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I walk briskly across the street to the building where my apartment is, and he slides into his car and follows me.
“Get in, Aura.”
I raise my hand and continue to walk. “Go home, Lane.”
He parks in an available spot and follows me up to the apartment. I place the key in the lock and open the door to the practically empty apartment with only a single bed.
“This is where you are staying? In this?”
Rage boils through my veins. How dare he judge me. After he left, I was all alone. I turn around and surprise him when I drive my hand back. WHACK! I slap him hard across his left cheek enough that my hand stings with heat.
His head whips back like a spring, and his eyes widen when he places his hand on his cheek, his nostrils flaring.
“Get out!” I rage.
He steps forward, and I take a step back.
“How dare you judge me. Where were you when I was alone? Where were you when I was at the doctor all alone? You haven’t heard your own son’s heart beating.” I push him hard toward the door. “You come here and judge me for trying to take care of myself and your son. Get out and leave me alone.”
“I’m sorry, Aura. Please. It’s not what you think.”
“It’s not what I think. It is what I know, and one thing I do know is that you don’t abandon someone you love.” Tears are flowing down my cheeks, my body trying to hold back the sobs at how easily he walked out without a single word. The memories of how lonely I felt inside that house, wondering what I did that was so awful. That he would abandon me because I was pregnant with his child. “You don’t love me, Lane. It’s okay. I’ll be fine in my small bed in my small apartment with my waitressing job. You can go now.”
“I’ll never leave you.”
I laugh sarcastically. “Are you crazy? You did leave me. That is why I’m here. You weren’t even there when I packed my stuff. You didn’t even know, and it is because I don’t matter. I need you to leave. I have a shift tomorrow so I can pay for my shitty apartment with my shitty bed.”
He finally walks out with his head hanging. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He says closing the door.
“Don’t bother,” I quip after the door clicks closed.
Chapter twenty-eight
Aura
For the next two weeks, he comes in every day and sits at the booth in the back and waits until I’m done with my shifts and follows me to my apartment in his car to make sure I make it home safe and every night, I pray to be able to give my son a good life.
The next day, I walk into the diner for my shift, and Lane is sitting in one of the booths again. Alone. His head snaps up when he hears the chime of the bell from the door open. We make eye contact, but I quickly avert my gaze when Tammy at the register gives me a smile.
“Good afternoon, Aura. He has been waiting for you for about an hour,” she says, motioning to Lane.
“Thank you, Tammy.”
After the third day, my boss and Tammy found it odd that he was always at the diner exactly when my shift starts and would leave when my shift ended. I had to tell them he was my baby’s father and my ex-boyfriend.
Tammy found it sweet but when I told her what he did and how he left me all alone, she told me to make him sweat. Since they are not into the race world, they haven’t noticed that Lane Turner is in their diner waiting on his baby momma until her shift is over.
More customers take a seat and I get to work. I hand out the menus and head over to Lane’s booth. I take out a pad and pen, and he scowls. “What can I get you?” I ask.
“You back in our house.”
“That’s not gonna happen. Are you going to order something or are you going to sit here like a stalker and watch me?”
“Why?”
“You know why and I hate repeating myself. I don’t like that house. It reminds me how I got here, and I want to move on, and so should you.”
“Is it the house? You don’t like it?”
