Page 18 of Point of Contact

“You looked so shocked, though, when I said I wanted to keep the baby.”

Trevor looked up at the ceiling, blowing out a breath. “Liss, we weren’t together. It was a drunken, drugged screw at a party.”

“You sure you’re really gay? You’re so hot!”

Trevor, on the couch, drifting in a haze of vodka and cocaine, sprawling there with his shirt hanging open, a low-grade arousal already thrumming through him after a hot make-out session with Rick Ditmore, someone’s older brother home for the weekend from college. A warm, perfumed bundle straddled him, and Trevor obligingly tilted his head back, letting soft lips caress his throat, his bare chest.

“Mmmm, I just wanna fuck,” he groaned, running his hands over silky skin and lush curves. He got a foggy impression of long, glossy brown hair and pretty green eyes as the girl leaned down and kissed him. He kissed her back, arousal ramping up to a fever pitch as Rick sat down on the couch next to them, watching, his eyes hot.

“You’re such a dirty girl, Larissa,” Rick murmured. “You fuck him, and I’ll fuck him. Rock his world.”

A mouth on him, hands, then tight wet heat that he thrust up into, climaxing with a groan, Rick leading him into a bedroom and bending him over, railing him until he came again. Passing out, staggering home. Several weeks later, one of Larissa’s friends cornering him in the school library. “Liss thinks she might be pregnant, and it’s yours.”

“My friend Tammy has a baby girl, and she’s so cute, like a little doll,” Larissa said, gazing down at Riley. “I just thought it’d be fun to have a baby of my own, that’s all.”

Fun? Trevor swallowed hard, reminding himself how young she really was, barely seventeen. He looked at Riley, at the little milk bubbles frothing at his rosebud lips, the long eyelashes against his cheeks. He couldn’t help but pluck his son from Larissa’s unresisting arms and gather him to his chest, kissing the top of his head and listening to the adorable baby snuffling sounds he was making as he rooted against Trevor in his sleep.

“I want him, Liss,” he said fervently. “I want to be his dad.”

He’d felt that way from the moment he’d seen the fuzzy gray ultrasound image on the small screen next to Larissa’s bed in the OB-GYN exam room, his heart turning over at the technician’s exclamation of “It’s a boy!” That’s when everything had become real to Trevor, and love and protectiveness for the tiny human he’d helped create had welled up and overwhelmed him, causing tears to spring to his eyes.

Now, Trevor ran his fingers over the faded pictures in the album, more memories rushing up. Christmas Day, three-day-old Riley dressed in a tiny green velvet elf outfit, clasped in Larissa’s arms as Trevor wheeled her out from the hospital entrance and helped her into his beat-up old car.

He’d buckled Riley into the car seat mounted in the back, driving his new little family carefully over to Larissa’s house. Her dad wasn’t there, out of town as a busy over-the-road truck driver, and her mom was nowhere in sight, most likely sleeping off a bender.

“She’s a fucking drunk,” Larissa had told him, her tone bitter, when Trevor asked her if she wanted her mom at the hospital with her for the birth. “She won’t even realize I’m gone.”

Trevor carried Riley and his diaper bag into Larissa’s tiny bedroom, and lifted the baby carefully out of his seat and put him down in the crib purchased by Trevor’s aunt and uncle as a shower present.

“Don’t leave me, Trevor.” Larissa clutched at his arm in apparent panic. “I don’t know what to do!”

He gathered her to him in a comforting hug. “I’m not going to leave, sweetie,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m here.”

Trevor stayed for the next several days, getting up with Riley at night so Larissa could sleep and heal, and catching catnaps during the day when the baby slept. He brought Larissa some Motrin for her pain, bound her chest tightly with a cloth to ease the soreness in her breasts, and rubbed her back when the postpartum cramping wracked her.

She showed little interest in Riley, completely wrapped up in her own physical misery. Trevor tried to be patient with her, understanding, but when Marilyn stopped by to check on them, he couldn’t help but unload his doubts and fears onto her.

“I’m going to have to start working soon,” he said worriedly. “And Larissa is going to have to take care of him. Her mom won’t help when I’m not here, says she raised her kids, and to leave her alone.”

Marilyn stroked his hair, her face full of concern. Trevor blinked rapidly, finally not able to hold it all in anymore, and he buried his face in her neck and sobbed. She rocked him in her arms, soothed him.

“You’re so tired, honey. See if Larissa will let you bring Riley over to our house, and Uncle and I will take care of him for a while and let you get some real rest.”

Trevor pulled away and wiped his eyes. “No. It’s not your responsibility, Auntie. It’s mine. I got myself into this, and I’ll handle it.”

Marilyn stroked his wet, scruffy cheek. “But I’m offering to help,” she said gently. “Part of being an adult, and being responsible, is knowing when you’ve reached your limits and graciously accepting what’s being offered, not for your sake, but for your child’s. Go get Riley and his things.”

Larissa didn’t protest Trevor taking the baby, but she kissed Riley’s cheek and cooed to him for a minute before handing him over.

“If you want to see him, Liss, just call me and I’ll bring him back anytime you want. My aunt just—I need—”

“Take him, and go get some sleep, Trev,” Larissa mumbled. “I feel guilty watching you do it all, but I—this isn’t what I—” She waved her hand helplessly in the air. “I’m fat and disgusting, and I’m so fucking tired of bleeding and feeling like shit! I just want to be alone.”

So Trevor took their son and drove away with him, placing him in Marilyn’s experienced, comforting arms before collapsing facedown on his bed and sleeping for twenty-four hours straight. When he awoke, he felt much more human, and instead of making guilty excuses for sleeping so long, he merely leaned down and kissed the top of his aunt’s head in gratitude.

“I can take over now, Auntie,” he said quietly, and Marilyn handed Riley to him, bussed Trevor’s cheek and headed off to her own bed for a much-needed nap. That set the pattern for the next week or so, Trevor and Marilyn trading off feeding and nighttime duties. Trevor called Larissa several times offering to bring Riley over to see her, but she always declined, saying she didn’t feel well or wanted to sleep.

“It’s time for his mother to step up,” Marilyn finally told Trevor firmly one night. “She’s had two weeks to rest and get her strength back, and now she needs to start caring for her child.”