Page 25 of Time Out

“Probably should have done that the first time.”

“Shoulda-woulda. Next time you’ll nail it.”

“All right.” I blew my nose and climbed off the floor where I’d been sitting since. “I need to get some things done and get ready for work.”

With Belle’s help after the Franco debacle, I’d gotten a job at one of the premiere steakhouses in Nashville. One phone call from her parents and suddenly, they had an immediate opening for a server, and after a phone call interview, I was hired and started immediately. It was nice to go to work in clothes that fully covered my body, and customers who didn’t try to grope my ass all the time. The tips were incredible. By the time this little guy or girl was here, I might actually be able to move somewhere more respectable to raise a child in, somewhere with a working elevator so I wouldn’t have to lug groceries and a baby and a stroller up three flights of stairs.

I didn’t expect tonight would be busy, but there were three large family groups coming for a late Christmas Day dinner meal, so I at least wouldn’t be bored. And it’d help make next month’s rent.

With Belle’s well-loved, if not blunt, advice, I spent the afternoon attempting to follow her suggestions. I ran to the store and stocked up on meals my doctor told me would be good for when I got sick. Fortunately, it hadn’t been too bad yet as long as I kept food in my stomach at all times. Which also meant I’d stocked up on small packages of trail mixes and Cheez-Its so I always had something on hand. I did a quick load of laundry and showered for work. It was Christmas, and the streets were far emptier than usual, but that was good because the cold blast of air on my skin as I turned the corner helped me wake up and see that Belle was right.

I hadn’t gone to Davis at all thinking of money. Heck, I hadn’t gone to him with any expectations. He should know there was a woman out there carrying half of his DNA around in their uterus.

When Davis had clapped his hands together and asked me what the plan was and brought up money, I’d been floored.

Plan? I’d accomplished it. I told him the truth and had done the right thing. I’d expected him to laugh in my face and show me out upon hearing the news. Not smile and ask if I was happy. He’d taken it in stride. I’d sworn, for a second, there’d been heat in his eyes, and he wanted to kiss me before he’d hurried off to his bedroom.

And of course plans needed to be made. The websites I’d taken to reading had lists so long of required and recommended baby gear, my eyes crossed while scanning them. If I wanted to get out of this tiny apartment and be able to afford everything this baby would need, some financial help would go a hell of a long way.

Realistically, I needed help. Financial and otherwise. Instead, I’d completely freaked out.

I lost my mind on a guy who didn’t deserve it and not only totally thrown him for a complete loop, I’d run out even after I’d heard him shout “That wasn’t what I meant!”

The whole building probably heard him. Man had a set of lungs on him.

“Well, damn. I did mess that up.”

“You know talking to yourself is the first sign of a mental illness? Need to go to the doctor, Maggie?”

I grinned as I recognized the voice and the person who belonged to it. Will stood in the shadows in an alcove outside the entrance to the restaurant. A red glow made his mouth light as he took a drag of his cigarette. I took a step back.

“I’m good, Will. How’s work?”

“Slow as the day is long, my friend. You all right?”

Will worked in the kitchen as a prep cook. He was going to school at a small private college in the city and studying communications. Wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with it, but with his tattoos and dark-brown hair he was always shoving out of his eyes, he was noticeable. If I’d met him before I met Davis, I would have been attracted to him, but now—no one else compared.

“I’m good. Ready to get started and then get back home. It’s already been a long day.”

“Big Christmas plans?” He stubbed out his cigarette against the brick wall and tossed it to the ground.

“No. Never.”

Even when I was with my family, the only thing different about Christmas than any other morning was a larger mess my sisters and I had to clean up while the boys went and “did work” with my dad.

“Really? You strike me as the kind of girl who’d go all out for Christmas.” He opened the door and let me in first.

“Never had the opportunity.” Commercialism was of the devil, and decorations were wasteful when all we needed was Jesus. But now that I was on my own? Getting ready to raise a child of my own?

I could do something different.

After all, if my parents thought kissing a boy and having a beer was enough to send me straight to hell, this child inside me would only seal the deal. What was a little commercialism when I was already branded a harlot and drunkard in their eyes?

“What about you?” I asked him.

We waited for the elevator, and he kicked at the tiled floor of the lobby in the building where Julio’s Steakhouse was on the top of a forty-two-story building. On a busy day, the wait could be a while.

“Talked to my parents. Saw my sister, but she was getting ready to go to her husband’s family’s Christmas, so I didn’t stay long. Kind of boring, actually. Christmas kind of loses its shine after you’re done being a kid and before you have your own, doesn’t it?”

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