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Everything her dad said to me made sense that day. He knew who the baby’s father was. He knew about us. Which meant he’d stop at nothing to keep me away from her. Too bad for him that I’d never be able to walk away from those eyes that pierced deep down into my soul.
“Navy!” he shouted, and a second later the front door slammed closed. “Navy! The back alarm went off.”
She tried to back away from me, her hands clutching onto my arms. She was trying to get away but come closer all at the same time. “Dante,” she whispered again, but it was a plea, one that I was helpless but to adhere to.
“This isn’t over,” I told her, then placed my lips against hers, sealing the deal with a kiss.
His footsteps pounded up the stairs. I only had seconds to get out of there, so I let her go, hating that I wasn’t touching her anymore, then climbed back out of her window, just in time for her bedroom door to burst open and her dad to appear.
“Dad? What are you doing?”
“The alarm in the backyard went off.”
I pressed against the outside wall, wanting to hear what he’d say to her.
“Oh.” She sounded so innocent. “Sorry, that might have been me, I needed some air, so I went outside.”
My heart raced as he answered her. Even though I wanted to stay, I knew I had to get out of here before he did a check of the perimeter. I had no doubt he’d shoot first and ask questions later, and the last thing I needed was for him to take me out when I’d just found out I was going to be a dad.
I had a purpose, a reason for living, not just because Navy was carrying my baby, but because I’d finally been able to touch her again.
I was telling the truth when I told her this wasn’t over.
It’d never be over, not as long as I had breath in my body and blood coursing through my veins.
CHAPTER 5
NAVY
“I feel like I’m going to pop at any second,” I groaned, placing my hand against the bottom of my back as I walked across the parking lot.
“You look like it too,” Zara said, a playful lilt to her tone. She may have been joking, but both she and I knew that I’d grown so much over the last couple of weeks. There was no mistaking that I was pregnant now, which was why I hadn’t been surprised when the school counselor had called me into her office after lunch.
She’d given me the talk about all of the options that were available to me, as well the support that she and other people provided, but if I was honest, most of it went into one ear and straight out of the other.
I felt completely on my own in this. Everyone around me knew, yet I felt even more ostracized than I had when no one knew. My dad still was barely talking to me, and Dante…well…I hadn’t seen Dante since he’d climbed into my bedroom window five days ago.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Zara said as we halted next to my car. Hers was a few spaces over.
“Yep.” I smiled the best I could with my aching back, then pushed into my car.
My mind was a whirlwind of thoughts as I pulled away from the school, panicking about what would happen in the next month. I hadn’t gotten a single thing ready, in fact, you wouldn’t even think a baby was about to arrive if you walked into my house. I wasn’t prepared, not one bit, yet…I felt as mentally prepared as ever. My mind was ready, my heart full of love for the baby that would soon appear. But still, I had things I needed to get, so as I took the turn toward home, I made a mental list of things.
Clothes, blankets, pacifier…the list went on and on, and the closer to home I got, the more I realized that Ireallywasn’t prepared at all. I’d been so preoccupied with keeping it a secret that I hadn’t thought about what would happen afterward except that I was keeping the baby.
My hand naturally veered to my stomach as I pulled onto my street.
I knew something was off the moment I pulled into the driveway and saw a car parked outside the house. Every fiber of my being warned me not to go inside. To reverse and drive away until the car was gone from my house. But I was too tired and also starving. I needed pineapple and some soft cheese. It was all I was craving at the moment, and I swore I was beginning to look like a pineapple with the amount I was eating.
My engine ticked over as I was sitting there, staring at the front door, waiting to see if Dad would open it. There was no doubt he’d heard my car pull up. But minutes went by and the door didn’t open. His face didn’t appear annoyed and he didn’t demand that I got in the house.
He’d changed—become harder and less like the dad I’d grown up with. Every time he looked at me, it was with disdain—a disdain I wasn’t familiar with being on the receiving end of. But the problem was, I was staring at him in the same way. I’d lost all respect for him after he’d taken me to that adoption agency. Which was why we barely spoke to each other.
Small talk. That was the only way to describe what we were doing. It was weird, foreign, so unlike us. But it was the way our lives had become.
My stomach groaned, demanding food, and that was what finally had me turning the engine off and getting out of the car. It wasn’t easy getting in and out of it now, not with how much my bump had grown over the last couple of weeks. I couldn’t see my feet, and I’d had to resort to any kind of shoes that I could slip on because laces were a definite no-go.
Each of my muscles ached as I slowly made my way to the door, hating how what was normal weather outside made me feel like I was in a sauna. I’d resorted to lying on my tiled bathroom floor at night just to get a bit of relief from the constant warmth that seemed to wrap around me.
