Welcome to Sugartown (31 page)

“
Hello?”

“
Hey,” I say
and give myself a mental smack-down.
Fucking wake up, man!
“I didn’t
think you’d pick up.”

“
Expecting
your boyfriend, huh?” she jokes.

I have no
idea what to say. This is such a turnaround from the last time we
spoke, I feel like I’ve just been bitch slapped. I laugh softly and
smile bigger than I have in months.

“
It’s good to
hear that sound,” she whispers. And fuck me, if there isn’t a whole
fucking world of longing in her voice. “It’s been a
while.”

“
Been a while
since I had something to laugh at, baby girl.”

“
Are you
okay?”

Fucking hell!
I feel like I’ve stepped into the twilight zone. Are we really
having this conversation? Is she coming around? Has she already
forgiven me for the things I did?

“
Yeah, I’m
alright. I got a parole hearing in a month’s time.”

“
Dad told
me.”

“
Is he
there?” I ask cautiously. I don’t want her to quit talking to me,
but I hate to think she’s only talking to me because she feels has
to.

“
You’d really
rather talk to my dad than me?”

“
Hell no!” I
say, too quickly. Fuck I sound desperate. I can’t help it though,
it’s driving me crazy hearing her voice and not being able to see
her, touch her. “How you been, baby?”

“
I’m okay.
Holly and Sammy are keeping me pretty busy. Jackson is driving me
nuts, though. I’m kinda wishing he’d haul his arse back to
Tenterfield. I don’t think the women of Sugartown have been acting
this crazy since you rode into town.”

“
Who’s
Jackson?” I say, and try not to sound like a possessive dick. I
have no right to do that, she doesn’t consider herself mine
anymore, but no matter what she might think she’ll always belong to
me. Fucked up logic, I know, but it is what it is.

“
Would you
relax? He’s my cousin. My aunt died last year, before you came, and
he’s been living in that big old farmhouse by himself. He finally
sold it and moved his big oafish butt in here and he’s been helping
Dad at the shop ever since.”

“
He a
mechanic?”

“
No. When you
get out you’re going to have more cars to fix than you know what to
do with. Assuming you want to come back to this backwards hellhole
of a town, that is?”

Christ! Is
she fishing?

“
Well that
depends.” I take a risk and flirt. You only live once, right? “Do I
have a girl to come back to?”

“
Elijah
….”

Fuck! Not
fishing. Not fucking fishing!

Even though
I’ve more than likely just fucked everything up, I can’t help
sinking myself further in. “Yes or no, baby girl?”

“
Honestly? I
don’t know. It sucks, but that’s all I can give you right now.
You’ll have a job when you come back, and I’ll always be here as a
friend.”

“
You wanna be
my goddamn friend, Ana?”

“
Elijah—”

“
Do you still
love me?” There’s a pause, and just when I think she isn’t going to
answer the beep that signals the last thirty seconds of our call
sounds in my ears. “Do you still love me?”

“
I—”

“
Yes or no,
Ana?”

Frustration
seeps from every pore in my body as I wait for the answer that
never comes. The phone cuts out and I slam the receiver down and
fight against the urge to go postal on the useless piece of shit.
If I destroy prison property it’ll go on record. If the parole
board see that shit in my file this close to my assessment they’ll
knock me back, for sure. The only way I’m getting an answer to that
question is if I see it coming from her lips when she’s standing
right in front of me, and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to wait
another six months to see her and hear those words.

Chapter Thirty
Two

Holly

(Yep,
Holly)

I heave up
the last of the dry crackers I’d shoved down my throat this morning
and curse men for all of eternity. When this kid finally claws his
way out of me I’m going to celebrate my vagina by purchasing stocks
in We-Vibe and drinking myself into a stupor. Then I’m going find
every battery-operated boyfriend I can get my mitts on and screw
myself into an orgasm coma. I’ll more than likely die alone,
crushed by the mountain of falling dildos, but at least I’ll never
have to look at a real penis again.

Falling back
against the cold tiled wall, I contemplate jumping off a bridge for
the thousandth time since I found out I’m growing a person inside
me—which is just wrong, on so many levels, if you really think
about it—and then decide my fat arse would probably never make it
over the railing. I’d likely get stuck halfway and have to wait for
emergency services to come and hoist me down from an embarrassing,
half-arsed attempt at offing myself. Plus, once Ana found out she’d
likely kill me, and then I would have wasted all the emergency
service’s time.

“This is
bullshit! I’m taking her arse to the doctor,” I hear Jackson
yelling in the hall and panic. He doesn’t know I’m pregnant. I
don’t know how he hasn’t figured it out yet. I don’t know why I so
badly want to keep this dirty little secret from spilling out. All
I know is that I feel alone and confused on an almost hourly basis,
but when Jackson’s in the room all that goes away and I can breathe
easier and think clearer and forget I’ve got a person inside me,
sucking all the joy from my bones.

Sharing a
house with him these past three weeks without the buffer of Bob,
Sammy and the evil bitch stepmum has been torture of the very
best—and worst—kind. It turns out the man is terrible at fixing up
cars, so he’s been jobless since Bob locked him out of the garage,
meaning he’s been spending an awful lot of time here in this big
old farmhouse by himself. Most of the time, I’m torn between
wanting to tear off his clothes and pulverise his face with our new
magic bullet, but I have to admit that there’s some sort of inner
peace I find in watching
Friends
reruns on the couch with him. Until he opens his
great big mouth, that is.

“You don’t
need to take her to the doctor,” Ana says, “she’s fine.”

“
She needs
help, Ana.”

I quickly
climb to my feet and brush my teeth. I spray a bit of perfume,
which of course makes me dry retch again, and I stand over the sink
fighting back the urge to vomit.

