Royce(19)

She didn’t move, didn’t speak. She was afraid of what she’d say, what she’d do. When she heard the door open and close softly she waited. She wanted to make sure he’d left, he was out of her life, before she gave in. When she heard the soft crunch of gravel in the drive and saw the small skim of lights go over her window, she knew he’d left her. And Kasey did something she’d not done since she’d found out about her mom’s tumor; she cried. Cried so hard she heard her uncle come to her door.

~~~

Royce was sitting at the stop light a few blocks from his apartment when his phone rang. His breath caught thinking that Kasey was calling him back when he realized it was his brother. He answered with a sharp hello and a demand of why he was calling him at five in the morning.

“You asked me to meet you at the gym, asswipe. I’m so going to knock the shit out of you if you bail on me when I got up to work out with you.”

“No, I’m…I’m on my way now. I had…I overslept. I’m ten minutes away.” Royce closed his phone, made a right at the next street, and went to the club house. He didn’t want to meet with his brother; he didn’t want to meet with anyone. He wanted to go home and think about the woman’s bed he’d just left and what he’d said to her.

He’d been sitting there thinking about what they’d done for over an hour before she woke up. Her soft mew when she rolled over nearly made him want to strip down and crawl back into the warm bed with her again and see what other ways they could make love and not hurt her. Even as quick and short as their first time together had been, it had been more satisfying than any other time in his life. He wasn’t sure if that made him happy or pissed him off more.

They’d had unprotected sex. Great sex, but still unprotected. He’d been alternating between excited about seeing her swollen with his child to being pissed that she might be pregnant. Then he thought about the complications of being married. Not to her, just in general.

He didn’t want to be married, plain and simple. Being married meant loss of freedom, not being able to just come and go as he pleased. Of course, she’d be in his bed every night. But that too was something he wasn’t sure he could handle. Not that they didn’t have great sex this one time, but every night? No, he didn’t think…no, he knew he couldn’t be faithful to just one woman. He’d done right in making sure right up front that he wasn’t going to marry. And hell, she seemed all right with it too.

It did sting a little that she’d said she didn’t want him. He didn’t think he was all that bad of a person. He just didn’t want to shackle himself down. That didn’t mean that they couldn’t get together sometimes and have some fun. But to say…he realized he was going about this all wrong.

They’d agreed. If there was a kid, she’d tell him. If not, then he was off the hook. He pulled up in front of the gym and turned off the engine. He knew the odds of her getting pregnant were fifty-fifty, but he didn’t think the odds were going to be that good.

He just knew that she was going to be calling him up in a few weeks and demanding that he marry her. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. He was going to be prepared for such an event. He pulled his bag from the truck and went inside feeling like he’d figured her out. Yes, this was going to be a piece of cake.





Chapter 7



Kasey knew her uncle was mad at her, but she didn’t care. Well, she did, but he loved her. It had been two weeks since Royce had left her and she knew it was time for her to move out. She still had her bandages on, but she was hobbling around pretty well and she didn’t have to have someone feed her at every meal.

“I still think you should wait until you get at least your arm out of the sling. It’s not hurting me having you here.”

Kasey took a deep breath before answering. “I can’t stay here forever. I have to have my own place, my own things again.”

“You could, you know,” he told her softly. “You could stay here forever. I love having you here. And Suzy has been so happy since you moved in. She’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss her too. And I’ll miss you, but Uncle Jay, I have to leave. I can’t…I don’t…”

“I know, baby.” He hugged her to him before he finished. “I’m so sorry, honey. I wish I would have told him to go home. He shouldn’t have treated you that way.”

She’d told him that Royce and she had had a fight. He’d wanted her to go back to the hospital and she’d thrown him out once and for all. She’d not told them about the sex, and she’d not mentioned that while he wanted to know if they’d stupidly created a baby, he wouldn’t do anything about it. But she did tell them about the check.