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“Ok, sweetie,” she would have said. “You are going to snap out of it. Congratulations on being a mama. Now, get yourself together. Then take each thing step by step until you have everything together. One thing at a time. That’s all it takes.”
I wiped a tear from my mother. I could hear her comforting me that way sometimes. I missed her so much.
I decided to take the advice. First, I called a doctor to schedule an appointment to confirm the result of the test. Next, I decided to call Lance and tell him the news. He wasn’t answering. It went straight to voicemail. I wondered where he was and what he was doing that he couldn’t be bothered to answer his phone. Then I realized that I did not really care.
But I did leave the voicemail and now I was basically waiting on pins and needles for him to call me back. It was not a definite thing though. I knew those home pregnancy tests could sometimes yield false positives.
It was some wishful thinking on my part, but I would soon know for sure. My doctor’s appointment was that afternoon at three. They were able to work me in on short notice since I told them I was going out of town for a week. I had to know before I went on the road to play. Then I would tell the coach about my situation.
I had to go to practice today though. It would be a light practice for me, since I’d pitched a full game the day before. I would just do some light throwing. I would not be putting the baby in any kind of danger. It felt so strange to think that I had a baby growing inside of me. Was I about to become a mother? For real?
I wasn’t sure what to think about that.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lance
I woke up to a strange noise.
I’d fallen asleep after doing a twenty-four hour shift at the fire station. It turned out to be quite the busy night and I was exhausted. As soon as I came home, I crashed, out like a light. I was sleeping soundly until I heard the noise.
I waited there in the semi darkness of my bedroom. I had the curtains pulled tightly, but they did not block out everything. Some residual light was still able to get through there. I listened and I waited. There was something not quite right here.
I grabbed my phone and checked my security system. I’d forgotten to arm it before I crashed. Dammit. I tried to arm it, but it wouldn’t. It kept telling me that one of my zones was open. I would have to bypass it to arm. I was not ready for that, yet. No…if the zone was open then that meant that someone had broken in somehow. Shit.
My first thought was to call the cops, but then I saw something peculiar on the camera. A figure was walking up to the door. I did not recognize him until he was right there. Then I realized it was my friend, Bobby. Did he do this somehow? What the hell?
He rang the doorbell. I heard it echoing all through the house. I put on my bathrobe and stepped out of the bedroom to head downstairs and answer the door. The second I stepped into the hallway I felt hands grabbing me in several places and restraining me. What in the hell was happening? I tried to scream, but the bag that was being placed over my head was cutting off the sound.
I felt myself being lifted in the air and carried. There had to be at least three or four guys there. “What the hell is going on?” I yelled into the bag. It was so muffled. The sound was reverberating around my ears.
I was carried downstairs and out the door where I could hear a car engine. This did not sound good. As I neared the engine, I felt my body being tilted sideways and then thrown into the vehicle. It sounded and felt like a van. After I landed, I heard the other doors shut and the van drive off.
As we drove, I was being thrown around the back of the car, rolling first one side, and then rolling to the other.
Where was I going? Would I end up right beside my dad, dead before his time? Was my life really going to be cut short today? I felt the air leaving my lungs and failing to return. I wasn’t sure how far I was going to make it before these people decided to kill me. I needed to just relax and wait for the right opportunity to strike. Then I would be able to try to fight my way out of this.
I heard the car come screeching to a halt, and a moment later the door opened. Then, I heard nothing. Everything was silent for a moment, and then I heard some giggles and laughter. Slowly the tension and the fear went out of my body. I could recognize the laughter of some of the guys from the crew. These people were my friends. They were pulling some kind of an elaborate prank on me. What the hell?
“I’m going to kill you guys,” I said with a smile widening across my face. They’d gotten me so good. This was the best prank ever. I could have sworn I was about to die.
The bag came off my head and I saw Bobby, Zane, Frank, and Joey standing there laughing their stupid asses off. I couldn’t believe how they’d gotten me.
And then I saw what was really going on. We were standing in front of the Centerfold Studio, a popular strip club in that end of town. I’d been there on more than a few occasions hanging out with these guys. I kind of had a feeling what was going on, but it was twelve o’clock in the afternoon…
“Why are we here?” I asked as I stood up out of the back of the van.
Bobby stepped forward. “This is your non bachelor party!”
“My what?”
“Yeah, we figured since you are broken up with that girl you were going to marry, that now you need a party to throw you back in the wild so you can go nuts. You deserve a proper send off.”
I started chuckling and slapping high fives. “This is crazy. You guys are crazy… but I like it. This is why you’re best friends. This right here. Ok, let’s go have some fun!”
The guys had rented out the strip club for an afternoon of drinking and fun with beautiful strippers. It was a fun time in a fun atmosphere, but I was not feeling all that festive. I really wanted to be with Kat. I would rather have been watching her dance privately for me. The entire time I was feeling a bit guilty about things. I didn’t want to be with other women dancing for me, taking their clothes off and rubbing on me. A few of them even asked me if I wanted to go to the Jacuzzi with them. They were going to do something extra that the guys had paid for. I told the other guys to go ahead and take my turn. I was not ready for that.
They all thought I was crazy, but I felt like I was cheating on Kat. I sure as hell didn’t want to even go near that neighborhood. Even though we were technically done, I still felt like I was with her. I could sense her, feel her close to me, constantly wondering what she was doing, etc. Why couldn’t we work this out?
