Chapter 11

11

SERENA

J ack doesn't tire of me. He doesn't decide I'm boring or too ordinary. He keeps doing the sweetest things. He has my favorite cereal at his place, spoils me with romantic dates and fiery nights. He even stays and sleeps in with me a couple of times when we wear each other out.

I have a keycard to his elevator, a drawer with my clothes in it. Clothes he picked out for me himself, because he likes doing that sort of thing. I tease him that I'm just his favorite pet, that he pampers me and plays with me but the newness will wear off.

He doesn't think that's funny, and tells me that despite my enthusiasm for goats, he has never had a pet and never wants one. He wants me all the time. I can't hide how much that thrills me.

I've spent the night at his apartment a dozen times. I've watched three seasons of True Blood with him—the show that he grudgingly admitted is his favorite during some revealing pillow talk. It gets on his nerves that I'm not a Bill fan. I suspect that the Mob boss I'm having an illicit affair with identifies with the world-weary vampire in the show. I tease him about it just to watch him bristle at the suggestion.

To earn my keep, so to speak, I show off my ability to drain an infected suture in the back room at the bar, and I take care of a couple of guys who got into a knife fight over a woman. I dispense ibuprofen and even help an old guy with an ingrown toenail. I like putting my skills to good use, keeping them fresh, and it keeps me from feeling like I'm a charity case at Bettino's.

Most evenings I'm only there a couple of hours. Then Jack picks me up and we go to dinner or take a walk by the river. I don't exactly have to worry about being mugged or harassed when I'm with him. I know he has security, the discreet kind, but I can't imagine him needing it when he's so alert, so dangerous himself.

He takes me salsa dancing, and he's good. I'm surprised, but I admit the way he moves his body, the moves I've come to know and dream of, make sense with this kind of dancing. I have a hard time remembering which way to turn to go under his arm, and I make mistakes. We laugh together, and I can't remember ever feeling this joyful, this free of everything.

He rises so early to work out, which I can't even fathom. I always reach for him with a half-awake groan when he gets up at some ungodly hour. Once I decide I'll surprise him. I set an alarm that makes me whine and curl up into a ball when it wakes me. I creep to his kitchen and make him breakfast.

By the time gets back from his workout, I'm ready with a plate of only kind of runny scrambled eggs and toast, a glass of orange juice, all on a bamboo tray with a napkin folded into a triangle. I beam at him, and he looks at me, puzzled.

"What's all this?" he says.

"I wanted to surprise you," I say sheepishly.

"You made me eggs?" he says, his voice sounding a little dubious as he looks at the plate.

"I did. Isn't it scary? I never felt like cooking for anybody in my life. Well, other than my dad."

"You probably shouldn't bring your dad into the conversation when I can see your nipples through that shirt," he teases me.

"Right. Afraid to eat the eggs?"

"A little."

"A big, tough businessman like you?"

"Thank you for making me breakfast. It's very sweet of you." He tries so hard to arrange his features into something like a smile that I burst out laughing.

"Do you hate eggs or do they just look that bad?"

"I wouldn't say I hate them. It's more that I usually just grab a protein bar after I work out. That doesn't make this any less thoughtful though. I know how much you love your sleep. You got up early to do this for me and—"

"Stop," I giggle. "You don't have to eat it. In fact, watching you try to act like it's a delightful surprise is almost worth getting up that early to make scrambled eggs," I confess.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Oh, thank God!" he says, setting the tray aside and kissing me. "Because I'm no expert but I don't think scrambled eggs are supposed to slosh around the plate like that."

"To be fair, my dad is usually still sleeping and I just grab a bowl of cereal," I admit.

It gets harder every day not to give in to the feelings I have for him. It's like I rely on a hastily constructed dam made of toothpicks and chewing gum to hold back the torrent of emotions that grow stronger by the day. I didn't think I was the falling in love type, much less the kind of girl who goes for bad boys. Morally gray book boyfriends aside, I never wanted the excitement of a dangerous lifestyle.

