I froze. The only thing registering was the implication that Trip and I were married. I tripped over my words to correct him. “Umm…we aren’t…I mean he isn’t….we don’t…”

“Cheers, Doc. She’ll be ready in sec. Won’t you, dear wife?” If I could, I would have reached over and smacked the cocky smile right off his face. “I’ll just be sitting over here if you need a hand or something.” I stood clutching the blue gown glaring and praying a spaceship would miraculously appear and zap him into space while Trip smirked, shook the doctor’s hand and sat down on the plastic chair in the corner of the tiny room.

I waited for the doctor to leave the room before I snapped at him, “What the hell, Trip? You needed to correct him, not lie. For shit’s sake, now he thinks we’re married!”

“Calm your tits, Princess. It’s not like it matters what he thinks; it’s just easier that he thinks we are.”

“You make no sense. And you’re pissing me off,” I added as an afterthought. “You still can’t stay in here while I get dressed,” I hissed glaring at him, while he sat and played with his eyebrow ring like he hadn’t just poked a cranky bear.

“Worried you can’t contain yourself and you’ll end up jumpin’ my bones? Gotta say, I won’t be fighting you off, sweetheart,” he told me biting his lower lip and making a show of adjusting his crotch.

“In your dreams, little man.” Before I could get another word out, I was pinned against the wall. Trip’s hard body pressed against me, emphasis on hard. One of his hands was flat against the wall beside my head and his face was inches from mine. The other hand gripped my hip as he ground his erection against me. My body short-circuited and my hands instantly went to press flat against his chest not pushing him away nor pulling him close.

His breath blew warm over my parted lips. “There ain’t one little thing about me, Princess, and you know it. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten, but I’m always happy to refresh your memory.” He pressed his hips in tight against me and rolled them one more time as a growl left his throat.

I was so turned on I actually considered it for a second before remembering where I was and why. “It’s cute how you think you were that memorable, but honey, I’ve had more memorable moments with a flat vibrator. Now, get off me before you lose what little you have goin’ on down there.” I shoved at his chest hoping my heavy breathing didn’t betray me. As I slipped out from between him and the wall, the glint in his eyes told me I’d just lit a fire I had no chance of putting out.

Shit!

Chapter Three

Trip

Game on.

Teeny wanted to play it like that. I was more than happy to keep chipping away at the layers until she cracked and fell back into my bed, or hers. I stood in the same spot, hand pressed against the wall, while mentally reciting every needle size and ink color in the drawers at the parlor in an attempt to tame my raging hard-on before the doctor came back in. Knowing she was getting naked in the same room wasn’t helping the situation at all.

“You about done or you need my help getting naked? I’m a bit of a pro at making that happen,” I called turning my head hoping to catch a glimpse; Teeny bending over was a sight to see. All long legs and porcelain skin, her blonde hair, which usually hung down her back, was tied up in some kind of knot thing on the back of her head. This left her bare back on show, a perfect canvas. I had a book full of tattoos I’d drawn up just from thinking about her ink-free back. I quickly averted my eyes when she stood back up so I wouldn’t get caught checking her out and wind up with a black eye.

“I’m decent. You can turn around”

I turned to see her sitting up on the paper-covered bed. Her hands gripped together tightly in her lap, she looked like she was about to bolt. “You’re nervous. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.” This was my thing. I could do this bit; nervous or scared chicks on a table I could handle. I dealt with it every day as a tattoo artist; it was a part of the job. She glared at me for a moment before reluctantly doing what I’d said. “Right, keep breathing, big slow breaths in and out. Wiggle your toes and concentrate on doing it.” The amount of people I’d had almost pass out in my chair was decent, so I’d learnt how to distract them early on in my career. Her whole body relaxed after a second. “See, all better. So, I thought now you’ve decided to keep the baby, maybe when we finish here we can—“

Teeny cut me off before I could finish with a look that conveyed I might have assumed wrong. “Trip, I haven’t…I’m not, I mean. I’m making the decision that’s right for me.”

My stomach dropped. That feeling of uselessness I was familiar with crept in. “Then, why are you here having a scan thing? Why bother if you’re just going to go ahead and do that, why?” I finished with gritted teeth.

She looked down at her hands and quietly answered, “It’s a part of the process. I have to have a scan to make sure it’s still early enough to go through with it.” Before I could say another word, the doctor walked in followed by a nurse in pink scrubs. The doctor directed me to stand on the other side of the bed as he set up a strange machine that looked kind of like a high-tech TV and the nurse messed around with Teeny’s sheet until her stomach was on show squirting a heap of lube on it. The whole time I stood there, I wondered what the fuck I was even doing there. She’d already made her mind up; it was written clearly across her beautiful face. I took a tiny step back, my eyes darting all around the room looking for a way out.

