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I’m a dead man. I’m a fucking dead man. Well, this is an opportunity for me—an opportunity to march my ass straight to the grave.
It’s an opportunity to man up, cheesehead. Grow a set to save your set.
“Uh, the puking was unrelated to your news. Just so you know.” That’s it. Classy. Always keeping it classy. I don’t say that I now feel like puking all over again. “The scar…” I point at my face. “It wasn’t a butter knife. It was more like the business end of the fork end of a spork.”
“What in the tarnation of hell is a spork?”
“You know, those fork-spoon things. Not quite a fork, not quite a spoon. A spoon and a fork combined. It’s like a spoon and a fork had a baby and sp…I mean, oh god….”
“Hey, it’s going to be okay.” Ayana shakes her head and removes her hand from my shoulder. “Trying to drink with the guys last night, were you? You look like you need some more water. Maybe something with electrolytes. Do you have any of that?”
“Uh, no.” How the heck did she know I was drinking with the guys from the club? Right, she probably knows more than she lets on. In that case, if I have to spend a lot of time with her, maybe I could kill two birds with one—No! Are you fucking serious? You’re thinking about using her for information now? To bring down her dad? No way. This changes everything. What you really need to do is get your ass to the phone and get Granny and your brothers over here to motherfluffing debrief.
“Okay, water it is. I’ll pour us some, and we can sit and talk and figure this out, yes?”
I nod in agreement. Because what else am I going to do? My life was seriously complicated when I moved here. Working as an undercover bartender to take down a criminal biker club that does terrible things—I do it because Granny and my adopted brothers also all work to right the wrongs of society, usually in the form of cyber crimes perpetrated against really bad guys who could stand to be brought down because they’ve done heinous things, and the world is better off without them—yeah, that was complicated enough. Throw in a surprise pregnancy with the daughter of the very man I want to take down—well, him and his band of merry bloody bikers— um, then I guess that’s even more complicated.
Complicated 2.0 times infinity.
I trundle after Ayana, who takes charge. She’s all business mode as she pours me a glass of water in the kitchen. She sets it on the tiny island and grabs a glass out of the cupboard for herself. As she drinks deeply, she turns to face me, all without showing any signs of nerves.
If I thought this woman was a goddess before, a warrior woman, a lady gladiator, then I doubly think so now. I can imagine Ayana holding our baby in her arms, loving him or her, and promising the same thing her dad promised her—that she’ll always care for them and will never leave them, that she’ll fight for them, even if she has to take on the whole universe. She would look at our child with love in her eyes, love and tenderness, and then she’d look up and face the world, and her face would be granite strong and diamond tough.
As someone who was taught pretty much ever since the time I could cogitate that love was a commodity that I was never going to be worthy of or be able to earn—a bitter lie I spent years unlearning after Granny adopted me as a sullen, slightly broken, completely fucked up teenager—it seems image is everything.
It makes me feel tender and tenderized and kind of wrecked up, messed up, and torn up on the inside. It’s totally because I can’t imagine myself ever being held that way as a baby. There’s also a healthy dose of what Ayana told me about her own mother not wanting her, growing up as a little girl, knowing what she did, having to live with that, and moving on from it that keeps playing through my mind.
Now I’m picturing Ayana as a little girl, and gah, if that doesn’t make me think about what our daughter or son would look like. Maybe a little boy or girl with whisky-colored eyes and dark hair, just like their mom. Yeah, I’d want them to look like their mom.
Just like I knew I couldn’t use Ayana that night at the bar, I know I can’t go through with this. I can’t take down her dad’s club. I can’t hurt the man who raised her, who brought up and loved this amazing, brave, warrior woman—the woman carrying my child. This might be one hell of a wrench in the plans, but I’m not bailing. I’m not leaving Ayana alone to deal with this, no matter what.
