Page 50 of Biker's Baby

TWENTY-TWO

Iris

I lookedover my shoulder at the clock on the microwave, realizing it was almost time for Abe to be off work. Tris was usually up around now, but he must have been tired the night before. He slept all through the night, and it seemed he was going to sleep in now.

I was okay with that.

It was Saturday, and Abe didn’t seem to ever go to sleep when he got home on Saturdays. That gave me some hope that we might be able to do something fun. I hadn’t slept well the night before, and I wanted to get out of town. I thought I would suggest to him going to a park again.

I didn’t care if it was the same one we’d gone to before or a new one. As long as I was able to get out of the house and put some distance between myself and Joel, I was okay with that.

It would be about half an hour before Abe got home, so I was surprised when I heard the sound of a bike pulling up just a few minutes later. It was early still, even for Abe.

For a brief moment, I worried it was Joel coming to the house when Abe wasn’t around. But I knew the sound of a motorcycle, and Joel wasn’t a biker. I didn’t even know if he was capable of riding a motorcycle, really.

I crept over to the window and looked out, relief filling my chest when I saw Abe making his way toward the door. I didn’t know why he was home earlier than normal, but I was glad it was him and not anyone else.

Even with Glenn knowing about me here, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Anyone could show up at any time, and I wasn’t sure what to do if someone were to come when Abe wasn’t home. I would like to pretend that I wasn’t here, either, but I didn’t know if Glenn would tell anyone about me.

If Abe trusted him, then probably not, but how did I know?

All those thoughts vanished from my mind when Abe opened the door. I was back at my place at the dining room table, a cup of coffee in hand. I had my phone on the table, too, looking like I had been browsing on it when he walked in. It wasn’t that I wanted to pose for him, but I didn’t want him to feel like I just spent my time waiting for him to come home, either.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Morning,” I replied. I decided not to play it cool today. “You’re here early.”

“There was an accident at the warehouse last night,” he said. “Glenn hurt himself when a pallet of product got dumped. He’s lucky he didn’t do anything more than break his leg, really. I had to take him up to the ER and make sure everything was okay before I left.”

“And is it?” I asked. “How did that even happen?”

“There’s a new guy at the warehouse, and he’s not certified to be using the forklifts yet. Our boss thought that wasn’t a big deal and was letting the guy move some of the stuff around inside the warehouse. Well, there’s a reason why they make you get certified with those things before you’re allowed to just go crazy with them. He ran into a pallet full of canned goods and the entire thing dumped on top of Glenn,” Abe explained.

“He could have been killed!” I cried.

“He’s lucky he was getting into his own forklift when it happened. Because, yeah, you’re absolutely right. If he had been on the floor next to the pallets when that was hit, you better believe there’s a good chance he would have been killed when those cans fell. Those things are heavy!” Abe shook his head.

“Do you want a cup of coffee?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.

I got up and poured the coffee, fixing it just the way he liked it before setting it in front of him on the table. I enjoyed the fact that he didn’t go straight to bed when he got home on Saturdays. And since it was earlier than normal, there was a good chance that the two of us would have a moment together before Tristan got up.

While Tristan was still too young to understand most of the things that were said between the two of us, I still didn’t feel that I was able to talk freely with him around. It was hard for me to be entirely honest with Abe about what I wanted to tell him when Tris was right there.

It was as though my biggest secret was staring me right in the face, and I wasn’t sure how to handle that.

But it was also incredibly easy to talk to Abe, and after I returned to my chair with my own coffee, we started chatting away like old friends. We hadn’t talked about the fact that we’d slept together, and somehow, that was just okay. I felt at this point there was really no need to bring it up.

It would be better for me to just go with the flow and see what happened instead of trying to work out everything right away. He knew that there were things that complicated the way we were behaving, and he was still right there ready to partake in them with me. He knew that it was going to make things a lot harder if we were to sleep together, but that didn’t stop him.

So, I decided the best thing to do would be to let him be the one to bring it up, or perhaps to talk about it if we were to move in that direction again. I didn’t see that happening. Not with the way I had to get out of here.

I enjoyed the way we talked to each other, and there was a part of me that was almost disappointed with how early Tris got up. I loved spending time with my son no matter what, but when he got up, it meant that it was almost time for me to start my day.

Abe would start going through his routine, and I would turn into being just the mom to Tris. I still wanted to ask Abe about taking the two of us to the park again, but I stopped short when Tris went straight to Abe instead of me.

“Hey, buddy,” Abe said as he scooped up my son and held him on his lap. He stroked his hair, talking to him in a soothing voice. It was so natural, it was like a dagger straight to my heart.

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