing but had been given a glimpse of a very different kind of life. One with honest work that I loved and friends who actually liked me for me and my skills. A life where I made my own decisions but had Auntie Blair if I needed help. As well as a world where love really seemed possible.
Suiting up for work, I thought about everything that had happened with Chad to that point. Amazed and relieved, we were still together. Even if I wasn’t quite sure where we stood. Sex wasn’t likely to happen again for a while. At least not until we found our feet again, though the intimacy was still there, just expressed in different ways. I had little doubt that I loved him and was sure he was starting to feel the same way about me, despite his past reputation.
“Keener,” Eric teased, as the rest of the trainees came up to the shop.
There were times I wondered if they took the same bus or something going by the way they always seemed to go everywhere together. Even Juan after he was accepted into the fold.
Work seemed to fly by. The adjustments, replacements, and oil changes starting to blur together. I was entirely in the zone and didn’t even notice the time passing. Or much of anything else, to be honest. Before I knew it, I was alone in the garage finishing off the last oil changes.
“Working late again?” Chad asked as he emerged from his office, “or were you waiting for me?”
“Sorry, but I just lost track of time,” I confessed.
“Nothing to be sorry for,” he said, wrapping an arm around my waist and planting a gentle kiss on my cheek.
I blushed furiously, thrilled but also not able to find the words to adequately express this.
“Was that okay?”
“Of course,” I said, getting up on my tip-toes and smooching him square on the lips.
He looked surprised but in no way put off. Kissing me back as he took me in his warm embrace. I always felt so safe in his arms.
“Feel like doing something?” he asked.
“I’m starving for some ice cream,” I confessed, not sure if it sounded silly.
“I should be taking you to fancy restaurants, not for ice cream like a couple of kids.”
“I’m sick of fancy restaurants. I want to be a regular girl.”
“Come on.” He rolled his eyes.
“A regular girl in the real world,” I sang, “watch how I twirl.”
It was a bit of a reach, but it still worked. To dive the point home, I started pirouetting around the shop, as only a girl with eight years of ballet could.
“Okay, okay, well, go for ice cream, just calm down,” he chuckled.
The park was beautiful in the early evening, the sun embracing us as we sat in the grass eating gourmet ice cream from a nearby cart.
“What would you like your life to be like?” Chad asked out of the blue, getting his philosophical face on.
That was a hell of a question. I had to think for a while before admitting the truth. To myself as much as Chad.
“The way it is now. I love working on cars, and I am learning more all the time. I knew quite a bit before joining the program, but Will is also a wonderful teacher.”
I could feel the heat rise on my cheeks reaching all the way down to my chest before I continued.
“I’ve also really enjoyed our time together. A-all of it.”
It was Chad’s turn to go quiet. Looking very much like he was deep in thought, considering the information I’d just given him. It still could have gone either way, but I was hoping for the best.
“I’ve never seen a girl more than once,” he confessed, “but I find myself wanting to see you every night.”
My heart felt like it went a flutter as the blissful shock hit. Had he just said he was in love with me? Near enough, especially for him. I was so happy I could cry but held back in case he took it the wrong way. I really wanted it to be a happy moment. Even if the fates seemed to have other ideas.
After our sweet moment of shared connection, Chad backed away, his face going cold.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a big house and not have to work?”
It felt like a knife in my heart. That was the opposite of what I wanted. What I’d been dealing with my entire life and had never done me any favors. I didn’t even have real friends until I went to the garage.
“No. I’ve been there, and I fucking hate it. I’m not some little princess wanting to live a life of luxury. It’s sure what my folks would prefer but not what I want at all. I want what I have now. A loving home without judgment and the ability to work on engines and get dirty and wear jeans and T-shirts and baseball cap and to have sex, beautiful, lovely sex with the man I love, whenever the hell we want, like the filthy fucking tomboy I am.”
I hadn’t meant to be so harsh. It all just came rushing out before I could stop it. Years of pent up frustration flooded out in a single moment. Chad didn’t say anything, which was almost worse. I kept hoping he would say something, anything. Even if he was angry or started to yell. Yelling, I could take. Lord knew I’d heard enough from Dad. Particularly when he’d been drinking. What I wasn’t at all prepared for was the icy silence. Chad didn’t give any indication of what he was thinking or feeling. I didn’t even know if he believed me even though I’d told the absolute truth—almost a little too much, possibly.
The silence persisted all the way back to Auntie Blair’s house, Chad somehow remembering exactly where it was. All I could hope was that he still cared about me a little bit, or he wouldn’t have wanted to drive me home. Also, I’d just started to get myself down out of the cab when Chad appeared like Superman to lower me gently to my feet on the black brick walkway.
Without a word, he closed the door and got back in the driver’s side, driving away into the gathering dark. His tail lights disappearing in the distance, I just stood for a moment, happy but also scared. Hoping everything that had happened over the last several days hadn’t been for nothing. I honestly didn’t know what I would do if I didn’t have Chad in my life.
No sooner was I through the door when a strange hunger kicked me right in the guts. I pulled myself back to my feet and made for the kitchen, still holding my tummy. The ice cream at the park clearly hadn’t been enough. My system was craving more. Chocolate ice cream, to be specific, with gummy bears and raisins and rice. Bless my luck, auntie Blair had all four things in the kitchen. I vowed to pay her back, pretty sure I was going to disintegrate her existing supply.
It was almost frightening how fast I ate. Not to mention how much. I’d always been a little thing. Avoiding carbs like they were rat poison. Before I knew it, I was polishing off a two-liter tub of ice cream, two bags of raises, and a pot of leftover rice. Maybe it was my cells that were taking revenge.
“Honey, I’m home,” Auntie Blair joked, banging through the front door.
“I’m in here,” I called, between mouthfuls.
“Oh, honey,” she said, stopping cold in the doorway.
“What?” I asked, my mouth covered in chocolate ice cream.
“D-did, you and Chad, you know.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Have sex?”
I bit my bottom lip. Possibly for fear of telling the embarrassing truth. The training from my daddy rearing its ugly head.
“Yeah, a few times,” I said, defying my growing humiliation. I’d done nothing wrong.
“Did you use protection?” she asked, sitting down next to me at the table.
“Protection?” I asked dumbly.
“Condoms, honey. Did he wear a condom? Or are you on the pill? Your parents told you about that, right?”
I shook my head slowly, not really sure what she was talking about. My folks told me nothing. Plus, I’d gone to a religious private school where sex education was limited to telling us not to fuck until we were married. Though not in those exact words.
“N-no,” I said, feeling like I’d made a mistake.
“Did he, er, finish inside you? In your vagina, I mean?”
“Y-yes,” I confessed, my cheeks starting to burn.
“Honey,” Auntie Blair said, taking me by my chocolate covered hand, “I think you might be pregnant.”
I was hit by a cold panic. I had no idea how I would hide it from Dad but knew I would have to try.
