Читать книгу Karma Kameleon - Stephanie Haefner - Страница 9

Chapter 5

Back to work. I needed to finish my first draft of Which Way to Broadway. But more than that, I needed the distraction. By nine AM, Rich had gone, Kevin and Marcus too, and the babysitter had taken Preston to spend the morning at the children’s museum.

Usually I worked at the desk in our bedroom, but with the entire place to myself, I chose the living room love seat instead. We’d hit a cold spell and I couldn’t imagine anything more relaxing than my cashmere blanket and a cup of French roast with hazelnut, my legs sprawled in front of me. My laptop sat with its cursor blinking at me. Waiting for me to do something amazing. But my mind kept wandering elsewhere.

It had been a few weeks since I’d added anything new to this story and I’d left it right before the climax, at the part where the main character was practically raped.

I’d already told Amanda about the story. I thought she might have some issues with it, but she didn’t. She was flattered, and confessed she’d loosely based her current project on me and my love story with Rich. We’d agreed to change the names, obviously, and decided it a good idea to work on stories near and dear to us.

I sat there, ready to relive one of the worst nights in Amanda’s life, just a few days after one of the worst of mine. And once I put my fingers to the keyboard, the story emerged. It felt damn good to have something different to focus on–something that, though sad, was not my personal misery.

A few hours later, my stomach growled and I took a break. Rising from the love seat, I stretched and realized the fullness of my bladder. I sat on the toilet, debating what to make for lunch, and felt something weird. In the toilet water I found a walnut-sized clump–bright red and exactly how my doctor had described.

I’d just expelled my baby.

I sank to the frigid tile and hugged the rim of the bowl, my head on the toilet seat. Staring into the water, I cried for the first time that day. There it was–the end of this nightmare. Some women might feel relieved, but not me. Sobs poured out as I let go of the last shred of hope I’d had.

Why had this happened to me? What had I done to deserve this sadistic kind of torture?

And then it hit me. That Karma bitch.

My back straightened and I stood, tears having been replaced with fire. I searched the bathroom and saw nothing. I continued to the hall and the living room, the kitchen. Still nothing.

“Where are you, you fucking bitch?”

I stomped into my bedroom, then into Preston’s nursery.

“Show your goddamn face!”

This couldn’t be happening–not again. I wasn’t the same person I’d been before. I’d reformed and grown a conscience. I was a good person. I didn’t deserve any kind of bad karma.

I’d thought Karma and I were good. I’d thought we were friends. Why the hell would she do this to me again? And something so awful? This didn’t just hurt me, this hurt Rich. He didn’t deserve this kind of pain.

I went back to the bathroom mirror and saw only my bedraggled reflection. I turned and jerked open the shower curtain. “Where the fuck are you hiding?”

As I tore into the linen closet, footsteps came behind me and I swung around to meet Karma’s icy gaze.

“Lex, what are you doing?” Rich stood there, staring at me and the pile of towels at my feet–the ones I’d yanked from the closet in search of a paranormal figure only I could see.

“Um, uh…nothing. Just looking for something.”

He didn’t seem convinced. “Need some help?”

“No.” I shook my head as the tears and sadness returned.

He reached to me as I broke down and cradled me in his embrace. “What’s going on?” He spoke as if he were talking to Preston. My apparent mind loss was probably freaking him out.

I pulled away and pointed at the toilet.

He peered in and took a second to register the bowl’s contents. His arms wrapped around me. “What should we do?”

I shrugged my shoulders. What was there to do?

“Should I, um, flush it?”

My eyes widened in shock. Flush my baby into the New York City sewer system? To be gobbled up by a deformed radioactive alligator? Was he insane?

Sanity was obviously in the eye of the beholder.

“Lexi, we have to let it go.”

“I can’t.”

But I knew it had to be done. Our baby wasn’t in the toilet bowl. He or she was floating around somewhere in heaven or whatever. Even at thirty-three years old, I hadn’t formed an opinion on what happens after death. But it was easiest to imagine our baby in a white toga, fluttering from cloud to cloud with golden wings.

“Can you do it?” I asked Rich and he nodded. My eyes stayed on our little red blob as he closed the lid and with the whoosh of the toilet flushing, I began to cry again. It was finally over.

* * * *

“I’m taking Kevin to dinner tonight. We probably won’t come home, okay?” Marcus said while whipping a bowl of eggs for an omelet. Saturday had always been our big homemade breakfast day.