Jackson bangs
on the bathroom door and I wince. “Holly, get your arse out here.
I’m taking you to see someone.”

I pull back
the door and a gust of fresh air swirls around me, carrying the
acrid scent of vomit and toothpaste toward my nose. For a heartbeat
I just stand there, trying not to throw up again, and then I close
the door behind me and glare up at him like I’m more annoyed with
his overall Jackson-ness than usual.

To look at
me, you would never know I was pregnant. There’s no baby bump to
speak of, and though I should already be showing, I’ve actually
lost weight from the morning sickness. My boobs are definitely
bigger, but do guys ever really notice anything past “Oh look,
boobs”?

My moods have
been kinda crazy, in fact I’ve probably seen days where I’ve looked
like less of an escaped mental patient, but outwardly, I guess I
seem kind of normal. Or as normal as I get, anyway, so I guess it
makes sense he’d jump to the conclusion that I choose to chuck up
my guts for kicks.

I stare up
into his sky blue eyes and realise this is the moment that I have
to come clean. It’s also the moment I stop being the sexy little
minx that rocked his world once or twice in our not too distant
past, who he might like to bend over the kitchen counter and screw
senseless, and instead become a walking womb.

“
I don’t need
to see a doctor, Jack. I’m pregnant, not bulimic,” I blurt out, and
try to edge past him while his face is frozen in shock. He grabs my
wrist and pulls me back to face him.

“
What?” he
whispers, and I’m surprised by the hurt I see in his
gaze.

“
Jackson,
meet Mini Coop.” I wave my arm back and forth between him and my
stomach.

He glances
back and forth between my flat stomach and my eyes and then at Ana,
as if he’s hoping that this is all some fucked up joke. “Tell me
you’re shitting me, Hols?”

I don’t know
what to say. I wish someone would tell me this is all some kind of
joke, and then I’d grab his hand and run off to the nearest
available horizontal surface to bang his brains out. Yeah, that
ain’t happening, and this shit’s still real.

“
It’s true,”
Ana confirms, and Jackson swipes his hand over his face. His other
hand is balled into a tight fist and I can tell he’s dying to hit
something, or someone. I guess it’s a good thing Coop’s nowhere to
be found, after all.

“
Fuck!”

“
No thanks,
that’s kinda what landed me in this position in the first place,” I
deadpan, but that just makes him angrier. Jackson’s really not
taking this news well. I know we flirt and fight and carry on like
an old married couple, but I didn’t know he’d be this affected by
finding out I was pregnant with someone else’s baby. When he
narrows his gaze and pens me in against the wall, my breathing
becomes heavier. Wetness pools between my legs and my nipples
harden into stiff peaks beneath my singlet top. Holy crap, I have a
total lady boner for Jackson Rowe right now.

“
How could
you be so fucking stupid, Hols?” he’s seething as he says it, but
there’s not just anger and disappointment in his tone—there’s hurt,
too.

Aaaand the
happy feeling’s gone.

“
Jackson!”
Ana chides.

“
You know
what, Jack? I ask myself that on a daily basis.”

“
But you’re
always careful?”

“
Yeah, except
for that one time where I wasn’t, and I trusted my boyfriend enough
to believe that the condom we were using wasn’t centuries old, but
then: surprise! Turns out you can’t trust any man these days, even
the ones that claim they love you. Who knew, right? Now, if you’re
done with your caveman bullshit, I have to get ready for
work.”

“
Who is
he?
Where
the
fuck is he?”

“
Don’t know,
don’t care.”

“
What do you
mean you don’t know? He’s gonna take care of this shit, isn’t
he?”

Why the hell
does he care so much?
I know there’s this
out of control chemical pull between the two of us, but I have no
idea why he’d be acting like some jealous tool. This is Jackson
Rowe we’re talking about. Jack doesn’t form emotional ties to
anyone, that’s what makes him so freaking fantastic in bed. There
are no inhibitions when it comes to sex with Jackson, only intense
animal heat and multiple orgasms.

“
I really
hope you didn’t just refer to my baby as
this shit
. Because pregnant or not,
I will take your arse down. And no, Coop won’t be taking care of
this baby. He won’t even know about it.”

“
What do you
mean he won’t know? You’re not telling him he has a
kid?”

“
No. I’m not
telling him shit.”

“
What the
fuck, Hols?”

“
Jackson, lay
off,” Ana butts in.

“
Don’t tell
me you’re alright with this shit?” Jackson shoots Ana an
incredulous look before turning back to me. “The man has a right to
know about his kid.”

“
As far as
I’m concerned, he gave up any rights he had when he left me here
with his demon seed to go become a rock star.”

“
Did you just
call your baby demon seed?” Jackson says.

“
Hey, I’m
allowed to call him whatever the hell I like, he’s
my
baby. Just like the
decision to tell his father is mine and no one else’s.”

“
Oh yeah?
Well, when the hell were you going to tell me about this? When I’m
giving up my room for a nursery, and kissing my sex life goodbye
because there’s a baby screaming into all hours of the
night?”

“
As if that
would ever stop you. The entire house could be on fire, and you
wouldn’t notice a thing until you’d blown your load.”

“
Are you
fucking serious right now?”

“
Oh, I’m
deadly serious. What I’d like to know is why you think you’re so
fucking important that you deserve to know what goes on in
my
life? You’re my
roommate, Jackson, nothing more.”

Jack flinches
like he’s just been slapped. I didn’t mean for that to come out the
way it did, and though I don’t know why, I know I’ve managed to
hurt him badly. I also feel like complete and utter crap. I didn’t
mean any of the things I just said to him and—oh, how wonderful,
now I’m acting like a complete and utter girl and tears are
springing into my eyes. God, I’m so damn mad I could choke him and
yet all I want to do is wrap my arms around his middle and beg him
to forgive me.