HeartBeat

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Ava

The two women's, laughter dies, and a soft smile lays loosely on their lips. I rest against my calves, still on my knees on the floor.

"The doctor said everything is fine." She looks at Jessica, nods, and then turns back to me. "With both the baby and me. I was worried, since we drank at Chase's party the other night." She bites her bottom lip, worry causing her face to tighten.

Nila groans and bends to place her face in her hands. It's a fight to stay still. To not inspect her. I have to remind myself that, its residue panic of a night that I must continue pretending to forget. It'll be safer for everyone that way.

Even so, my stomach lurches with a fear I can barely comprehend. I want to push Jessica away, more permanently, as she rubs Nila's back in comfort, and I struggle, with staying still.

"I just don't know what to tell Giovanni. We had plans you know. I had plans. He had...all of this. Everything. It's about to change for us. What if he leaves me?" She says on a small whisper.

"Then we hunt him the fuck down and drag him back to you kicking and screaming." Jessica looks at me with fierce determination, and a nod. "Right Char? I ignore the shortening of my alias, and instead focus on the plot she just purposed.

That is something I can get behind, but even now, strangely enough, I think about the safety of the mother and child. "If he is beneficial to the baby, then yes. We'll drag him back kicking and screaming."

Nila looks up at me with a frown. "What do you mean?" I roll my shoulders, at her renewed sass, narrowed eyes and all.

I look over her face. "I mean what I say. Beneficial. He may be partial to the creation of your child, but there are times, when it is better to raise the child in a single parent home." My voice grows quieter, almost like a secret, "Safer."

I had learned a great many things over the years, and that was one of them.

Nila straightens, "Gio would be an amazing father, very beneficial. And safe." She hisses. I blink slowly at the woman who reminded me of a spitting cat. A large one at that.

My lips twitch. "So why do you hesitate? Why do you cry here, about such an easy task? If it is safe, and beneficial to keep your.... boyfriend, around you and your baby, then it should be no problem telling him.

Nila looks at me slacked jawed for a moment, before determination is painted across her features. Tight lipped, with furrowed eyebrows, Nila nods.

"It's safer and beneficial. Everything else shouldn't matter, because I trust Gio right? That's what your saying isn't it, Charlotte? Fuck. I'm going to tell him right now."

I can hear the racing of her heart, as she steps forward, on determined legs.

I watch from the floor, still kneeling as, she heads for the door.

"Come on Jess. I'm going to call Gio and tell him we have to talk, I bet he's with the others, so drop me off over there, so I can tell my man he's about to be a father." She doesn't even look back.

I watch her amused; head turned around facing the woman who marches on. I'm grateful for her retreating body, that is now fiddling with her phone. Pressure releases slowly, at the thought of the pregnant woman no longer near me.

My fists, that I didn't realize were clenching with my nails digging roughly into my skin, slowly loosens.

"Thank you, Charlotte." I turn away from the still opened front door, to Jessica who looks at me with her features softened, and her eyes round with trust.