“There, see that little jelly-bean shape? That’s your baby.”

My eyes snapped up at the doctor’s words. My baby. I focused on the screen in front of me, the doctor pointing to a dark grey splotch wiggling around on the screen. Teeny’s gasp had my eyes flicking down to her face; a mix of shock and awe filled her face. My throat tight, I looked from Teeny to the doctor and back to the screen. My nose started to tingle. Clearing my throat a little, I stammered. "Wow. I—I—is that it? Right there?” The doctor nodded and hit another button. Next thing I knew, the room was filled with a whoosh whoosh whoosh sound.

"God. That's something else. That’s—“ I reached out and took ahold of Teeny’s hand tightly. My voice shook as I tried to keep it together. "We made that. That's our baby, Princess." A single tear fell down my cheek as I looked from the screen to Teeny’s stomach and back at her face. Overwhelming emotion clamped down on me, constricting my chest and setting off a herd of elephants in my gut.

Leaning down close, I gently pressed my lips to hers. Locking eyes, I laid myself bare. "Been a fuck up my whole life...but I swear. Teeny, if you let me, I'll do this right. I’ll do this one thing right." She tore her eyes from mine. Tears streaming down both cheeks, she looked from the screen back to me. “Teen, please don’t take this from me. Don’t take our baby.”

She cleared her throat and turned back to the doctor. “How—how…umm…”

“About eleven weeks. That right there, the pulsing, that’s your baby’s heartbeat.” The doctor pointed to a fluttering of grey and black on the screen. “Nice and strong. Healthy little bub by the looks. Here.” He pressed a button, passed her a square of paper and turned the machine off, cutting off what might be the only time I would ever see my baby. The nurse stayed silent shooting me a sympathetic look as she cleaned Teeny’s stomach. “We’ll give you a few moments before I come back in and talk you through your options, and how things will work.”

The seconds ticked by as I stood praying she’d change her mind. “I can’t—I can’t do it.” Right at that very moment, I swear I felt my heart crack, a piece breaking off and stabbing me straight through my lungs, four tiny words had just sliced me open.

“I can’t kill our baby.” It took a second for her words to register, and then relief flooded through me as my knees gave out and I landed hard on the ground taking deep breaths forcing the emotion back into the big black hole where it belonged. What could have been moments or hours later, I rose up on my feet and stumbled over to where the desk and chairs sat on the other side of the room. I sat holding my head in my hands until I had myself pieced back together enough to form a sentence.

The doctor came back into the room, sat down and explained a heap of things I didn’t have a clue about. He then handed a huge thick envelope of flyers and information sheets to us before I walked Teen out to her car.

“Sorry about all that in there. You didn’t really need to be here. From now on, I’m pretty sure I can do this shit on my own.” She was kind of cute when she rambled; I think I liked nervous Teeny almost as much as feisty Teeny. She stopped and rustled through her giant bag. Pulling out her keys, she rested her ass against the door.

Watching her lean against her piece-of-crap car, looking all unsure and vulnerable, arms crossed tight over her chest, worrying her lip like crazy, I realized I had to get even a small part of my life moving in the right direction if I was hoping to stand a chance. No matter how much she protested it, she’d need me at some point and I had to be ready for that.

“Look, Princess, I know you don’t like it, but you’re gonna have to suck it up. I’ll be at the next one, and every other one after that. My kid’s growing in you. I need to make sure everything is good, I need to know what you want from me and what you need me to do.” Teeny wasn’t big on dealing with bullshit so I thought honest was the best way to do this.

Biting down harder on her lip, her eyes shining wet, she looked right at me and whispered, “I don’t need anything from you.” Before I could say another word, she spun around, jumped into her car, started it up and took off in a cloud of black smoke and rattling pipes.

This was why I never got involved; bitches were stubborn. Even worse, Teeny was stubborn and hot, a deadly combination in my book. I needed to sort out what was next, because I sure as shit didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with a kid, but I wouldn’t be an absentee father. I had been raised better than that. I just had to take a class or read a book or something. Yeah, that’s what I needed. I mentally added a stop at the baby place on my way home.

“What the fuck?”

I was frustrated. Why the hell were instructions always written in gibberish? I’d spent the last five hours painting walls, instructing delivery boys where to leave flat pack boxes, while putting together baby furniture; I never even knew a kid needed so much crap. What I had thought was going to be a quick trip to the baby store turned into two hours of picking the perfect crib, bouncy chair, baby swing, mobile, blankets and a hundred other things I’m pretty sure nobody needed. I hated shopping and now my wallet was considerably lighter; my patience was fried and the disgusting overpowering perfume smell from the overbearing sales assistants who’d fallen all over themselves to help me find the perfect stuffed puppy dog seemed to be on everything. It was making me gag.