To Hate Adam Connor
: Chapter 18

Lucy

I woke up in Adam Connor’s arms before the sunrise, before the stars could fully disappear. He’d made me come more times than I’d ever come before in one single night. He had well and truly broken my vagina, and I couldn’t replace it in me to be angry with him. I didn’t remember going to sleep holding his hand, but as soon as I became aware of where I was, I let go of it immediately.

I moved my fingers, opening and closing my hand to get rid of the alien feeling. The warmth. The sudden emptiness.

I was deliciously sore, something I would’ve celebrated by embarrassing Olive if it were any other time, but I was too angry at myself for falling asleep in Adam’s bed to even think about running to Olive to wake her up.

Sliding off the bed, I allowed myself one last look at the near perfection that was lying in the middle of the bed.

That chest.

That cock.

Those fingers.

Oh, those lips.

Those dirty, dirty lips that had whispered even dirtier things to me the entire night.

Without making a sound, I found my way back to the living room, put on my clothes, and walked out of his home.

***

“Good morning, Lucy,” Jason greeted me as he trailed behind Olive.

Olive was quiet, her eyes trained on me in deep concentration.

“Good morning. I made pancakes.” I pushed the plate holding a stack of twenty pancakes forward and flipped another one on the pan. “Get a good night’s sleep?”

“You didn’t wake me up.”

I glanced at Olive over my shoulder and opened the fridge to take out the apple juice.

“Good morning to you, too, sunshine. And you’re welcome.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“Because you hit anyone who tries to wake you up.”

“You really do,” Jason murmured as he kissed Olive’s temple and reached to take a pancake.

With Jason’s help, Olive climbed up to sit on one of the barstools and kept a watching eye on me.

I handed Jason the maple syrup and took out the plate of fruit I had cut up before starting the pancakes.

Sliding the hot pancake onto Olive’s plate, I started on another one. “I’m gonna go check out the apartment I told you about. You’ll come with me?”

“Because that’s the most important thing we should do right now, right? Find you an apartment.”

Jason’s hand stopped midair as he was about to reach for a piece of banana.

I sighed and flipped the pancake.

“I’ll leave you girls alone to talk,” Jason muttered before dropping a kiss on Olive’s neck. Rounding the island, he took out a bottle of water from the fridge and surprised me by wrapping a hand around my arm and pulling me against his chest.

“Be nice to our adopted daughter, Olive,” he said with care, his hand stroking my arm.

I smiled and wiggled my eyebrows at Olive.

As an answer, she gave Jason the evil eye and asked me, “Why are you walking funny?”

My smile stretched bigger. “Because Adam Connor fucked me for hours.”

“Ohhh-kay. I’m going to take a shower before I meet up with Tom. Play nice,” he reminded us as he left the kitchen.

“You didn’t come home last night.”

I turned off the stove and leaned on the island. “That’s true, Mom.”

She nodded and started playing with the coffee mug in front of her.

“Do you want coffee?”

“No.”

“Apple juice?”

A slight hesitation…then, “Yes.”

I poured two glasses of apple juice and handed her one. It was a favorite for both of us.

“Did you talk to Jameson?”

“Not yet. I wanted you to be next to me when I made that call.”

Her shoulders relaxed, and I knew I’d given her the right answer.

She took a sip of her juice then reached for a piece of mango. I did the same and then reached for my first pancake.

“Are we going to have a baby, Lucy?”

I poured a good amount of maple syrup on my pancake and took a few bites before I could answer. “We’re having a baby.”

Olive put another pancake and a few pieces of fruit on her plate. “We should make an appointment with a doctor. Be sure.”

“Yes. Do you remember Karla?”

She nodded.

“I got in touch with her the other day to see if she’d want to be my roommate because I knew she was having trouble with hers.” Olive’s shoulders tensed up again. “Anyway, her dad is a doctor, so I thought we could get his help.”

“Will you call Jameson before or after the doctor?”

I shrugged and finished my pancake.

“You okay?”

“Nothing else I can do now, my green Olive.”

For a while we ate in silence. We didn’t manage to finish all the pancakes, but definitely put a dent in the stack.

“And Adam?”

How to answer that loaded question…

“You’re smiling,” Olive commented, averting her gaze when my head snapped up. “Even though you’re too stubborn to admit it, I can see that you like him.”

I parted my lips to make a joke of it, but she cut me off. “I’m glad, Lucy. I’m glad it went well with him last night. You deserve to be happy, even if it’s just for a night when it could be for longer than that.”

She finished her apple juice and jumped off the barstool. “Oh, and yes. I’d like to come to look at your apartment…if you’re still thinking of getting one, of course.”

With those cryptic last words, she left me standing in the kitchen.

A few minutes later Jason was back.

“You okay, daughter of mine?”

“Is she angry with me?”

He sighed. “She isn’t angry with you. It’s just…last night she realized you might move to Pittsburgh.”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Move to Pittsburgh? To be with Jameson?”

“For the baby…”

I pushed the remaining pancakes toward Jason and dumped some maple syrup on them.

“I have a meeting with Tom, Lucy. I don’t have time—”

“Eat,” I ordered. “I’m a pregnant lady now. Don’t upset me. I slaved over the stove to feed you two. Eat.”

Dutifully, he took a bite.

Leaving him in the kitchen, I called out, “Olive! My little green Olive! You still haven’t asked about Adam’s cock size. I think he is thicker than Jason!”

