The Princess and the Prospect Read online

  “It’s time for you to go home, sis.”

  “I know,” I whined to Toby as I turned to head to the door and out to my car. My brother walked me to my car and saw me inside.

  “I’m going to need that promise from you,” he told me. When I just stared at him blankly, he tried again. “If you’re still interested and you’re both single when you turn 18, I will have your back and make sure the brothers stay out of your way if it’s something you both want.”

  “Really?” I’d asked apprehensively. “You would do that for me?”

  “I’m not making any promises for him, Anna. That’s only if he meets you and wants that too. Keep your head out of the clouds about him. Fantasy and reality rarely meet up in the way we think they will.”

  “Whatever.” I’d dismissed him with a little attitude and a quick punch to his shoulder. “Thanks, Toby.”

  “Love you, squirt!”

  “Love you too,” I told him, and then I’d driven from the clubhouse to our home where I broke part of my promise. I started daydreaming about the day when Evan and I would be together. I dreamed of our marriage, and the children we would have. A boy that looked like him and girl that resembled me.

  My marriage – the real thing – was nothing like what I’d imagined all those many months ago. It had almost been a year now since I had that conversation with my big brother. He would be so disappointed in me. My marriage was only a piece of paper signed by two people. There were no rings exchanged. No kisses to seal the deal. We only had the one picture of Joker’s hand and part of my silhouette. He had put his hand up to keep anyone from taking wedding pictures for us. Ever had snuck that one in on my phone, but honestly you couldn’t even see either of our faces in it. Then there was the other picture taken on our wedding night. The one that showed in vivid detail that one of us also did not get to indulge in the consummation part of the wedding night. Considering that was the case, I could probably have the marriage annulled like it never happened. It was something to think about.

  I never would have guessed I would be turning 18 all alone with a baby in my belly and a divorce on the way. So much for all my dreams I wrote about in this stupid diary. My brother was right. Reality didn’t meet my expectations. It killed them, along with the dreams I’d had for my future.

  I must have fallen asleep rereading the words in my diary, because when I woke, my cheek rested on the open page and there was a telling wetness to the paper. I’d like to say it was from tears that had leaked from my eyes at the loss of my dreams, but I was pretty sure my tear ducts were all dried out at this point. Instead, I had to be embarrassed because it was definitely drool marking my paper, and the reason I had been startled awake was standing in front of me smiling at the sight I made. Ugh.

  “Hi,” he said as he attempted to hide his smile.

  “Hi,” I parroted while trying to shake off the grogginess. I moved to sit up and tucked my diary away in the backpack sitting at me feet.

  “Were you working on homework?”

  “No, something else. Is there something you need?”

  “Yes,” he finally said before taking a seat across from me in the chair.

  “Okay, what is it? Do you need me to move out now?”

  “No. I told you the house is yours, Anna.”

  “What do we need to talk about then?”

  “I wanted to make sure you had everything you need. I was paying the utility bills today, and it reminded me that there were other things you might need. I don’t know when your make-up appointment is, but if you let me know how much…”

  “You paid the utility bills?” I asked.

  He grinned at me. “Yes, that’s why the lights stay on.”

  I felt a little sick. I was already failing at this adulting thing. “I didn’t even think about it,” I admitted.

  “Why would you? You’ve never had to pay them before.” He shrugged it off like it was nothing. In reality, it was everything. He was still taking care of me even when I had refused to tell him about appointments and had been a brat. He had been right that day when he yelled at my sister and Gretchen. I had been purposely avoiding him every step of the way. I never allowed him to speak to me long enough to even ask more than a simple, ‘how are you?’.

  When I didn’t say anything else, the slip of a smile on his face vanished and he stood again. “Okay, well, I’ll get out of your way then. I just wanted to check in and let you know that’s been taken care of so you wouldn’t be worried. If you need anything, shoot me a text.”

  I laughed at that. It sounded like the most empty promise I’d been handed outside of our wedding vows.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You wanting me to text you.”

  “What exactly is funny about that? I meant it.”

  I continued to laugh, but with each heaving breath I took as a result the laughter turned to me choking on sobs instead. These hormones were dooming me to eternal humiliation.

  “Anna? What the hell?”

  It took a minute, but I was able to pull myself together enough to let him know why me texting him about my troubles was about as ridiculous and pointless as me writing in my stupid drool-stained journal. “I’d have to know your number in order to text you, Joker.”

  A look akin to horror and surprise crossed his face at the mention of the fact that I didn’t have a number I could text to get a hold of him other than through a third party, I supposed. If I was going to go through someone else, I’d just tell them my troubles instead.

  “Shit! I thought I had given it to you.” He seemed to be trying to remember the moment when he supposedly gave it to me, but I knew better. That moment never happened. “I remember talking about it with Deck,” he told me as he glanced back down at me looking puzzled still. “I’m sorry, Anna. I didn’t realize.” He asked me to get my phone out then, and rattled off his new number. I put it in my cell. “Now text me really quick so I know you got the right one in there.”

