Where the Heart is (Interracial with Baby) (BWWM) (10 page)

It wasn't a text, though. Instead it was a notification from the app she'd downloaded to keep track of her period.

The notification was saying that unless she'd forgotten to log the start of her cycle, she was a week late. That wasn't anything out of the ordinary, really. She started late or early all the time, and so she didn't think anything of it. Stress usually threw her hormones out of whack, and while she'd had a good Christmas and New Years all things considered, they hadn't been what anyone would consider stress free.

Putting it out of her mind, she went back to work.

In late January, Adelaide got sick, and Jamie didn't have time to think about herself or her body. She was busy caring for her mother, staying later and helping the nurses, and when it turned out to be just a bad bought of the flu and not a turn for the worse, Jamie's relief was palpable.

By mid February, she was getting another notification from her phone, and it hit her that she still hadn't had her period.

It was easy enough to continue to blame it on stress, but something told her that it was better to be safe than sorry about stuff like this. Especially given the number of times she and Simon had slept together while he'd been in town. It only made sense to check.

Her heart was pounding and she felt a little sick as she went to the drugstore after work one night. She'd been distracted all day over this, and she just wanted to know one way or the other, although it would have been obvious which way she was hoping this would turn out.

Never before had she been hoping that she had just been really stressed out for the past two months.

Luckily, no one she knew was working the register, and she didn't care if the pimple faced teenage boy who rang up her soda and three pregnancy tests looked at her strange. She didn't have to prove anything to him, and hopefully he didn't know who she was so she wouldn't have to deal with the rumor the next day.

She chugged the soda on the way home, and when she got in, she headed straight for the bathroom. No use delaying the process, right?

Those were probably the longest thirty seconds of her life, but when she looked down at the test, there was no denying what she saw.

By the time midnight rolled around, she had taken all three tests and each one of them told her the same thing.

She was pregnant.

Jamie slid down to the bathroom floor with her head in her hands. This had
not
been a part of the plan. Never in her life had she had to worry about something like this. She's always been so careful, always. She liked kids, sure, but she'd always thought that she would be married before she started having them. Living in a nice home with a steady job that didn't leave her smelling like french fries and coffee at the end of the day. And then stupid Simon Blake had come along and thrown everything out of whack and now she was
pregnant.

What was she going to tell people? What was she going to tell her mother?

And the biggest question of all: what was she going to tell Simon?

Because he had a part in this, just like she did. There was no doubt that this was his baby. Before he'd come back it had been several months since she'd last been with anyone. And now she was pregnant.

What would he do?

What would he
say
?

She didn't even know how he felt about kids or if he wanted any, and she already knew that he probably didn't want any
now
when he was still getting his life in order and trying to reach his goals.

Before she knew it, she was crying, her shoulders shaking and the sound of her sobs echoing in the bathroom.

Jamie had dealt with a lot of hard things in her life, but how in the world was she going to deal with this?

The hospital was the same busy, chaotic place it had always been when Simon got back to it. After the small, rather insulated nature of being back in the place where he'd grown up, being back in the city with all its noise and bustle was jarring at first, but then it felt like home all over again.

He had just enough time to unpack and clean up when he got back to his apartment, ordering a large Chinese food dinner and tucking in before he went straight to bed in anticipation of his first shift of the new year.

Having a break had been nice, he had to admit, but there was nothing like getting back to work when you loved what you did, and he had missed it dearly.

Rubbing sleep from his eyes and finishing a to go cup of coffee, Simon passed through the automatic doors, shoes squeaking on the shiny linoleum of the lobby.

"Well, Happy New Year, Dr. Blake," called Ruby, the nurse behind the front desk. She flashed him a grin and a wave. "Long time, no see."

Simon grinned back and shrugged. "Had to take a break at some point. It's good to be back, though."

Ruby snorted. "You say that now, but you just wait until you get upstairs. Bus crash last night because of the black ice. Forty people in stable to critical condition. Place is a mad house."

He couldn't help the fact that his smile stayed in place. "I'm not happy about the bus crash, but it's good to have something to do again."

She shook her head at him and waved him towards the staircase that led up to the second floor and the general ward.

It was buzzing with life when he got there, doctors and nurses hustling from place to place and the beeping of machines under it all. This was what he had started this job for. For the feeling of plunging into the chaos and leaving order and well being in his wake.

He caught sight of one of his mentors and hurried over. "Dr. Hernandez," he said, smiling. "Where do you want me?"

"Oh, Simon. You're back. Excellent. There's a young girl in room 210, and she's got multiple fractures. You're good at soothing the young ones, so see if you can calm her down long enough to get the IV in her. She needs to be out so we can set her arms and legs."

