JAX: MC Biker Romance (New Adult Contemporary Bad Boy Romance) (40 page)

‘Oh my God, I don’t even know his last name and I had sex with him!’ Hailee thought, mentally berating herself for her carelessness.

She lightly took his wrist and set it beside him, as she crawled out of the bed. He stirred a bit and turned his head away from her, and she breathed a sigh of relief that she didn’t wake him up.

She squinted her eyes and looked for her clothes, putting them on as quietly as she could without disturbing him. She didn’t know what compelled her to do it, but she swept the hair falling down his forehead away before giving him a soft kiss on his forehead, making him sigh in his sleep. Hailee smiled before tiptoeing out of the room. She quietly walked out of the apartment and paled when she couldn’t recognize where she was. Luckily, a cab stopped right outside his building and once she got inside, she took one last look at Carter’s home before waving a little.

She remembered how she felt with him, and vowed to remember it for as long as she lived. She also knew that for all the good it had been, it was never going to happen again.

One month later…

Hailee fumbled with the buttons on her dress shirt, the nerves eating at her, as she got ready for one of the most important events of her life. She grabbed the toga and the cap from the seat she hung them up on and locked her door before going with the rest of the students to the auditorium.

Her parents were going to be there, and it would all be so wonderful; her family watching, as she got up on stage to take her diploma, how they’ll congratulate her as soon as the ceremony was over, and how they’ll tell her they were so proud of her and what she had accomplished in her life.

If only it would go the way she hoped it would.

But, there was a snag in that plan… a very large wrench that was thrown into her life and could very well drive a wedge between her and her family… a wrench that would come out in just a little over eight months later.

*****

Hailee sighed as she finished throwing up what’s left of her lunch in the toilet for the third time today. She didn’t have much of an appetite to begin with, and now, she felt extra surly and miserable.

Come to think of it, she’s been feeling like this for about three weeks already, and she’d had the flu many times to remember that it didn’t last that long. Especially when she was as healthy as a horse.

She grimaced, as the smell of her barf clung to her shirt, and she got up from the floor and took her clothes off, leaving them on the floor as she climbed over the tub and turned on the shower. She had a job interview in two hours and she was not about to go there smelling like vinegar and meatloaf.

After her shower, Hailee stopped when she caught a glance at herself in the mirror. She held the ends of her towel open to look at her naked self, particularly, at the small bulge that was slightly noticeable on her stomach. She was pretty sure that wasn’t there a couple of weeks ago, and she wasn’t even eating a lot lately because of her flu.

She wrapped herself up with her towel again, shaking her head and berating herself for overthinking things. This wasn’t a big issue, and she wasn’t suffering from a serious ailment. She’ll be fine, she repeated to herself.

A knock on her bathroom door snapped her out of her thoughts.

“Hailee, are you done yet? I need to use your bathroom like, really badly,” Hailee heard Meaghan say from outside, and she rolled her eyes at her best friend.

“Yes, I’m done. I’m coming,” Hailee replied, opening the door and getting out, as Meaghan hurried inside, holding what seemed to be a box of tampons with her.

Time seemed to go in slow motion, as Hailee looked at the box of tampons. She hadn’t noticed it until now, but she hadn’t gotten her period yet. Hers was pretty regular, and her cycle usually came
before
Meaghan’s did, becoming the latter’s reminder that her period was coming up next. She walked to her calendar and peeled back the pages where she marked her period days and she gulped as she realized that the last time she got hers was before they went to the club, before she met Carter, and before they…

“Hailee, what’s wrong with you?” Meaghan asked, having come out of the bathroom and saw Hailee standing stiffly in front of her calendar, clutching at the towel covering her body tightly. Hailee turned to look at her best friend, her eyes flashing with fear, and her face pale.

“Meaghan…help me,” she gasped, before her legs gave and she collapsed on the floor, Meaghan barely catching her.

Carter punched the sandbag over and over, letting his frustration out on it, as he recounted another blunder made by his guys in their delivery. ‘Seriously, his instructions were pretty clear: Get the package, deliver it to the client, and get the hell out. Then, why the fuck did they drop the damn thing?’ he thought.

“Seriously, Maxwell, get a grip. The client wasn’t even mad…much,” his friend, Jay, said grunting, as he held the punching bag steady while Carter buried his gloves to it again.

“He threw the payment at my face, Jay.
My face,”
Carter stressed, his teeth clenched. He pulled his gloves off and pinned it under one arm, as he swiped at the hair falling on his forehead.

“Yeah, but still-,” Jay tried again.

“And then he kicked the fucking package back to us, screaming he’s going to tell everyone not to use us for deliveries anymore! The item was broken beyond repair!” Carter yelled, cutting Jay off and making him whence.

“Well, that’s what happens when you drop a microwave while riding 60 mph,” Jay said wryly.

“I told you to fire that son of a bitch. This is the third time he’s fucked up!” Carter hissed. Jay shook his head.

“You do know that ‘son of a bitch’ is standing over there pissing himself watching you go apeshit, right?” Jay said, but Carter just glared at the person Jay was referring to until the little guy squeaked and skittered away. Jay turned his head back and frowned, as Carter continued to throw his tantrum. He’s been Mr. Mercurial since that night in the club more than a month ago. When he opened Carter’s door with the intention of waking him up with a horn, he saw Carter looking around the room, his eyes wide. Carter’s eyes filled with hope when he turned to look at the door, only for him to be disappointed to find that it was Jay and not the girl he’d been with that night.

“You’re not…still hung up over that girl who disappeared on you, are you?” Jay asked in disbelief. His eyebrows went up when Carter didn’t say anything for a moment before he sighed.

