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No rent! No rent! Did he have any idea how much having five to seven hundred dollars more a month would do for me? I could save. Make sure that my child never wanted. They could get into after school activities and other extra curriculars, they could go on class trips. They would never know what it was like to have to duct tape the bottom of their shoes -unless that grew trendy in the next fifteen years or so. One could never know with fashion.
“Does these seem satisfactory to you?” James asked, looking at me with a soft expression on his face.
For someone who could be so intensely intimidating, he certainly didn’t make me feel frightened. In fact, he made me feel safer than I had in ages and I was pretty sure I was at the highest level of gratitude that a human could possibly be.
“Yes. Definitely,” I said, nearly breathless from the excitement in my chest. Could this really be happening? I kept waiting for the sky to fall or the ceiling to drop and end all of my good fortune.
“Great,” Trevor said. “So how about we get to signing?”
He handed each of us a pen and James signed right away. But all I could do is stare at the paper, wondering if either of these guys knew how much this was going to completely change my life.
They couldn’t know. Could they? It didn’t seem likely.
“Are you alright?” James asked, sensing my hesitancy.
“Yeah,” I murmured. “Just thinking.” I took a deep breath, signing my name underneath his, and the next thing I knew, I was legally set up to have an amazing life.
“There we are,” Trevor said, collecting the papers. I’ll have this copied in triplicate and authenticated then I’ll send a packet to each of you and keep one on file.”
With a sort of finality that I could explain, he got up, put the papers in his briefcase, then walked to the door.
“After the two of you, of course.”
Oh, I guessed that was our cue to go and stood, heading out right after James. I didn’t know what to say, hell, I hardly knew what to think but I was intrinsically aware at how amazing this all had turned out for me.
We headed out to his car and I really tried to think of what to say that could possibly convey everything I meant to say. How happy, grateful and guilty I was.
“Sorry,” I said finally as we clambered into the car.
“Sorry for what?” He sounded genuinely surprised and I could have smacked myself for my lame lead in.
“For running. I should have tried to find you. I was just so sure that you were a needle in a haystack and even if I did find you, that you would definitely be against me having this child.”
“I wish you hadn’t too, but I understand your reasons. What’s done is done, and the important thing is that we move forward. You’re having this child, and I don’t want to be an absentee dad. And I also don’t want to have tension between us, even if we are getting divorced.”
“I… thank you. Really. You don’t know what this means to me.”
“Well, I have a bit of an idea. But I get what you mean.” We both let out a long breath at the same time and that made us both laugh, breaking the tension between us. It went on for a minute or two, before simmering down. But one question I was left with was…what now?
“Hold on one moment,” James said, ask if he had read my mind. “I need to make a call.”
“By all means,” I said, putting on my seatbelt and settling in. “I’m in no rush. I don’t have any place to go.”
He nodded and was already dialing. I listened, able to hear the voice on the other end much better, and it only took a couple of seconds for me to pick up that it was some sort of real estate agency.
“Hey, Stacy, I have a sort of special request for you.”
“And what’s that Mr. Hines?”
“I need you to find me a modest two-bedroom apartment in St. Louis, preferably by a reputable school district.”
“Of course. Any reason why?”
“Diversifying my portfolio,” he said quickly in a way that very clearly got across that he wasn’t going to discus it further.
“Absolutely, Mr. Hines. I’ll have those to you by next weekend.”
“Try tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I… of course Mr. Hines. I appreciate the challenge. If you don’t mind, I’ll get on that right now.”
“Of course, you have a good day Stacy.”
He hung up and I raised one of my eyebrows at him. “Huh, you really were stern with her.”
But he just shrugged, looking pleased as he tucked his phone away. “That’s just how you have to be with Stacy. We’ve worked together for years and she’s always had a… peculiar way of being motivated.” I wanted to ask him exactly what he meant by that, because it was raising all sorts of hmmm bells in my head, but he was already moving on. “I’m starving though. Do you want to go to… I don’t know, the local mall or something and hit up the food court then go shopping for baby supplies.”
