Page 65 of Time Out

I had the day off work, so I called Belle to fill her in, which meant, after a lengthy shrieking squeal of happiness that almost ruptured my eardrums, she dragged her hungover butt to my apartment, arms filled with moving boxes and packing tape she’d stopped to purchase on the way.

“I’m so damn glad you’re getting out of here. Know you didn’t want me to help, but it’s been killing me to know you’re in this place. This building.” She was talking more to herself than me, so I let her ramble because, for once, I was moving with people at my back, a safe place I could trust to go to, and I wasn’t quite sure I ever had that except for the months I spent with Belle.

“I don’t even know what to pack.” Almost all the things I owned were bought on Facebook Marketplace or found on the curb. Someone else’s junk became my temporary furniture, like the couch I’d had Lance haul up four flights of stairs with unknown stains on the cushions that’d been covered by a sheet from a garage sale.

I wasn’t even sure how Davis spent the night on that couch or how he’d been able to hide any sort of cringe when he was at my apartment the first time. Looking around now, scanning it even though I tried to keep it clean and tidy, all of it made me feel like a thin layer of dust clung to my skin.

I wouldn’t have to live like this anymore.

My child wouldn’t have to grow up living like this.

“We can store it all or donate it,” Belle said and stood from the box of books she was loading. She wiped her hands along her hips, and her gray shorts became smeared with a light covering of dusted handprints.

Yeah. Moving anywhere would be good.

“What if it doesn’t work? What if… what if I get there and this doesn’t work, or we just don’t belong together, and then I have to move back out, and then my child gets to live with some poor mom while her father can offer her everything in the world?”

“Her?”

“I don’t know.”

Of course that’s what Belle would cling to, and I hadn’t even realized I’d gendered my baby before the results came in. There was a way Davis smiled when he talked about his nephews. And then the way he looked when he talked about his brand-new niece. A tenderness softened his features and while I imagined him running around and tackling boys and tossing them in the air, my hand went to my stomach as I envisioned him holding a little baby girl with that same look, intensified because it was his. “And either way, thinking of if I’m carrying a boy or a girl doesn’t help me. This could blow up.”

“It could.” Belle nodded and grabbed a handful of more books before placing them in the box. “It might not, too. Or maybe it works for a while and you and Davis reach an agreement, but do you really think he’d toss you out and make you live like this again? Not at least provide for his child?”

When she put it like that…

“No.”

Of course, he wouldn’t. I didn’t know him well, but I’d already decided that was no gamble. I only needed to keep reminding myself of it.

“Then let’s get packing.”

“Long day?”

I fought a yawn and could see Davis’s smile through the phone. Belle and I packed for hours, and the smaller furniture we could move out ourselves, we moved to the curb. Most of it, at last check, was long gone. Every time a car pulled up and someone jumped out, or someone walked by and grabbed a small end table or lamp, I prayed a quick little prayer it was going to someone like me who needed the help. Who was fighting for independence. Who was working on bettering themselves and the lives around them.

“I called my landlord and left a message for him. My lease has a penalty for leaving early, but I’m hoping since he can turn around and rent this tomorrow, he’ll give me a break.”

“Don’t worry about it, Maggie. I can help.”

“I know. But…”

He was sitting back on his couch, one arm flung over the side of his chair. From where he held the phone, I assumed his elbow was propped onto the armrest. He looked as tired as I felt, just more recently showered.

“You want to handle it.”

I was still trying to figure out if I’d saved enough money to cover it, but I was close. It might mean taking away all my savings, but I could do it. It would hurt, though.

“Yeah.”

One soft laugh left his mouth and lifted his lips at one edge. “You do know I’m at the end of a first-year contract for four years, and the total of that is almost forty million dollars, right?”

I couldn’t remember the exact amount of the contract Belle told me he signed or how much he made, but that number sounded awfully simple and obscene falling from his lips.

“Oh. Is that it?” I twirled a chunk of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail around my finger. “Seems kind of low.”

“Brat,” he teased and sobered. “Let me do this for you. I asked you to upend your life. Think of it as a loan if you have to, but I want to do this. It was my idea in the first place. I can at least cover the expense of it.”

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