Page 62 of Hendrix

After the pregnancy scare, he pulled away from me. The only time I ever felt I owned a part of him was when we were in bed. Rumors began to spread that he was seeing other women and once, Tristan saw him with a woman in the parking lot of a bar in Mapletree.

Maybe that was why Antoni appealed to me so much. He was a breath of fresh air and seemed to be all in from the first time he sent me a drink over in a strange bar. I went from a closed book in Hendrix to Toni telling me on our third date how he intended to give me a ring and children and build a good life with me. I wouldn’t say it dazzled me, but it restored my faith in men along with my faith in love.

Until it didn’t.

“Penny for them?” Hendrix murmured, much the same as Tristan did earlier when he said the exact same thing to me, and it pissed me off because he was so sure I’d tell him what I was thinking, and I needed to shut that shit down. We’d been here before, time and again. He wanted me, he got me, then he got spooked and pushed me away. Rinse and repeat. Same shit, different day.

I twisted my head to face him.

Our eyes locked and his were filled with so much intensity I struggled to breathe. The ache in my stomach intensified, and a realization hit me.

Hendrix wasn’t done playing. He liked to keep me dangling on his puppet strings, and he loved controlling the narrative. All I ever did was love him, but all he ever did in return was play on my emotions. He was a decent man to everyone around him; he just wasn’t decent to me.

And it had to stop.

I felt sick to my core, literally. My stomach turned over with the stress of the past few weeks. I felt ill at the prospect of having to shut Hendrix down. It felt unnatural to me when he was so perfect in so many ways, just not perfect for me.

“My thoughts aren’t anything to do with you anymore, Jamie,” I told him firmly. “We’ve been on this merry-go-round before, honey. It didn’t work out for us then, and it won’t work now. I’m sorry.” He opened his mouth to argue, but I pressed a finger against his lips. “Let me finish.”

He stilled briefly, then nodded.

“You know the relationship I had with my momma?”

He nodded again.

I smiled self-deprecatingly. “Lord knows that woman didn’t give me much maternal advice, but she did tell me something once, and it stuck. She said if a man’s inconsistent, it’s because he cares about himself more than he cares about you. If he’s not investing in you, it’s because he thinks you’re not worth the investment. And most importantly, if he won’t commit, it’s because he’s waiting for the next best thing to come along, and you’re just a placeholder.” My fingers moved to cup his cheek, my eyes never leaving his beautiful blue ones. “I should have listened to my momma; it would have saved me a lot of heartache.” Covering his hand with mine, I slid it closer until it covered my aching belly. “There’s a baby in there. Do you get that?”

His eyes closed, and he jerked a solitary nod.

“You screw around, you break promises, you’re inconsistent, and you run from commitment. It’s one thing when it’s just me who has to deal with it, but it’s something else entirely when you do it to him. I can’t allow it.”

“I won’t do it to him,” he croaked. “I’ve regretted how I treated you for years, baby. You think I didn’t care, but I did. I cared too much. I let you go so you could have everything you wanted.”

My eyebrows pulled together at his words. “What are you talking about?”

“You wanted kids,” he muttered. “But I don’t... I mean, I...” His mouth opened and closed as if he was trying to find the words. “I know I hurt you, but it was the best thing I could’ve done for you at the time.”

My lips thinned frustratedly because he was speaking the words but not really saying anything. Hendrix was the master of evasion. “You’re talking in riddles. It’s what you always do, and I’m sick of it.”

A wave of nausea flowed through me, and my stomach contracted with a sharp pain.

Hendrix pulled his hand away as if he’d been burned. His eyes snapped downward, and he bit out, “What the fuck was that?”

A dull ache swept through me, followed by another shooting pain. My hand flew to my belly, and I doubled over, staring up at him. “Something’s wrong, Jamie. My stomach hurts.” A cramp clutched at my insides, and I let out an agonized moan. “Something’s wrong.”

“What is it?” he demanded, curling his fingers around my nape.

“I don’t know.” I grimaced at the cramping in my belly. “I started to feel off, and then the pain came out of nowhere.”

Hendrix pulled me into his arms bridal-style and carefully got to his feet, heading purposefully toward the footpath. “It’s okay, beautiful,” he murmured, planting a soft kiss on my hair. “I’ll get you sorted. Freya’s at the hotel. She’ll see you right.”

Another dull ache sliced through me, and tears filled my eyes. “What if it’s the baby?” I whispered, staring up at his face.

His mouth set in a determined line, and he glanced down at me. “Nothin’s gonna happen to our boy. Ya hear me?”

I heard him loud and clear, but the words didn’t register, and neither did the way he said ‘our boy’ with so much vehemence. The only thing flashing through my mind was one solitary question.

What if something was wrong with my son?

---