Page 95 of Vegas Daddies

Pregnant? I can’t be. Too much shit is happening right now for me to process the fact that there’s currently a child developing inside of me. One I have no idea how to look after. For God’s sake, I don’t even know how to care for myself, never mind an infant who will require my attention every waking minute of the day. I can say goodbye to sleep. To pert breasts and that ID card with the words “Nurse Practitioner” in bold.

My future is maternity.

Caring for a child.

But how can I care for a child with my life at risk?

Aside from the blowing trees outside and the humming refrigerator, home is silent. I wander into the kitchen, pour myself a glass of water, and gulp it down like it’s gonna wash away the drama of today.

It doesn’t.

I slam the empty glass down on the table feeling just as anxious as before. Is it nerves cramping my stomach or the baby stirring within me?

And whose will it be?

I try to relax my breathing, but it shallows. A well-functioning respiratory system isn’t in the cards for me anymore.

I shut my eyes. Grip the edge of the countertop to stabilize myself.

One, two, three,I count in my head, but it’s not numbers I see.

It’s them. All three of them playing with the newborn. They’re smiling. Brander curls his finger around the child’s—it’s four times the size of the baby’s—and Lifesaver flashes a smile that warms my heart. Match is the one holding her. It’s a girl, and he can’t take his eyes away.

I reopen my eyes.

My breathing regulates. It’s steady again.

I wipe a hand across my sweating brow.

This is fucked up.

Imagining Match, Brander, and Lifesaver as fathers isn’t supposed to make me feel content. Outlaw bikers shouldn’t be good paternal figures, but in my head they are. If they can care for and protect me, surely between the three of them they’re more than capable of protecting a newborn.

A slamming door jolts me back to reality.

Stalls my breathing.

Most likely it’s Daddy returning from work. He’s probably been tied up in the office all day working himself numb. Maybe he even took a stroll down the strip for a dose of praise to make himself feel better.

Nerves twist my stomach.

How am I supposed to look him in the eye?

I guess we’ll find out.

“Daddy? Is that you?”

Silence.

I let two more seconds pass before I push off from the countertop to head to the hallway. Walking through the house doesn’t feel the same anymore. The Tiffany Wisteria lamp perched on the coffee table, the brown Sorrento Leather corner-couch decorating the living room, the expensive collection of ceramic mugs imported all the way from Tuscany painted with blues and yellows to represent Italian skies and lemons. None of it is real. Blood money bought every piece of furniture in this house. The palace-rose paint in my bedroom—the shade that Daddy bought for me as soon as he was elected mayor, because I always said I wanted a pink bedroom, and he always said he didn’t have enough money to renovate my room.

He could only afford to redecorate my room because he indirectly killed two innocents.

A life based on lies isn’t a life.

It was pretend happiness, all of it.

Butthisis real life.

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