Page 27 of The Princess & the Prospect

An hour and a half after he stormed out of the house, I heard the tell-tale sound of a car pulling up. I wasn’t sure who it was because I didn’t recognize the vehicle. Then I watched as Joker peeled himself out of the green Buick Skylark that looked as though it had seen better day, and moved the seat forward so he could pull something from the back seat. I turned away then, wondering what the hell he was up to. I knew for a fact that wasn’t his car. He only had the motorcycle and the truck that I left parked under the carport. The way he bent into the backseat gave me flashbacks of him doing just that in my dreams to pluck our baby out of its car seat. A hot flash of anger and sadness whipped through my body at the thought that maybe he was bringing someone else’s child here.

What if he already had a kid I didn’t know about? Oh God! Panic took hold as I let my imagination spin out freely from one crazy scenario to another. Please, don’t let him have another kid. That would mean he hadn’t really been taking care of it, or at the very least that he was lying to me about a whole other part of his life this whole time. ‘Please be baby brain anxiety. Please, be baby brain anxiety.’ I chanted those words to myself on repeat until I heard him struggling with something on the front stoop.

The front door opened, but I was too afraid of what I’d find there to turn and look. Instead, I made myself busy in the kitchen cleaning the dirty dishes from my earlier mess. “Anna?” Joker called out forcing my attention to turn to him. When I did, the sight that greeted wasn’t at all what I expected.

“What is all this?” I asked. He was standing in the doorway holding a hoard of balloons and what looked suspiciously like a personal sized ice cream cake. He answered only with a grin as he moved further into the house and kicked back with a foot to shut the door. He was by my side and leaned down to kiss my cheek.

“Happy birthday,” he whispered into my ear before handing me the balloons and setting the cake down on the kitchen counter. My eyes immediately welled up. I thought everyone had forgotten, and here one of the people I didn’t think knew my birthday was doing all of this.

“How did you know?”

“A little birdie told me,” he responded.

“But everyone forgot this year,” I managed to get out past the emotion that was clogging my throat.

He turned back to me just in time to see the first tear fall. Something passed over his face when he saw that, but I was too emotional to be able to decipher his expressions. “They didn’t forget, beautiful. I asked them to come over tomorrow for a cookout and to celebrate. We really do have some club business going on right now that we need to see to. I can’t even stay that long, but I wanted to make sure you didn’t think you were forgotten.”

“That was sweet of you.”

His grin turned devilish then. “On a scale of one to ten, exactly how sweet was it?”

“It’s going back down to a zero quickly,” I informed him as I turned to look at the cake. It was just a small one, but it was one of my favorites. Ice cream cake with that yummy cookie crumble stuff in the middle. They never did use enough of the cookie crumble stuff for my liking, but whatever. Pregnant beggars couldn’t be choosers and all that.

“I hope that’s okay. I remember you telling me your brother had gone to your school and sneaked you a small one during lunch one year.”

“He did.” My words came out on a whisper as I was engulfed by memories of Toby doing just that. He had made my day and all of my friends had been incredibly envious. I ended up making new friends after that too. At least, I thought I had. It turned out they all just wanted me to hook them up with my brother or with one of the other guys from the club. As if any of the Aces High guys would touch their underage tails. I was so lost in the memories that I didn’t even realize Joker had gotten closer to me. His arms wrapped around my body and then he pulled me into a warm hug while pressing a kiss to the top of my head.

“I didn’t mean to bring up memories that would hurt you,” he apologized.

“You didn’t. I love the memory of him doing that for me. I just miss Toby so much. Hanging around with Gretchen once in a while has sort of eased that ache in a weird way, but it’s not the same as having my big brother surprise me on my birthday. He used to do it every year while he let everyone else pretend they forgot.” It was then that I glanced up into his eyes and realized what he had truly done. “Who told you?”

“Deck,” he admitted. “I’m glad he did. I’m obviously not trying to move into big brother territory here, especially since you’re already carrying my child, but I figured someone should step into Toby’s shoes for the day and make your birthday just as special as he would have done.”

I threw my arms around his waist and held on to the man so tightly it had to be uncomfortable for him. He never complained though. “Thank you, and thank Deck for me too.”

“You can thank Deck tomorrow, beautiful.” He leaned in and gave me one more kiss on the top of my head while sliding his hands from where they had rested on my back down lower on my hips and around to my belly. He glanced down between us at my growing belly as he cradled it while his fingers slid back and forth in what appeared to be reverence. How many times had I dreamed of the man doing just that? Too many to count and now it was happening. The moment nearly brought me to my knees, and just as quickly as it happened he was pulling away and backing up a step causing my own hands to fall from his hips to my sides. I glanced up to see moisture evident in his eyes before he turned his back to me and grabbed the cake from the counter.

“You best grab a slice of this and put the rest in the freezer before it melts any further. That car was an oven when I got in it.”

“Whose car is that anyway? I’ve never seen it before.”

“Just someone at the clubhouse. I realized a little too late that I wouldn’t be able to travel too fast with a cake and balloons while on my bike.”

“I would have loved to see that sight while driving down the road though,” I teased.

“You and pretty much every asshole at the club. None of them would let me take their car. Not that many had cars at the clubhouse though.” He pointed over his shoulder to the car outside. “Some hanger on with one of the brothers leant it to me so I need to go get it back and then tend to club business. Don’t forget, we’re partying tomorrow.”

“Do I need to go get anything? I haven’t exactly shopped for foods for a cookout.”

“No, but if you don’t have anything to do between now and then, I’d like to come back and grab my truck for a bit. I’ll bring the stuff tomorrow, and it’ll give me a way to get my things back here too, if you’re still serious about that?”

“Of course I’m serious about that.”

“Good then I’ll see you later.”

He didn’t see me later.

I awoke wondering what today would actually bring. Joker had never returned last night. He had mentioned club business that needed to be handled, but I thought he’d be bringing his things back and staying at the house last night. I had apparently thought wrong though. He never came back, and never bothered to call or text either. All that hopefulness I’d felt the night before drained out of me again in the light of day that was streaming through my window. I honestly hoped he hadn’t actually invited my family to come here today, and that he had only been running his mouth or trying to hurt me somehow. I didn’t think I could face them. I felt like complete crap, and hadn’t slept very well.

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