Page 21 of His Bittersweet Regret

Monica tried to kiss me, but I turned so that her lips hit my cheek instead. I might have been about to take my shit out on her physically, but I didn’t want her mouth anywhere near my own. Even though I’d kissed and made out with other women, I just couldn’t stomach the thought of kissing Monica. Not when images of faceless men doing the same to Opal taunted me.

Instead, I stripped Monica naked, and allowed her to fist my cock until it was hard and ready while we stood there next to her front door. Then, I turned so she was pinned to the door, hoisted her up with more effort than it ever took to do the same with Opal, and wasted no more time thinking. Instead, I sank deep into a woman who was not the love of my life, and with every stroke of my cock in that unfamiliar pussy, I grew sicker and sicker to my stomach. Still, I stuck it out and continued to pound into her until she climaxed, or faked it. Then, I pulled out, still hard as a steel beam, and dropped her to her feet.

“Bedroom?” She asked in a sultry voice with half-lidded eyes that were full of promise for what we’d do once we got there. That freshly fucked look on her would have compelled any other man to do just that. The urge to go and satisfy her again, until finally getting myself off, just wasn’t there. For me, my stomach turned once more and all I could think of was my gorgeous ex-girlfriend who lived across the street – where I left her – and the words of warning our landlord shot at me the day I paid her rent up in full.

He warned me that if I took the path my brothers pushed me down, that Opal might not be there when I finally pulled my head out of my ass. I never, in a million years, thought there was any truth to that. For whatever reason, in my stupid, fucked up head, I thought she’d just sit around waiting for me.

I bent to pick up my jeans and managed to get one foot into the leg before Monica’s hand shot out to stop me. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t do this.”

“What do you mean, you can’t do this? We just did it. And now you’re just going to get dressed and leave?”

“Monica, do you really want a man in your bed who can’t stop thinking about his ex?”

“She’s pregnant!” She yelled at me.

“And nothing about that stops me from still being in love with her.”

She scoffed at that and ended the sound in a laugh. “That’s rich of you. If this is how you show that you’re in love with a woman, I’m glad we aren’t going any further. Poor Opal. Finish getting dressed and get out of my apartment.”

There was no need to say anything else, and truthfully, she wasn’t wrong. I’d fucked up. I’d known during that first date with Tandra that I’d fucked up, and yet I stuck to the stupid idea that I needed six months of trying this out to know for sure. I stupidly stuck to what my brothers kept muttering in my ear, that if I didn’t try, I’d end up just like Dad. It didn’t matter that I knew it was wrong the whole time, I continued to walk the wrong fucking path, and now I’d pay for it for the rest of my life, knowing that the only woman I’d ever loved was having another man’s baby.

By the time I got dressed, and was leaving Monica’s place, an older model blue Buick station wagon was pulled up at the curb on the other side of the street. I stood there and watched as Opal got out of the car, swiping at the tears on her face. The door behind me opened up and Monica came out with only a robe on her otherwise naked body.

“You forgot your boxers,” she snipped at me while holding them outstretched in my direction. I glanced down at the incriminating evidence of what I’d just done, and then back to where Opal’s devastated features displayed her misery like a piece of art. Her shoulders shook as she turned and made her way inside our old apartment. Her apartment.

“Damn,” Monica hissed behind me. “She’s probably going to get me fired now.”

I turned on her then. “What the hell do you mean?”

“I told you, I saw her records. She goes to the doctor I work for.”

“Yeah, you mentioned something. You forgot to say who was listed as the father who didn’t give a damn.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “You’re serious?” She asked. I nodded and Monica looked as though she might laugh at me or possibly kill me where I stood.

“What happened to you?” She asked instead of answering my question.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Me, and every other woman in our age range, have always been jealous of that girl. She had you, the perfect Kennedy brother. The one who stayed faithful, who loved his girlfriend so much we could all feel it. What happened to you?”

“Nothing happened. I grew up and realized there was more to life than being strapped down with the same woman forever.” It was a callous statement and one I didn’t mean. That was Brixton talking in my head again. And my anger over Opal having been with another man.

“I never thought I’d see the day you left Opal, but I just figured things weren’t working out. But to hear you admit that you walked away from your own baby too, that’s too much. Do me a favor and don’t come around here anymore.” She got ready to shut the door on the apartment lobby before she turned back to me. “Oh, and if for some reason I end up like Opal, I won’t be keeping the baby, since I already know you’d just abandon it too.”

“What the fuck?”

I didn’t get an answer to the question as she shut the door and ignored my outburst. It was only then that I realized I never used any protection with her. I hadn’t come – at all, let alone inside her – but I also wasn’t stupid. A little pre-cum was sometimes enough to knock a woman up. Jesus, what had I been thinking? I was angry at the world, but mostly at myself, and hadn’t been thinking at all. That lack of forethought stared me in the face when I turned back around.

The blue Buick was still sitting there, double parked in the road. A dark-skinned woman watched me with hate in her eyes. It took a moment to place her as Bethany’s mother. “Boy when you screw the pooch – you really go for broke.”

Small things broke through the haze of my confusion in increments as I stood there staring at Beth’s mom. The one that stuck out the most, was that Monica had accused me of possibly abandoning her baby, too. As if I’d done something like that before.

“Putting it together yet?” Beth’s mom asked.

My eyes drifted up to the third-floor apartment, where I knew Opal was probably losing her shit. Where a pregnant Opal was so distraught, she had been wiping tears from her face moments ago, shoulders shaking as Monica delivered my boxers to me, while in a robe herself, which could only mean that I’d been naked with her moments ago.

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