  “I’m not stupid,” I scolded.

  “Not saying you are, beautiful. I hit the wrong numbers often. It happens.”

  I didn’t respond to him calling me beautiful. Instead, I texted him.

  Me: This is not the wrong number.

  His phone dinged with the incoming text and when he read it, he laughed, making me feel warm inside to see that response from him for the first time in far too long. I used to love making him laugh because it made his eyes shine so brightly when he did. Joker was a man who was born to smile, laugh, and make people happy. I felt like I had destroyed a part of that when I wasn’t honest with him about who I was, and I’d been swimming in that guilt ever since.

  “I see you got the text this time, Joker,” I insisted.

  “I don’t like when you do that,” he told me.

  “Do what?”

  “Call me Joker. It doesn’t seem right coming from you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you used to call me Evan.”

  “You used to call me something different too,” I admitted, bringing up my shameful mistake.

  “That was out of necessity for you, not what you really wanted me to call you, right?” I tipped my head up and down in agreement before he continued on. “Well, I liked you calling me Evan. I wish you would again.” I felt the blush burn hot on my cheeks. One of the last times I’d spoken his name had been when we were having sex and I’d called out his name. He smiled warmly at me, his eyes going molten the way they did when he was aroused before. Clearly, he had been remembering the same thing. “I’d like for us to not be strangers to one another anymore, Anna. I want to be friends at the very least, but if I’m being honest. It kills me not to be involved with stuff going on with the baby. I don’t know what it will take to get you to come around about that, but you have to let me in. I don’t even feel like it’s real. It’s just something everyone keeps talking about to me. I don’t want to be a stranger in my child’s life.”

  “I know, and I�
�m sorry. I honestly wasn’t doing it to hurt you so much as protect me.”

  “I would never hurt you,” he started to say. “Not intentionally, and definitely never physically.”

  “I’ll do better, I promise.” I reached into the bookbag that was still sitting at my feet and grabbed my appointment card out of it. “Here,” I told him as his fingers brushed over my own before he took hold of the card.

  “What is this?”

  “My next appointment, so you know when and where to be there.”

  He took his phone out and took a picture of it before trying to hand it back. “Keep it. I already have it in my calendar. He nodded and then just stared at the card for a really long time. It was in that moment I realized how much I had truly messed up about the appointments. I could see how much it meant to him, and the guilt swam through me again at the thought that I’d denied him the ability to get to know his child in the same ways I was.

  “I cry every time I hear the baby’s heartbeat,” I admitted. “You would think maybe just the first time, but every time I hear that quick little flutter of sound, it’s like magic.” His eyes shifted from the card to meet mine as he listened to what I was saying. “I don’t want to know what the sex is even though they’re supposed to be able to tell me at this appointment.”

  “Why not?”

  “There aren’t too many real surprises left in the world. I want this to be one of them,” I explained as I patted my belly.

  “I think I’d rather know so I can get prepared. I’d hate for people to buy a bunch of pink stuff and it end up being a boy.”

  “I’m pretty sure people stick to neutral colors for babies when they don’t know the gender,” I assured him. He didn’t seem convinced.

  “Are you scared?” He asked me out of the blue after we’d sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “Every single day. I’m afraid of giving birth. I’m worried something will happen to the baby before I can, or while I try. I’m scared to death that I’ll die trying and never get to hold my own child or see them grow up. I’m terrified that I will be a horrible mom. Pretty much everything about having a baby frightens me to death.”

  He moved from his chair then and sat down right next to me, pulling me to his body and wrapping his arms around. We sat there just rocking back and forth in each other’s arms for a few minutes before he spoke. “I’m worried about all those things too, and then I get to top it off with the fact that I’ve pissed you off enough that I’ll never be able to be a part of your lives. That’s the worst feeling.”

  “I’m sorry for making you feel that way. That’s not what I want, I promise. This whole thing has been so confusing. It’s like I got on a runaway train and I’ve been trying to get off at my stop, but every time I do, the train speeds up and passes by my instead. You know?”

  “I know that feeling too, Anna. I’m sick of that feeling. What do you say we take over the controls and throw the break for a while? Let’s start out building things up between us again and see where we end up. What do you say? It has to be better than the never ending nightmare ride we’re both on.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed.

  “Good,” he sighed out and I could tell by the way his body relaxed that he meant it. He wanted a fresh start to try to see what kind of a relationship, if any, we could manage to have and I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t want that too. I wasn’t sure if we would end up like Tiger Lily and Merc, happily ever after, but I hoped we could at least learn to be friends for our child’s sake.

  “Have you thought of any names yet?” He asked me and I turned to him, wondering if he had.