Simon winced. Being young and having several weeks in casts to look forward to couldn't be fun. He nodded and headed off, snagging her chart as he went.

His work load didn't let up until the hour after lunch time, when he finally managed to get a break long enough to go down to the cafeteria and collapse into a chair with a cup of coffee and a sandwich.

He'd spent the morning going from room to room and bed to bed, stabilizing patients and discharging others, talking to worried family members and assuring them that their loved ones were getting the best care possible. There wasn't time to think about how hungry he was or how tired he was going to be when he finally got done, and he was nearly slumped over the table now that he had a break.

The cafeteria wasn't full, by any means, but there was the occasional tired looking doctor nursing a cup of coffee and worried looking groups of visitors who seemed to have claimed all the tables by the windows.

Actually, it was rather quiet at the moment, and a true testament to just how busy things were on the wards if all the doctors were otherwise occupied. He was grateful to have grabbed a break when he could, even though the thought of having to get back up and get back to it loomed over him.

While it was on his mind, he sent Jamie a text, letting her know that his first day back was hectic.

It hadn't been two days yet and he already missed her something fierce and couldn't fathom how he had gone seven years without speaking to her.

Obviously he wouldn't be doing that again.

By the time he put down his phone, the chair across from him was occupied by Nurse Abigail Fuller, a pretty young woman a little bit older than him with vivid red hair and a face full of freckles. She smiled, flashing dimples when he looked up at her. "Simon," she said, sounding almost breathless. "I heard you were back. How were your holidays?"

"Better than expected," Simon replied, leaving it at that. He didn't know her well enough to get into details, even though she seemed to have a habit of being wherever he was when they had down time.

It was obvious that she was interested in him, but Simon didn't return the feeling. She was lovely, but there was just something about her that put him off. She never seemed to have any trouble talking to him, but Simon found himself struggling to do more than return her words with polite responses before he was ready to escape.

"We missed you around here," she said, fingers wrapped around her own cup of coffee. "Somehow this place seemed smaller."

He arched an eyebrow. "Really? I find that hard to believe."

"Maybe it was just to me, then," Abigail said, shrugging. "Either way, it's good to have you back."

Simon smiled politely. "Thanks."

"You know, I um. I made a New Years Resolution this year. It's probably silly, but I thought it would be a good way to start things off, you know?"

"Sure. Makes sense. I thought about it, but I'm so bad at that kind of thing."

Her smile widened as she leaned a bit more across the table. "Do you want to know what my resolution was?"

"Sure."

"I'm going to try and be better about going for the things I want," Abigail replied. "Not give up before I try and all that."

He could clearly see where that was going, so he crumbled up the wrapper from his sandwich and got to his feet. "Well, I wish you luck with that Nurse Fuller," he said. "It's a mad house upstairs, as I'm sure you know already, and I've got to get back to the grind, but it was nice to see you." Suddenly the thought of getting back to work was seeming better and better.

"You too," she said, and he could feel her eyes lingering on him the whole time as he walked out.

Of course, by the end of the first week back he'd forgotten all about that conversation and by the end of January he had learned how to avoid her all together. His friends teased him about it, saying that he should just go for it and then he'd already have a girlfriend who knew that he had to work insane hours.

Simon just laughed that off and kept to himself, working and making an effort to talk to his dad and Jamie as much as he could during the week.

By the time February was nearing its end, Simon could say that he was pretty darn happy with his life. He was excelling at work, managing to have something resembling a social life, and keeping his promise to do better at not forgetting where he came from. Everything was going as well or better than he would have expected, and he felt good as he left the movies with a group of his friends from school, laughing as they all headed to their respective cars.

He had the next day off, and he intended to rescue his apartment from the mess it had fallen into and run some errands. And maybe see if Jamie wanted to video chat or something.

They had been doing so well at texting and talking on the phone on the regular, but there was no real substitute for seeing her face.

Simon turned his phone back on as he got into the car, noting that he had a missed call from his dad and a text from Jamie.

Can you give me a call when you have chance?

It had been sent an hour before and she hadn't texted again, so Simon called his dad back, putting the phone on speaker so he could talk as he drove.

When he got back to his apartment he grabbed a beer and settled on the couch before dialing Jamie's number.

"What's up?" he asked when she picked up.

Usually when he talked to Jamie, she burst right in with some story about something that had happened to her at work or when she'd been out, but now she was quiet, and if it weren't for her breathing on the other end, Simon would have thought that the call disconnected. He frowned, sitting up a bit. "Jamie? What is it?"

