Page 63 of Slayin Villain
And just like that, he walked away too.
Left me there.
Pregnant.Alone.And surrounded by ghosts of every bad choice I ever loved.
The next morning, back at my place, I packed like I’d been doing for weeks.
The drawer that held the positive pregnancy test was still cracked open when I stuffed my jeans into a duffel bag.I didn’t bother folding.Just shoved in clothes like I was racing a fire.
In a way, I was.
Villain hadn’t called since our little meeting, me and his other woman.Since the moment he looked at me, really looked, and walked out like the air between us hadn’t been electric just hours before.
I couldn’t believe he knew I was pregnant, all this time.Was that why he kept coming back for more?I would never know if what we had was real or if he just wanted a baby mama.
And now that he left me holding the weight of his baby, that silence felt louder than any rejection I’d ever known.
Rome had been blowing up my phone too.First with more questions.Then with more demands, like the ones from the alley.
"If it's mine, we leave.You said you were tired of the games."
I was.But not in the way he meant.
I was tired of being someone’s secret.
Of playing pretend while my body bloomed with a truth that would soon be too big to hide.
I sat on the edge of my bed, fingers gripping the old fiddle case beside me.The one Eve had given me back when we were still trying to make the band work.Before she ran off and married the goddamn Prez of this club.Before Rome started screwing sweetbutts like they were going out of style, and I was just another drunken night he could forget.
I wasn’t just a background girl anymore.I wasn’t going to fade into the lights of Royal Road or Broadway and hope someone missed me when I was gone.
If they wanted me?
They could chase.
“You sure this is what you wanna do?”Ginnie, my roommate asked from the doorway.She leaned against the frame in cutoffs and a Royal Road tank, cigarette hanging from her lips.Her new property patch peeked from beneath her shorts, Property of Chains.It was fresh, swollen.
I didn’t have one.I’d never wanted one.
Now?
I wasn’t so sure.
“You got that look,” she said, stepping into the room.“Like you’re about to burn a bridge but ain’t checked if there’s water on the other side.”
I laughed, bitter and sharp.“There’s fire on both ends, Ginnie.”
She eyed the bag, then me.“Rome?”
“Villain.”
That made her shut up.For a minute anyway.
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
I froze.Didn’t answer.Didn’t have to.
Ginnie nodded like she already knew.Women like us didn’t get to hide for long in clubs like this.