I never dreamt of falling asleep on silk sheets or having a boyfriend who gives me diamond earrings to wear to dinner. When I refuse to accept them—it's too much, it's not the kind of thing I would ever need-- he just kisses me and tells me to wear them for him. He likes seeing me in them. So, I wear them. And I don't even consider pawning them to pay off my father's debts. I have no doubt that they'd cover what he owed and then some, with their perfectly blue-white gleam.

But I know it would hurt him if I tried to sell them. It's a dangerous game for me, or it feels that way. Because sometimes it occurs to me that he would cover the whole debt if I asked him to, or that he already has, and I just don't know it. I know he isn't comfortable with me owing him anything, that he never wants this to be like that.

Somehow it isn't like that. Because I know I could level him with a word. As much as I fight to hold back how I feel, to keep from letting him know because any sensible person realizes this is doomed, he doesn't hide his feelings very well. It's like the wall he built in a hurry wasn't even made of toothpicks—more like a stack of fast-food napkins and watery glue.

I'm constantly aware that I can't do this forever. All it will take is one close call with a bullet or a blade and I'll panic and disappear from his life. I don't have the nerves of steel I'd need to be with a man whose life is in constant peril, no matter how many times he tells me he works in an office now.

I know the truth. Both sides of it. The part that realizes I love him, and the part that knows there's going to be hell to pay if I stay with him.

Reality hits me like a ton of bricks on a Tuesday morning. My first thought is we never should've gotten fish tacos from DoorDash at one in the morning, they were probably old.

Jack sleeping soundly, an arm thrown across his eyes to block any light. If the tacos were bad, he'd be sick too, I think, as the last bit of logic fails me and panic has me writhing in its grip.

I shouldn't be astonished when I wake up dizzy and sick to my stomach when the sky is still barely turning to gray. I stagger into the bathroom and barely make it to the toilet in time to vomit as violently as I can ever remember. I'm retching and coughing, too afraid to crawl feebly to the sink to rinse my mouth. I know before I even buy a test what this is. It's what always happens to careless girls. I go from being headstrong, free and happy to the classic cautionary tale.

I rock back on my heels and try to get my head to stop swimming.

I'd groan in disappointment at myself, at my reckless abandon and its natural consequences if I wasn't afraid making any more noise would wake Jack. The guy I fell for, who happens to lead the most dangerous lifestyle known to the modern world. He employs hit men. I stitch up injured thugs in the back of a bar on a plastic tablecloth, the paper gown and latex gloves a comforting illusion that what I'm doing is in any way legitimately medical in nature.

I had a fun, romantic fling with a man who cannot possibly be interested in becoming a father. If he were, he'd marry some rich society bride, uniting their wealthy crime families or something like that. I'm undereducated, unemployed except on a cash-only basis stitching up stab wounds in a bar, and I don't think my family tree would impress anyone.

The only branch I have left of it is the cause of all my problems except this. This is all my own irresponsibility. I'd beat myself up some more, but I have to puke again. By the time I get to rinse out my mouth, I've sweated through my t-shirt and surrendered to the dizziness. I lie down on the cool tile floor.

I no longer care if he finds me like this. I'm too sick to worry about his reaction to the news, or to come up with some believable lie. I find myself hoping I'll just pass out from dehydration and blur into oblivion for a few hours. It's the only option that sounds appealing at all.

The inside of my mouth is the flavor of rancid fur. Unbidden, as I blink my eyes open, I think of the dill pickle we once shared and feel bile rise in my throat. This is not going to be one of those gentle pregnancies where an apple-cheeked wholesome girl finds herself in a family way, discovering her condition via cute cravings for bacon and peanut butter. No, I've got the Exorcist style morning sickness, my complexion gray and pallid, sweaty—not at all like the healthy pink cheeks of those cute pregnant girls I've seen on campus before.

One more obstacle between me and nursing school. Not only my father's compounding debts but my own misstep. The only thing that could possibly make this worse is telling Jack Marino that I'm knocked up.