"What kind of mood are you in?" she asked finally, and it was so strange to hear her sound so timid and unsure.

"A good one, I guess. What's going on? You're starting to worry me now."

She let out a breath that sounded loud over the phone. "I have something really important to tell you, but I'm not sure how you're going to take it."

"Well," Simon said slowly. "You won't know for sure until you tell me. So you should probably start there, don't you think?" This wasn't like Jamie at all from what he knew of her, and his heart rate kicked up a notch because whatever it was that had her so worried, it was probably bad.

"So. I um." Jamie laughed, and it sounded bitter. "I practiced this, you know. For a week before today. But I can't make the words come out. Maybe I should have just texted it to you, but that seemed like the coward's way of doing it, and I didn't want to be a coward about this."

"Jamie, I'm really going to need you to just tell me what it is. You've got all kinds of stuff going through my head now, and I just need to know." He was picturing all sorts of horrible fates. Her mother being on her death bed. Jamie somehow getting sick enough that she was close to dying. The Pit burning down in a horrible explosion. Having an overactive imagination was a blessing and a curse.

"Okay. Okay, you're right. Here's the thing. The thing is..." She sucked in a breath. "The thing is I'm pregnant. At least I think I am. I haven't been to the doctor yet, but the seven pregnancy tests I've taken in the last eight days seem to all agree that there is a bun in my oven. So to speak."

Simon nearly dropped his phone. Of all the things he had been expecting her to say that was not one of them. "You... You're
pregnant
?" he asked, needing to hear that one more time just to make sure he wasn't hallucinating it.

"Yes," Jamie whispered. "Are you...um. How do you feel about that?"

"What do you
mean
how do I feel about that?" Simon demanded. "That's... I..." It seemed impossible to get his head around. "Am I the first one to hear about this?"

"Yes," she said again. "It seemed appropriate."

He blinked, confused. "
Why
?"

Jamie was silent for all of ten seconds. "Because it's
your
baby, you moron!" she shouted. "
God
. What are you doing, just sitting there trying to figure out who knocked me up? It was you! How many men do you think I sleep with. I would have had to move pretty fast since you left if that was the case."

Simon could hear the hurt in her tone, and he sighed. "No, I." But he had to cut himself off because it would be a lie to say that when she'd first said those words his thought hadn't been
what does that have to do with me.

It was a whole new level of surreal now that he knew exactly what it had to do with him. The last thing he'd ever expected was to hear those words said to him, and he blinked, memory scrambling to try and find a place when they hadn't been careful. He'd been sure to use condoms all the times when they'd been together, or so he thought, and Jamie had been on the pill to regulate her cycle, but clearly something had gone wrong somewhere.

"Do... do you know when it happened?" he asked finally.

"Not the exact date, no. But if I had to guess, I'd say it was Christmas. We were drunk, and I don't remember you getting out of the shower to wrap it up."

"B-but you're on the pill, aren't you?"

Jamie huffed. "Aren't you supposed to be the doctor here? I shouldn't have to tell you that the pill isn't one hundred percent effective. Especially not since I'm telling you that I'm pregnant. You're supposed to be the smart one."

While Simon scrambled to find something, anything to say to that, Jamie continued. "Look. I didn't call you because I'm looking for something from you. I already know that there's a good chance that I'm gonna be doing this on my own." Her voice faltered a bit at that, but she cleared her throat and pressed on. "And that's fine. I didn't have a dad, and I made it out fine. I just wanted you to know that this is happening. So when you come back for a visit one day, you're not shocked out of your mind when you see a little kid running around with your eyes or stupid chin. I just... wanted you to know."

She said that, but even though his shock, Simon could tell that wasn't all she wanted. He knew her well enough to know that this had to be scary for her. How could it not be? She'd gone from having to look after herself and her mother to having the looming threat of having a
child
hanging over her head.

"So you're just going to raise it by yourself?" he was asking before he could think better of it.

"What else do you expect me to
do
, Simon?" Jamie demanded. "I'm not getting rid of it, and it's obvious that you don't want to be a part of this from how eager you are to accept the responsibility of being the one who did it! So yeah. I guess I'm raising it by myself. Look, there's another thing you can judge me for. I'm turning into a regular small town stereotype, huh? Community college, working as a waitress, pregnant out of wedlock. Someone should give me a prize right?"

"Jamie, that's not..."

"No," she said, cutting him off, and he could hear the exact moment when she started crying. "No. I don't want to hear it, Simon, okay? I'm sorry for just dropping this on you. I'm sorry that you came back and now your life is ruined or whatever. But I mean it. You don't have to do anything. You can just pretend like you never got this call."