Page 18 of Say I'm Yours, Firecracker

Her words crushed the beating organ inside of my chest, I knew I’d fucked up. IknewI did. I just hoped she’d give me another chance. After I stalled in the doorway of my condo, completely at a loss on how to help her, I knew I had a lot of work to do on my own. The timing wasn’t perfect, fuck if it wasn’t the worst time, but I couldn’t be a good partner, and father if I didn’t get my shit together.

So that’s what I did.

“Ronnie, please.” I plead. I’d get on my knees right in front of this woman if I had to.

She shook her head and moved around me. I let her, because I knew she had clients waiting and I was a little scared of Bellamy.

Her heels clacked on the wood floors they had installed over the Christmas holiday as I watched her walk into the room with that guy from before. I hoped for his sake; the surfer looking guy was the groom.

I walked toward the office Bellamy used now, hoping to find my best friend, Aaron. Sure enough, he was sitting behind her desk working on something at her computer. Maybe part of our security company proposals for future clients.

We both needed career direction. Aaron, because he’d left the Marines the year before last, and I…well, I’d never really had any direction to start with. He convinced me to try private security with him after his successful gig Holly-Jay, his sister, offered.

The same one that brought him the love of his life, Bellamy.

Him and I came up with a plan; I would foot the initial start-up costs with the money my grandparents left me for sixty percent of the company. Until it became profitable for more than a year on its own. Now he’d wrangled me into self-defense classes and training courses to become a working man, just like him.

It wasn’t that I’d always been aimless, I’d just never found anything worth settling down for. When Ronnie had called me all those weeks ago to tell me she was pregnant, and it was mine, I hadn’t known what to do. I did now, I just wished she’d let me.

“Hey man!” Aaron said as I settled into a chair.

I made a noncommittal noise as the cushion molded to my back. Bellamy had pretty good taste. Everything was redone when Ronnie and Bellamy took over the South Carolina site for Fixin’ To I Do.

Now, instead of the bright airy it once was. The office was dark but professional. A delicate balance my sister would love.

“What’s up?” Aaron asked, his green eyes pierced mine. His fingers stopped clicking on the keyboard and he leaned back.

“Who’s that guy Ronnie was talking to?” I asked him.

He grinned, “Groom’s brother.”

I nodded and leaned forward on my chair placing my elbows on my knees.

“We need to go back to that building and check out the wiring, I got an email from our contractor that we had some options to decide on before the weekend.” Aaron said.

I glanced at him and nodded, I didn’t want to talk business now. I wanted to get Ronnie alone and have a long overdue conversation.

“How has she been?”

“Good, I guess.” Aaron sighed and leaned back into the chair, “you know I don’t want to be the middleman between you and Ronnie.”

I had the good sense to look ashamed. It wasn’t fair to put one of my best friends in the middle of my mess, but I really wanted to know. God knew Ronnie wasn’t about to spill her guts to me, and damn it if I didn’t totally understand her for it. It still stung.

“Right. I’m sorry, man.” I wanted to pull my hair out, a not so subtle sign of my discomfort. Aaron nodded and we agreed to meet tomorrow afternoon to look at the building with our contractor.

The gym was my safe space. I’d been coming here since I was about fifteen, lacking confidence. Not that I had much of it now, I mocked internally. I’d trained hard, tried so many different diets, but it wasn’t easy to maintain perfect obliques. Even though that wasn’t at all why I kept training. Working out kept my mind occupied when I had too many unanswered questions rolling around in my head.

Especially since that phone call. The one that blew up my life, without even trying. I wasn’t proud of disappearing on Ronnie after we had spent so much time getting to know each other. I could only guess all the things she probably went through. I’d been reading more pregnancy and baby books, and searching for houses, things I never thought I would do.

I wanted to take care of Ronnie and the baby both. I couldn’t do that if I wasn’t prepared, and I needed to prove to Ronnie that I was one hundred percent prepared to be a dad. Notjusta father.

I should have known he’d show up. I hadn’t returned any of his many calls, and now his mother was calling and texting all hours of the day. I didn’t mind Joline, she was nice and never once called me a gold digger for accidentally getting pregnant with her rich son’s child.

Possibly because I wrote him off after he failed to show up for the third appointment I invited him to, and he never answered my frantic phone calls during the scariest moment of my life.

I should have known better than to expect a party boy like Finn to show up for me and this baby. He didn’t want this, hell, it had taken me a long few weeks to come to terms with it myself.

Now, though? I wouldn’t change a thing. Other than the sickness, that could go any time and I would throw a celebration.

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