“Okay.” I smiled at him. Living together had worked perfectly, except when we wanted to get a little crazy in the bedroom. Every so often Marcus and Kevin would go out and stay the night at a hotel, and we’d do the same. “Have fun.”

“That’s the plan.” He reached into his robe pocket and set a black velvet box on the kitchen island in front of me.

“What’s this?”

“Open it.” His grin was so big, its brilliance almost blinded me.

After wiping my hands on a kitchen towel, I picked up the box and peeked inside–a men’s platinum band with a single diamond in the center.

“Is this what I think it is?”

Marcus nodded. “I drove up to his parents’ last weekend to ask for his hand.”

I leapt into his arms and hugged him tight. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Do you think he’ll like it?”

“If he doesn’t, there’s something wrong with him.”

After a few more seconds of congratulatory embrace, we got back to work. Marcus put the ring back in his pocket, having heard Kevin’s shower turn off. “I’m nervous.”

“What? Why?”

“I’ve never asked anyone to marry me before. What if he says no?”

“Then he sucks and you kick him to the curb.”

He tilted his head and smiled at me. “I know you’re kidding, but I’m serious. What if Kevin doesn’t want to get married? Or at least not to me.”

“He loves you. And he’d be a fool to turn you down.”

Before Marcus could allow his anxiety to show any further, Kevin skipped into the room. “Good morning, everyone!” He kissed me on the cheek and Marcus on the lips. “Did I miss anything?”

“Nope, just omelet preparations.”

* * * *

The apartment was dark, only the TV flickering as the ending credits rolled on the DVD Rich and I had rented.

“You think Marcus has asked him yet?”

“It’s almost midnight.” Rich picked up the remote and pressed Stop, then turned the DVD player and TV off. “I’m sure they’re celebrating by now.”

Once he set the remote back down, the darkness of night enveloping us, I pressed my body to his and pushed him down on the couch. My tongue slid past his lips and my hand to the elastic of his Adidas track pants. The tingle of anticipation traveled through my entire body and rested in my clit, throbbing with want.

He pulled away from my hungry kiss. “I think we need to stop.”

“No. I’m sure it’s fine.” My mouth moved to his earlobe and I took hold of his manhood. It hardened in my hand as I stroked it. “It can’t hurt anything.”

“Lexi.” The firmness of his voice startled me. He pushed me away. “I don’t want to.”

“That’s not what your dick is telling me.”

“I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

He stood, walked away, and started the shower.

What? Was I damaged goods now? Was he so repulsed he couldn’t make love to me? No way was he getting out of this.

I stomped into the bathroom and ripped the curtain open. Water sprayed all over me and the floor. “Do I disgust you?”

“Of course not.” He tilted his head back to rinse the shampoo from his hair. The sight of his naked body, toned and lean–definite perk of being engaged to someone who was twenty-five–took me away from my anger. But not for long.

“Then what is it? Don’t want to get your cock a little bloody? How many times have you fucked me on the rag?”

He stared at me.

“And for your information, it’s almost stopped anyway.”

He shut off the water, grabbed a towel and rubbed his head, then wrapped it around his waist.

I followed him to the bedroom. “What? No comment? No answer for why you can’t stomach having sex with me right now?”

“You don’t know how off base you are.”

He dropped the towel and got into bed.

“Then tell me.”

“I’m going to sleep.” He flipped off the lamp on the night stand.

“Tell me now.” I turned the light back on.

“No! I’m not gonna talk about this,” he yelled back.

“Why not? Afraid you’re gonna piss me off? Too late.”

“I’m tired and I’m going to sleep.”

I yanked the covers from the bed.

“What the fuck?”

“I want an explanation.”

He pulled the covers back over his body. “Well, you’re not getting one.”

Preston began to wail.

“Now look what you’ve done.”

I turned and the room went dark. But I could find the way to my baby’s room without any lights. When I got there I lifted him out of the crib and held him to me, tears filling my eyes. I hated fighting with Rich. It happened so rarely, and when we did go at it, my whole body shook.

Sitting in the rocker by the window, I sang Preston a song. He loved You Are My Sunshine and it seemed to calm us both down. When his eyes stayed closed longer than being open, I laid him in his bed and covered him. I pressed a kiss to my finger and then on his nose.

I headed to Marcus and Kevin’s room. No way was I going back to mine. Rich had refused to give me an answer and that pissed me off more than anything. Before the miscarriage, we’d had sex at least three or four times a week, and for him to refuse now was stupid. I at least deserved to know why.