Shallow (26 page)

“You’re pissed and I get it. I’m pissed at myself for being so stupid.”

I’m sure there was a word for what I was feeling but it wasn’t coming to mind and pissed didn’t even begin to cover it. I strained to get up and then looked at him. “I can’t handle this. I’ve gotta go.”

“Payton, you can’t leave. We need to talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about because I’m telling you that I can’t handle someone else having your baby.”

He grabbed my arm and I jerked it away as I burst out crying. “I wanted to be the one to have your babies, not her.”

He caught me and pulled me to him for a hug as my cry escalated into uncontrollable sobbing. “We can get past this and make it work.”

I was crying too uncontrollably to disagree, but I shook my head violently.

“Please, don’t say we can’t. We can get through this because I love you and I know you love me.”

“What about next time? What do I do when the next girl shows up with your baby and then the next and you eventually have your own little baseball team?”

“You need time to cool down.”

Time wasn’t gonna fix this
FUBAR
situation. “Oh, I’m cool. I’m so cool with this that I’m gonna tell you what you can do. Go get in that car you’ve used to screw all these girls and drive down to the pool hall so you can find your next pregnancy scare.”

“You don’t mean that, Payton.”

“I do. I mean every single word. Go find that slut, Samantha, and maybe you can screw her tonight. I bet she’d love to have your next baby.”

“Okay, I will but I need you to move your car out from behind my
screwmobile
so I can get down to the pool hall and find her.”

I stormed toward my car and screamed over my shoulder. “Well, then let me get the hell up outta yo’ way, Poppycock.”

26 Regrets

Nick

No! There’s no way that just happened. Except the gut wrenching sickness in the pit of my stomach was proof it had. It was official. My past just collided with my future and it had won.

I stood in my yard and watched Payton speed away out of my life and I made a decision. This was not going to end like this.

I ran into the house and grabbed my keys without a word to my family so I could catch Payton before she got away. I was speeding down the highway and was almost to Franklin when I realized I hadn’t caught her, so I picked up my phone and dialed her number.

Who was I kiddin’? She wasn’t going to take my calls, so I left her a voicemail. “Baby, I’m so sorry for everything. Please, call me so we can talk this out. I didn’t mean what I said about going to find another girl. You’re the only one I love. It’s you and no other.”

I took the next few minutes to think about where Payton would go. Definitely not home. Claire’s. I was almost positive that was where she would go and so that meant that was where I was going, too.

I pulled up at the Deverauxs and saw Claire’s car and Jessie’s truck, but no sign of Payton’s car. Dammit. Where was she?

Even if she wasn’t here, I would bet she called Claire so I went to the door and used the knocker to beat with a little more desperation than I intended. I didn’t let Claire get the door open all the way before I started questioning her. “Has she called you? Do you know where she is?”

“I assume you mean Payton and no, I haven’t talked to her. What’s happened?”

“We had a fight and she took off.”

Claire found that amusing. “You know she’s a hothead so give her time to cool down and then you can talk about it.”

She didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation. “It was bad, Claire. I don’t know if she’ll ever talk to me again.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. She loves you so of course she’ll talk to you again.”

Jessie came to the door from the back of the house. “Hey, what’s going on?”

Claire smiled at Jessie. “He and Payton have had a spat.”

It was way more than a spat. “Claire, please call her for me.”

“I’ll call her to make sure she’s okay, but I won’t betray her trust by giving the phone to you. She has her reasons for not talking to you and you’ll have to wait until she’s ready.”

Claire went to get her phone and left me with Jessie. “What did you do?”

I ran my hands up through my hair and fisted it to give it a yank. “I have screwed up big time.”

“What’s new?”

“No, Dude. I’m not playing. A chick showed up at my house tonight. She told me I got her pregnant and her one month old was mine.”

“Oh, hell. Is it?”

“I have no idea. I guess it could be, but I don’t remember this girl at all. She didn’t even look familiar.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I told her I wanted a DNA test and she agreed to do it. She’s gonna make the arrangements and then call me.”

I saw Claire coming down the stairs with the phone to her ear and she didn’t look happy with me. “I’m not telling him that.”

She held her phone out to me. “She has something to tell you.”

I took the phone and put it to my ear. “Please, listen to me, Baby. I love you and...”

“No, you listen to me. While you’re out finding Samantha or your next unidentified number tonight, I’m going to work on my second one. Then, when I’m finished doing him, we can compare notes on how it made you feel to know someone else had that part of me.”

“Please don’t, Doll Face. It won’t fix this and you’ll regret it.”

“No, I’m pretty sure you’ll be the one to regret it more than me.”

And then she hung up on me. I dialed her back and she didn’t answer. Great. Now she wouldn’t answer my calls or Claire’s. “She’s going to sleep with someone to get even with me because she’s so hurt by the possibility of this baby being mine.” I felt the tears stinging my eyes. “She doesn’t care that this would have happened a year ago before I met her. Claire, text her and tell her to not do it.”

I passed her the phone and her thumb went to work. “I am, but I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for her because she’ll regret it.”

≈ ≈ ≈

I drove all over Franklin and didn’t find Payton or her car, so I was forced to give up and go back to Collinsville. I had to face it. It had been hours since I talked to her and if she followed through with her threat to sleep with someone else, I was already too late. The deed was done.

I pulled into the parking lot of the county line pool hall on my way back into Collinsville and decided a beer or two or twelve might help take my mind off what happened with Payton. I walked in and two of my buddies were hanging out in the back corner as usual. “Hawke! Get your ass back here, you son of a bitch.”

