Page 7 of Born To Be My Baby

"Stay here. We'll be back in a few minutes."

And then she kept walking toward the door.

Sean followed her, his gut twisting, his heart beating fast, his throat was dry, and his head was spinning.

As soon as they stepped into the hallway, Gloria went straight to the front door.

He halted her. "It's scorchingly hot out there. Why don't we sit in the living room?"

She looked at him, swallowed, took a deep breath, huffed it out, and then walked into the living room.

He followed her. She didn't sit. He didn't either.

They were both a bundle of nerves. It was obvious. Back straight, breathing stilted, uncomfortable as hell.

He waited, though. He wasn't going to give her an out. He was going to make her say it.

She finally took a deep breath and said, "I have a daughter. She's mine. She's been mine all of her life. All you did was plant the seed. You told me you didn't want to have anything to do with me. You needed to focus on your music career. It was all about you, not me. And then you left. A week later, I found out I was pregnant. Since you couldn't deal with a woman, I didn't think that you'd want to deal with a baby. Getting up in the middle of the night, feeding, and changing diapers isn't actually the rock star life now, is it?"

His jaw tightened and his back was so stiff it hurt. The dull ache reached around his mid-section and threatened to engulf his entire body.

"You have a lot of fucking nerve telling me what I want and what I don't want."

She stepped closer. Her eyes narrowed. "Really? Well, I'll tell you what. You broke my fucking heart. And I wasn't going to give you the satisfaction of crawling back to you just because I happened to be pregnant. You didn't want me not pregnant? You sure as hell didn't need me pregnant."

He bit back the retort he was going to let fly. It wouldn't do either of them any good. And again, she had that temper. He held his hands out to his sides, palms up.

"Gloria, what do you want from me? If I would have known I was going to be a father, things would have been different. I didn't break up with you because I didn't love you. Man, you're the only woman I've thought of all these years. I loved the fuck out of you. But I knew you'd follow me around on the road helping me get started, and you had your own dreams."

He swiped his hands through his hair.

"Together, we just intertwined our lives and neither one of us would have achieved what we wanted. I wanted you to be all you could be, and I wanted that for myself, too."

Her jaw tightened and her lips thinned. "You didn't have the right to make that choice for me. I get to make that choice for me, not you. Or how about this? We make it together, Sean?"

He swallowed the lump in his throat. Guess he did kind of make that decision for both of them. He didn't really talk to her at all. He just woke up in the middle of the night, graduation was in a few hours, and he just knew he had to break it off with her. She would have followed him around. He knew she would have given up her dreams to help him be successful, and he couldn’t let that happen. She had a gift. The profession she’s in now is that gift. She can chat up a wall and make it interesting. Her eyes light up when she talks to people. In college she was on their audio-video team, and she interviewed teachers and local businesspeople and even the dean of their college, and she did it without a hint of nervousness or a single stammer. What would she have done following him around?

He stared at her for a long time. His heart was beating so fast, it was hard to breathe. He looked deep into her eyes. Those same brown eyes that he'd fallen in love with years ago.

"Gloria, I wish you would understand what I meant. I didn't mean to make decisions for you, but I guess I did. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or break your heart. And I know I did that, too. I broke my own fucking heart. My God, I didn't sleep for weeks after I left you. It was the hardest decision I've ever had to make. But I did it for you. And for me too. I'll admit that. For both of us." His voice dropped. "I did it for both of us. I wanted you to shine."

7

Gloria watched Sean as he spoke to her. He seemed sincere. Her heart twisted as he told her how he was thinking of her. He wanted her to shine, he said.

They'd both been so stupid. She'd let her feelings get hurt along with her broken heart, rather than asking for more information from him.

When he told her he was breaking up with her, she didn't even ask why. She just got mad. She flew into a rage, actually. How could he do this? She'd been there with him for three years. Three years she knew he was the one. She believed with her whole heart they'd marry.

She'd gone to every gig with him. She did his college homework with hers. They were inseparable. They ate together. They made love all the time. And her heart was broken.

She knew in her heart he was the one. And he had treated her as if she didn't matter anymore. She felt like a piece of garbage he was finished using and tossed away.

Those green eyes when he stared at her. Gah! She remembered all those years ago looking into them. How she loved staring at him. He was so incredibly handsome. He was everything any girl could ever want.

She'd always been so proud when she watched him play and the other girls were swooning over the members of the band. And she knew. She knew he was coming home with her.

And she knew what his hands felt like on her body.

---