Page 19 of Compelling Urges

“I know what I want, Blair, and I’m not trying to be mean when I say it isn’t you. I’ll want to have a paternity test done and then if I am the dad, I’d like to establish full custody.”

Blair reared back as if he’d slapped her across the face. “No way!” she cried. “You would take a baby from his mother?”

Looking at her mulishly, he stated, “We can set up visitation rights. But you know as well as I that I’d make the better parent.”

Blair let all of her frustration evaporate and answered meekly, “I suppose you’re right. You’re so much smarter than I am.”

Bodhi couldn’t believe her sudden capitulation or her mood swings, but he’d heard Cooper’s younger sister talk about pregnancy hormones messing with your thinking, and he considered Blair’s natural state of imbalance. Squinting at her thoughtfully he asked, “Do you want me to find you a doctor?”

Quickly, she answered, “Oh, no thank you. My specialist, um…OB-GYN, in London has already referred me to someone, and I have an appointment in a couple of weeks.”

That sounded odd to Bodhi, but what did he know about having babies? “I’ll go with you to the appointment,” he said in a no-nonsense voice.

“Don’t be silly. That won’t be necessary. You’d be bored.”

“On the contrary, Blair. I think hearingmybaby’s heartbeat and talking to the doctor about what to expect will be extremely interesting.” He saw a flash of some emotion flit across her features, but he couldn’t discern its meaning. It was gone just as quickly as it came. “So, it’s settled then. Let me know the time of the appointment and I’ll make sure to take you.”

∞∞∞

When Cooper and Ivy returned that night, it was late. They hadn’t known what to expect, but they were mildly surprised to find the house quiet, and Bodhi sacked out on the couch sound asleep under a spare blanket.

“I guess Blair’s still here,” Ivy observed. “Too bad.”

They approached him quietly, and Cooper reached out to tap Bodhi’s shoulder. “Hey, man,” he whispered, “want to join us tonight? You don’t need to sleep out here.”

Groggily, Bodhi sat up and yawned. Sighing, he answered, “Look, I’d like to—you both know that. But I told Blair I want custody of the kid, so until I can get her out of the house and into her own place, I want to look like the model dad, you know? All she knows is that the room she’s in now was my room, and I don’t want to sleep in it with her.”

Pouting, Ivy stuck out her lower lip and said, “We’ll miss you.” She kissed Bodhi soundly on the lips and grabbed Cooper’s hand.

Cooper resisted for a second and then also leaned over and kissed Bodhi and said, “If you change your mind, you know where to find us.”

Chapter 17

To say that things were tense for the next several days is like pointing out that the Pacific Ocean is wet and salty.

Ivy attempted to ignore Blair’s constant snipes about her appearance. She knew Blair’s intent was to make her feel insecure, but despite herself, it was working. Blair never did it in front of the guys, and Ivy never told them about it. Ivy knew that Bodhi had a lot on his mind, and he didn’t need to run interference for something Ivy should be able to handle. She told herself to deal with Blair on her own.

Cooper pretended to be polite to Blair’s face, but he couldn’t stop himself from muttering insults under his breath that she couldn’t hear. It irked him that she never lifted a finger to help out around the house, even though she seemed to think it was her right to move in and stay there. She seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time lying down. He knew pregnancy could wear a woman out, but this was ridiculous.

Bodhi tried to act as if having Blair around was not driving him batshit crazy. He scoured every source he could find for possible alternate housing, but summertime at the beach with the Del Mar racing season quickly approaching made it almost impossible to find another place.

A few times, after consulting his laptop, Bodhi would whoop for joy and grab Blair to go see something that was available, only to return an hour later in a foul mood. “I can’t imagine why you didn’t like that one,” he exclaimed after their most recent trip.

“Did you see the mold in the bathroom? Bodhi, really! How can you think I could live there like that?”

“It was a dark spot on the shower door, Blair. It may not have even been mold!”

“I can’t take any chances with an unhealthy environment. You should understand that, darling.”

“Living near the beach makes things mold sometimes, you know. There are cleaning products for it.”

Blair shuddered visibly and announced, “I need to go lie down.”

∞∞∞

And that was how things went—over and over. He was even willing to put her up in a hotel at an exorbitant price, but they were all booked solid.

Outside of prying her out of his house with a crowbar, Bodhi was running out of ideas. He did, however, get her set up with a fantastic health insurance plan that was going to cost him an arm and a leg. He looked at it as an investment in his baby’s good health.

---