I heard Jason choking on his pancakes as I headed toward Olive’s room. “And I have to tell you about what he did to me with that cock on his couch, against the wall, and on his bed!”

***

Adam: Answer your phone, Lucy.

Lucy: Go away.

Adam: You can’t leave my bed like that again.

Lucy: I won’t be in your bed again.

Adam: I will be back from Paris in two days with Aiden. Make no mistake, Lucy. We will talk. And trust me…you will come to my bed again.

Lucy: In your dreams.

Adam: And yours.

The bastard.

***

“Hello? Lucy?”

“Hi, Jameson. How are you?”

A deep sigh came through the line. “I didn’t think you’d call me, not after ignoring my texts.”

Olive was sitting next to me in her car, and we were finally calling Jameson. Olive pressed her ear on the other side of the phone and gave me an innocent smile when I frowned at her. Sighing, I put the call on speaker.

I shifted the phone to my other hand and shook the left one, trying to steady the shaking. I was turning into a complete chicken shit.

“I didn’t ignore them,” I replied when Jameson called my name again.

“You didn’t answer them, Lucy.”

“There wasn’t anything left to say.”

“You’re wrong. We still have things to say. I miss you.”

I glanced at Olive. “Well, yes. Now we do have things to say. That’s why I called you.”

“You missed me too,” he said in that silky, seductive tone of his.

I kept silent and listened to my heart just for a second…and realized that it didn’t tremble when it heard that familiar voice it used to like so much. It wasn’t right, didn’t hold that teasing tone my heart was favoring these days.

“I’m sorry, Jameson, but that’s not the reason I called. I-I-I…I’m going to call you back.”

I ended the call and dropped my head back on the headrest.

“What are you doing?” Olive asked.

I turned the radio on, thinking maybe some music would help quiet my mind.

Olive turned it off. “What’s going on?”

“Do I have to tell him? I mean now? Do I have to tell him now? We are about to enter the doctor’s office. Can’t we call him after we get the results?”

Somehow Olive was much calmer than I was; usually it was the other way around.

She grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Breathe, Lucy.”

I took a deep breath.

“Do you want to be the wind today?”

I smiled.

“What will you be? A bird flying with me?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“You’d be a cute bird. Being the wind, I’ll knock you down, and Jason can come and rescue you then you can have bird sex and—”

“Again. Breathe, Lucy.”

I exhaled.

“Oh, God, Olive,” I groaned and looked at her understanding eyes. “What did I do?”

“Nothing. You did nothing. It just happened. And that’s okay. It’ll be okay. Whatever the results are, you got this. So we’ll have a baby. It’ll be the luckiest kid to have you as a mother, and she or he will have a kickass aunt.”

“I really don’t think so. The curse should’ve ended with me. Now—”

“Now, nothing. You’re not cursed, Lucy.” Another squeeze around my hand. “Call him back. Tell him what’s going on and then that’s it. We’ll walk out of the car and go into the doctor’s office together. Just one step at a time.”

She was right. I knew she was right and there was no point of freaking out, but then why was my heart beating in my stomach? Is that the baby?

“Okay, I’m freaking out,” I pointed out the obvious.

“Do you want me to tell him?”

“No. No.” I took a few deep breaths and called Jameson back.

“Lucy? Are you okay?”

It didn’t escape my notice—or Olive’s—that he hadn’t called me back as soon as I’d ended the call. If he missed me like he kept saying, wouldn’t he have called back? Jason would’ve called Olive back in a heartbeat just to make sure she was okay. So Jameson was my mistake.

“I’m sorry,” I said into the phone. “I’m sorry, I freaked out.”

His tone was sharper when he demanded to know what was going on.

I gave him the news as straight as I could. “I thought you’d want to know,” I began. “I took a pregnancy test.” Complete silence. I closed my eyes. “It was positive, but they are not always accurate, so I have an appointment with a doctor in a few minutes and I’ll let you know what I learn from those results.”

Still complete silence.

“Jameson? Are you there?”

I glanced at Olive and saw that she was biting her lip, anxiously waiting for Jameson to say something. Anything. She raised her eyebrows. I brought the phone closer to my lips. “James—”

“Yes. Yes. I’m here. I’m sorry. So you’re pregnant. With a baby. My baby to be specific. I wasn’t expecting that.”

I chose to believe he wasn’t trying to imply that the baby might not be his. “Yeah. Me neither.”

“You were on the pill.” There was no accusation in his tone.

“I was.”

“Wow. Lucy…wow.”

The corner of my mouth tipped up, and I touched my stomach. “Yeah.”

“What will you do? What did you decide to do? With the baby, I mean.”

Nice, I thought. Very nice. That pretty much wiped the smile off my face. A quick look at Olive and I saw she was seconds away from speaking up.

“Right,” I said quickly. “I’ll let you know after the results. I have to go now. Goodbye, Jameson.”

“The bastard,” Olive spat out as soon as I’d ended the call.

“Can’t say I don’t agree.”

“I didn’t think I could hate him any more. Give me the phone, I’m gonna call him back.”

I held my phone tighter in my hand and moved it away from Olive. “And do what exactly?” I shook my head and undid my seat belt. “Let’s just go up and…and…go pee in a cup or whatever.”

“I decided that when I’m writing your story, I’m going to kill Jameson. I’m going to make you marry Adam Connor and then kill Jameson off.”

I patted her arm. “That’s the spirit.”