I walked to where my old gang sat and slid into an open chair next to Justin Walls. “Where the hell have you been all summer?”

I shrugged. “Ah, around.”

Luke Mason leaned back in his chair. “I’ll tell you where Hawke’s been since he won’t. He’s been between the legs of the sweetest piece of ass I’ve ever seen. I get hard just thinking about that East Franklin girl.”

One warning. That was all I was willing to give and that was only because I considered these guys friends. “Shut up, I’m not gonna let you talk trash about her like that. She’s not like the others.”

“Look at how whipped he is. Her stuff must be damn good.”

I stood up and the chair behind me fell backwards making a crashing sound on the concrete floor. “I warned you, Luke.”

He held his hands up signaling his white flag. “Easy, Hawke. I was just screwing with you. I had no idea you were that serious about the chick.”

Luke hadn’t said anything I wouldn’t have...before Payton, that is. “Sorry, Dude. It hasn’t been a great night.”

“Then, you need a beer.” Luke got up from the table and came back with a fresh pitcher. “Have a drink on me.”

“Thanks.” I filled the frosty beer mug in front of me, but didn’t wait for the head to go down before taking the first big swig.

“What’s up with you? Got lady problems?”

Lady problems didn’t even begin to describe what I had going on. “Me and Payton are having a little trouble, but it’ll be cool. No worries” These weren’t the kind of guys you confided in with your innermost thoughts or your relationship problems so I left it at that.

It was two hours and eight draft beers later and I had heard the complete rundown of every girl Luke and Justin had done over the entire summer. I welcomed the beer buzz I had gotten. It helped tune out their chatter while temporarily helping me forget my breakup with Payton...until Samantha Hodges walked through the door and I remembered Payton’s angry words. ‘
Go find that slut, Samantha, and maybe you can screw her tonight. I bet she’d love to have your next baby.’

I turned my head from her hoping she wouldn’t notice me, but Luke hollered out to invite her over to join us at our table. “Sam, bring your fine ass over here.”

She walked over and I stared into my beer without looking up at her, but I could feel her eyes all over me. “What’s up, guys?”

“Just catching up with Hawke since he’s been
hyberdating
that East Franklin chick.”

“Yeah, how’s that working out for you?”

Luke laughed and told Samantha, “He says there’s trouble in paradise. Maybe you could help him out a little.”

Without warning, Samantha sat across my lap and put her arm around me. “Nick knows I’m always willing to help him out.”

I strained to distance myself from her. “Thanks, but I’m good.”

She scooted across my lap so that she was sitting on my crotch instead of my legs. “You don’t look like you’re doing good. You look drunk and hard up and I can do something about that.”

I pushed against her, at least what I thought felt like pushing, but she didn’t budge as she leaned in and kissed me hard. Luke and Justin yelped and hooted, but I managed to push her back enough to unlock my mouth from hers.

“You need to get off of me, now.”

She twisted toward the entrance to the pool hall and then back to me. “Kiss me again.”

“I didn’t want to kiss you the first time and it’s definitely not happening again. You seriously need to get up before I toss you on your ass.”

She reached around my shoulders and locked her lips onto mine again for a desperate kiss. I grabbed her face and pushed her away. “What the hell, Samantha!”

I angrily shoved back from the table and grabbed her by the waist to force her off my lap. “Off, now.”

I stood to ensure she didn’t sit back down in my lap and caught a glimpse of Payton going out the front door. “Dammit.”

I ran for the door as fast as I could after having eight beers. I saw Payton walking toward her car and I called out to her. “Payton, please stop.”

27 Everything

Payton

My heart suddenly felt cold and the center began to crack and shatter like a sheet of ice when it can no longer withstand the pressure being pushed against it.

I shouldn’t have come here, but I stupidly wanted to see him so we could talk.

“Payton, please stop.”

I stopped, but not because I planned on listening to anything he had to say. I was the one that was going to do the talking. I turned around and began to clap my hands. “Bravo, Nick. You deserve a round of applause for your performance this summer. You really had me believing you loved me, so take a bow.”

“It’s not like that,” he slurred in his drunkenness. “I love you with all of my heart.”

The bastard was trashed so I couldn’t even enjoy letting him have a piece of my mind because he would never remember it anyway. He reached for my arm but I jerked from his touch. “We haven’t been broken up five hours and you were already making out with that slut.”

“I wasn’t. She sat on my lap and started kissing me. I told her to stop.”

“So, you’re the victim, again?”

He put his hands in his hair and pressed the sides of his head. “I don’t know how to make you understand. I don’t want Samantha. I never wanted her, even before you came along.”

“So, you’ve never slept with her?”

He didn’t deny it and it hurt like hell. “I can’t change you.”

“But can’t you see you already have? I’ve done some terrible things in the past but how can you hold that stuff against me when it all happened before you came into my life? You are my ray of light in this dark world. I wasn’t looking for anything like you, but you have been such a beautiful surprise.”

They were beautiful words but that’s all they were and would fade away with the morning sun. “No. We are so over that someone should come up with a new word for over.”

Hearing myself tell him that we were over was the breaking dam holding my tears inside. I turned to leave and he staggered forward and caught me by my waist from behind. He pulled me close and I could feel his hot, drunken breath against the back of my neck, sending chills all over my body. I couldn’t help myself from leaning back against him because even under the present circumstances, he still had the power to make me want him.