  “Not really. I didn’t want to jinx anything. I thought about just naming the baby when it’s born. You know, seeing the little person in my arms before I decide.”

  “You’re putting a lot of weight on our shoulders at the end aren’t you? Waiting to find out the sex, waiting to name the baby now too? Come on, there has to be a name or two rolling around in your head already. Every girl dreams of what they’ll name their children one day, don’t they?”

  I shook my head. “No. I never dreamed about their names because I thought that was something their father and I would figure out together one day.”

  “Their?” He asked causing me to blush profusely. “You want more than one?”

  “Well, if we’re talking my dreams, I thought I’d be married first, so that’s out the window.”

  “Technically, you’re married before the baby will be born.”

  “Yes, but I’m talking about being married to a man who loves me and wants a family with me. So, the additional kids I wanted wouldn’t be an issue. Now, I don’t know. I feel like I’ll be another one of those women who is always judged horribly for having more than one dad for my kids. Not to mention the dynamics. I don’t want one child preferred over the others in my home simply because of genetics.” I stopped my rambling when it looked like Joker might get sick. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, that’s a lot to take in. Anna, I know our start has been less than perfect, and we’re just getting to the point where we can talk about things…”

  “But?”

  “But every time I hear you talk about the future, it’s like a forgone conclusion that your future won’t have me in it. First, the apartment you were saving for. Now, you’re already talking about another father for your future children. Did I screw things up so horribly already that there’s not even a hint of a chance that it will be me in that family picture you’re drawing in your mind?”

  How was I supposed to respond to that? “I, um, I guess I didn’t think you would want to be in the picture. Other than being this baby’s father, obviously,” I tacked on so as not to leave him out of that. “You haven’t acted like you want me around, or that you even like me, so I’ve assumed you were just counting down until we didn’t have to be married anymore.”

  “That’s not true,” he insisted.

  My brows raised in surprise and he huffed out a frustrated breath before running his hands through the hair that had started growing longer since we were together. It was curling at the ends now where it was starting to hand down his neck a little. I liked him with the fresh military cut, but he had a different sort of appeal like this too.

  “I know that I didn’t behave well at the wedding we had, and I can’t apologize enough for that. I was still angry with you then, and hadn’t taken the time to see things from your perspective. I realized after speaking to Deck and Merc that you had pretty good reasons for doing what you did, and that if the shoe were on the other foot I might have done the same. Well, probably not the same, but you know what I’m getting at. I understand now. I don’t hate you, Anna. I don’t hold anything against you either. The only person between the two of us I’m angry with still is myself for fucking things up so much worse than they needed to be because I couldn’t swallow my damn pride sooner.”

  “Okay,” I told him. “Well, we agreed to see where things go. I think it’s best if we leave the dreams of the future on hold outside of hoping for a healthy, happy little baby.” I offered him a small smile. “Let’s just see where things go from there. I’d really like to be friends with you again.”

  “We were never friends, Anna.”

  “We have to be now though, for the baby.”

  “What if I want there to be more? I miss the way we were together in the beginning. You captivated me, Anna.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. I thought we were going to make this a process and work on starting from down at the bottom of the barrel before crawling out and starting over in a completely new one?”

  He grinned. “Where’s your sense of adventure.”

  I pointed to my belly. “This happened the last time I got adventurous. Now, I’ll take the safe path to make sure I’m doing right by my baby. It’s one less thing for me to fear when I close my eyes at night.”

  Joker pulled me into another hug then. “Okay, Anna. We’ll do
this your way. I don’t want to continue being strangers though. Never seeing you, or knowing what’s going on with you, it’s been killing me.”

  “Why don’t you just move back in so we can work on getting to know one another again. It seems like the only way that’s going to happen since we both have pretty busy schedules right now.” I couldn’t believe that I had just spoken those words, and judging by the shocked expression on his face, neither could Joker.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Well, yes. I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.” When his eyes lit up with interest, I tacked on my caveat. “You still need to sleep in another room. I think you should take your room back and I’ll just stay in the guest room. We don’t need to take the bed out of there just yet.”

  “How about you stay right where you are since you’re already comfortable and I’ll take the guest room until the baby comes or we decide differently.”

  I gave him a narrow-eyed appraisal at the suggestion that our living arrangements might change before the baby comes. It was clear that he meant for us to be sharing a bed. Though I couldn’t for the life of me think of why he’d want that. I saw myself in the mirror every day. Pregnancy was not doing nice things to my body. Well, It had filled out my boobs quite nicely, but other than that, I was just starting to look like I was smuggling a small melon under my shirt, topped off by two oversized apples, maybe large oranges. Crap. I was hungry. “I need to eat.” I stood and moved to the kitchen.

  “That was weird,” he told me as he followed me to the kitchen.

  “Um, I just thought of melons and apples and it hit me.”