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“Uh…hello? You still there, fucker?” Cap’s voice is a shock to my ear, but I’m too busy scrambling for the remote to register what he’s saying. I thumb the toggle for the volume up button until the voices on the TV are unmistakably clear.
This…the rest of this…I cannot miss.
“Raquel’s team couldn’t be reached for comment, but an inside source believes the actress to be about four months along.”
Whaaaaaaat? Four months along?!
I count back the months in my head.
November…October…September…August…
August fucking fifteenth, to be exact.
Like a NASCAR driver hitting the gas on the green flag, my mind races with memories of that very specific night that happened exactly four months ago.
My lips on hers.
Her hands sliding into the waistband of my jeans.
Her perfectly beautiful violet-colored eyes as I slipped inside her.
I swallow hard.
The last time I saw her—or talked to her, for that matter—was four fucking months ago, and now, Raquel…my Rocky is pregnant?
And she’s fucking famous?
Jesus Christ. Could I be any more out of the loop right now?
Apparently, disdain for television being drilled into your head at an early age is good for business but not so good for your personal life…
Holy. Fucking. Shit. This can’t be real.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it appears the odds are ever in your favor, you no-condom-wearing idiot…
My heart pounds in my throat, and my breaths come out in erratic pants.
I feel railroaded. Like a man who’s trying to work his way upstream in a canoe without a fucking paddle and against a tsunami-like current.
“Dude, why are you breathing so heavy?” Cap, the fucker, he just won’t go away. “Are you getting a morning wank session in while you’re on the goddamn phone with me?”
“N-no,” I stutter, too damned shocked by today’s news to even know what is happening right now.
“Whatever. I don’t care. You can blow your fucking load for all I care as long as you stay focused on the important shit.” he replies, completely unfazed. “My investments. Who should I be buying into?”
Important shit? Yeah, I’m pretty much drowning in important shit of my own over here.
I am in charge of my own destiny, I remind myself and try to steady my voice as I ramble off some bullshit to keep Cap from realizing I’m awfully damn close to a nervous breakdown.
“Amazon, Google, Apple, those are always safe bets.”
“Oh, gee, thanks for the information that pretty much everyone on the face of the fucking planet knows,” he retorts.
I am in charge of my own destiny, I mentally repeat.
Because I am in charge of my own destiny, but at the current moment, my control feels remarkably like the scene in Top Gun when Tom Cruise flies the plane through the jet wash and sends himself into an I’m so fucked tailspin.
I grab at the knot of my tie and yank as hard as I can. It’s fucking hot in here. Did my Nest lose its mind and set the temperature to surface of the sun plus a couple degrees?
My hands settle on top of my head, and I force myself to take a deep breath. When I look down at the mess on top of the table, out of pure instinct, a laugh bubbles out of me from all those years with my mother.
“Yeah, funny ha-ha.” Cap’s stupid voice fills my ears again. “Come on, Harrison. Give me the good stuff.”
Okay. Okay, relax, I coach myself. The timing is suspicious, but there’s no way to know that this baby is mine, right? I mean, who knows—
“As Hollywood’s longest-reigning virgin,” the shrill voice on the television continues and snags my attention once again, “Raquel Weaver is the last celebrity we expected to see sporting a baby bump. Fans have immediately started speculating the date they first noticed her purity ring missing was sometime in mid-August, and they think it’s a big clue to the exact time of conception.”
Purity ring? That’s a thing that still exists?
A memory hits me hard, right in the gut.
Ah fuck.
I take off at a sprint for my bedroom and pull open the top drawer of my nightstand with no finesse whatsoever. Barren of contents other than one book, mints, and a mocking brand-new pack of condoms, the drawer leaves little question whether the item I’m looking for is a figment of my imagination or not.
The ring she left on the nightstand that night twinkles in the morning sunlight like a beacon.
Gingerly, I pick it up and toy with the small band between the tips of my fingers. Simultaneously, I work hard to remember how to breathe.
It’s a simple, thin, white-gold band with tiny pavé diamonds around the outside. Delicate, beautiful—a perfect figure of symbolism for Rocky.
I flip and twist the tiny metal around to inspect it further, but it isn’t until I turn it all the way around and flip it over that the engraving on the inside of the band stands out.