“I don’t know. How do you get hung up over someone you never really tried forgetting?” Carter asked, his expression pained. He didn’t know what was wrong with him either. As far as one-night-stands go, this was the most convenient for him because he didn’t have to convince the girl to leave in the morning. But, the feelings of being left alone…well, now he knew why the women he did that to hated his guts.

And, for the life of him, Carter really liked Hailee, and it wasn’t just about the sex, as mind-blowing as it was. It was how she was so different from any girl he’d ever met. It was a pity this time that he was never going to see her again because that’s how one-night-stands usually go. One taste of pleasure and it all becomes a fleeting memory.

“Well, maybe you’ll see her again.”

“Oh yeah, the only way that’ll happen is if she comes banging on my door to tell me she’s gonna have my baby,” Carter said, and the two friends laughed at the absurdity of his statement.

If only they knew…

“You’re pregnant,” Meaghan said, staring at the pregnancy test they bought for Hailee earlier like she couldn’t quite comprehend what she was looking at.

“No shit.” Hailee snapped at her before taking huge bite of her fried Oreos, making Meaghan wrinkle her nose in disgust.

“You do know that’s unhealthy, right?”

“I saw it on America’s Next Top Model and it looked tasty! If those women can eat it without getting fat, then I sure can, too! And, even if it doesn’t, I’m going to push out a human being in a few months, so I can eat whatever the hell I want!” Hailee said, finishing her snack before reaching toward the plate and grabbing two more, one in each hand, as she alternated biting between them. Meaghan sighed, saddened by her best friend’s apparent misery.

“Have you told your mom?” Meaghan asked, and Hailee froze before dropping her cookie.

“No,” Hailee grumbled. “I can’t exactly find a proper way of telling my mother I got knocked up by a complete stranger just weeks before I graduate from college, right?” and Meaghan bit her lip at this response.

“Well, you can’t hide it forever,” Meaghan pointed out. “And what about what’s-his-name? Are you going to tell him?”

That was a little harder for Hailee to decide. She didn’t know where to find the guy other than the club where they met, and ‘Carter’ wasn’t exactly a unique name, but that was all she knew about him.

Besides, it’s highly unlikely that men like him would take responsibility for getting a girl from a one-night-stand pregnant. So, what was the point?

*****

Meaghan knew that she might be breaking all sorts of rules in the best friend’s code, but this was a unique situation that mitigated her choice to meet up with this person today. Unlike her very pregnant best friend, she at least, had the state of mind to grab the number of the guy she slept with that night, and he just so happened to be a friend of Carter’s. She texted him if he was up for a cup of coffee, and he immediately replied, saying there was something he wanted to ask her about as well.

She sat in one of the tables by the glass and smiled, as she spotted him. Jay saw her through the glass and he waved before he entered the café. He walked up to her and gave her a sweet kiss on her mouth before he sat down, his action making Meaghan lose her breath a bit. He waited for her to settle down before getting down to business.

“So, I was hoping-,” Jay started.

“I need you to get Carter to see Hailee again,” Meaghan said, beating him to the punch and making Jay’s eyes widen in surprise.

“That’s exactly what I was hoping to ask you about,” Jay admitted, and she grinned at him.

“I knew I slept with you for a reason,” she teased, and he chuckled before taking on a more serious expression.

“What brought this on anyway? I mean, the reason I’m all for this is because my buddy cannot get over your best girl, and it’s been ruining everybody’s mojo,” Jay said. Meaghan grimaced before biting her lip guiltily.

“It’s not really something I could tell you…at least, without asking Hailee’s permission,” she said apologetically, and he frowned. “But, I can tell you that it is extremely important and life-changing for all those involved!”

Hailee woke up bleary-eyed from the living room couch, as the incessant knocking on the door woke her up. She pulled herself up, scratching her belly absent-mindedly, as she conditioned herself to wake up completely.

The knocking turned to full-on banging, and it instantly annoyed her. She got up, not bothering to fix herself up before opening the door wide, and ready to yell at the person who interrupted her nap, but she froze when she realized who it was.

Carter took his shades off, as he looked at Hailee, his mouth falling open, as he took in her messed up hair, wrinkled pajamas, and her small but round belly poking out from her sleepwear. Hailee realized what he was looking at and placed both of her hands over her belly protectively, which served as even more of a confirmation of Carter’s assumption.

They stood facing each other in total silence, the both of them thinking of a lot of things they want to say to each other, but not knowing how to say them. Hailee bit her lip, switching her weight from one foot to the other before moving to the side, silently asking Carter to come in. He stared at her for a long moment before walking past her and into her apartment, standing at the center of the living room and turning back to Hailee.

“How long?” Carter asked, and Hailee didn’t need to ask him to clarify his question.

“Almost twelve weeks,” Hailee answered softly.

Carter mentally counted backward and blew a sigh of relief, as the date hit the time they met. He was so shocked when he saw her, but he almost felt his brain explode when he noticed she was pregnant. He had been worried she had slept with someone else and she was currently carrying someone else’s baby. He would’ve been so devastated…

He held his breath, as he realized what he just thought about Hailee being pregnant. He was actually relieved it was his baby! Sure, he was scared, absolutely petrified even at the thought of becoming a father and the responsibilities that came with it. But, he wasn’t like other men who would feign ignorance and not claim responsibility.

“How are you feeling?” Carter asked, turning his attention back to her who was watching his reactions worriedly. Hailee shrugged.

“Bloated and really hungry,” she replied, and Carter quickly looked around, looking for food.

“Do you need me to get you anything or…?” he asked, but she shook her head. He nodded and put his hands on her shoulder and hip, helping her sit on the couch, much to her annoyance.

“Carter, I’m sorry, but I’m having a hard time believing you’re just… okay with this right after you found out that I’m pregnant with your baby,” Hailee said, and Carter tilted his head.