This is what it’s like to be mutually attracted to someone. I puff out my chest, aware of my well-defined muscles, especially with the badass tattoo that curves around my bulging biceps.
Then her eyes track further down my body.
Panic grips my insides, and I flick my gym towel over my stumps. I look away before her gaze gets to my useless stumps sticking out of my gym shorts. Before she realizes that I’m only half a man.
I can’t handle seeing the pity in this woman’s eyes. For a moment I forgot. For a moment, I was just a hard-muscled man enjoying the appreciative gaze of a pretty woman.
Pressing my knuckles into the bench, I breathe deeply, not looking up until Arlo and Maggie and the girl holding the baby have left.
Their voices fade as they head down the corridor and to the stairs, not giving it a second thought as they climb the stairs with their working limbs.
I wait for a long time until my breathing has calmed, and the sweat has turned icy on my body. Only then do I haul myself into my wheelchair and maneuver around the gym equipment, squeeze through the door, and wheel down the corridor that’s so tight my elbows bump the walls as I roll by until I get to the elevator.
2
ISLA
Cody’s entire face puckers up, and his cheeks go red.
“Oh no you don’t.” I pull him to my chest and jiggle him up and down in a way that’s supposed to be soothing, but it’s too late. An almighty wail erupts out of his tiny mouth, which seems too small to be making such a big noise.
I slide off the bed and pace the room, whispering lullabies into the top of his downy head. But Cody keeps on crying.
“Are you hungry?” I fed him ten minutes ago, but I unlatch my nursing bra and offer him my breast. He turns his head away and cries louder.
“Do you need changing?” I only just changed his diaper, but I lay him on the bed to check again. But when I touch the diaper, my hand comes away dry.
“What is it, sweet pea?” I hold him out in front of mewith my arms straight so his crying face is level with mine. “I don’t know what you need.”
Cody squeezes his eyes shut and cries louder.
“I know how you feel, buddy.” Twenty-four hours ago, we were in a warm apartment in Charlotte with all his cuddly toys and familiar blankets.
Now we’re in a room at the top of a motorcycle club headquarters where burly men prowl the corridors and the only familiar face is a friend of my brother’s who he knows from culinary school.
Yesterday I was the fiancé of an investment banker, a new mother taking maternity leave from her marketing job, living in a penthouse apartment in the swanky part of town and planning the perfect society wedding. Today I’m a runaway, a single mom with no home address and no plan for the future.
A shiver runs down my spine. Whenever I think about the future, all I see in my mind is a black hole. I have no idea what my life will look like now. I can’t go back to my job, not when the man I just left was the CEO’s son. I don’t have a place to live. It was Ian’s apartment. My family probably isn’t going to speak to me for canceling the ‘wedding of the season’ as Ian’s mom keeps calling it on social media. Mom won’t forgive me for giving up the ‘perfect’ life and relegating her grandchild to life with a single parent.
But as I stare into the crumpled face of my unhappy son, conviction settles in my chest. “I’ve done the right thing.”
If I say it out loud, my brain might start to believe it.
I take a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself. “I’m safe,” I say with every out breath. “I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m safe.”
More at peace, I fold Cody into my chest. “We’re safe, sweet pea.” I kiss the top of his head and repeat the refrain until he stops crying.
“I know this all feels different, but Mommy’s here and we’re going to be okay.”
The words are as much to reassure me as they are to reassure him. He must feel the tension and unease that I’ve been carrying for the last forty-eight hours, ever since I made the decision to leave.
“We’re going to be okay.”
There’s a gentle knock on the door, and when I open it Maggie is there with a Christmas hat sitting askew on her chestnut hair.
“You ready to come down and meet the family?” She smiles kindly, and a well of emotion threatens to overspill.
I only met Maggie once when my brother Ryan graduated, but when I called my brother and told him I was in trouble, he put me in touch with Maggie.
