The Forgiveable Journey Of The Cheated

26. Rumbling

Good news! Charlotte is pregnant!

I’m not making this up. She really is.

Even she’s not making this up. 

She walks around the office smiling triumphantly and rubbing her inexistent belly. 

Nobody’s really sure if her boyfriend knows yet, but everyone in the office does. Obviously the message is said loud and clear and for all and especially Dan to know. It is unclear what effect is sought by her announcement, but the reactions are all over the board. The girls with boyfriends in the building feel a small amount of security and are further reassured by the fact that Charlotte will be requiring a preventive leave from work followed by a long maternity leave. The single and not so single horny men are disappointed and a little grossed out by images of her giving birth, even those men who witnessed the birth of their own children and considered their experience to be near to miraculous. These men are also relieved that it won’t be theirs. Amanda is horrified, as are many of the people who Charlotte used to or still considers as close friends. They do not marvel at the rapidity of love’s oeuvre, but that Jake would allow such a thing to happen after such a short period of time with a girl he has hardly taken any time to get to know. Some people are downright surprised, because they didn’t even know she had a boyfriend. A portion of these people speculate that she must have been careless. Those who see Charlotte for who she is are less than impressed. These people roll their eyes and pity the father to be. 

Dan falls within a category of people who pity the father to be and see the gesture for what it is: Entrapment. 

“That guy, if he is a respectable guy, is fucked!” Dan thinks. Literally and figuratively fucked!

His mind tosses around memories of conversations and requests to leave the condom off, the probes into his values about whether he would leave Eve if she got pregnant and how he felt about having another child when they would be together. That sort of thing. Though he knows it could not be his, he finds himself repeatedly counting the months between the last time they had sex and now. She would have to be around 7 months pregnant today. 

He finds himself softly humming the tune “Billy Jean” by Michael Jackson.

He is worried that she might claim it is his. 

Of course, he knows she couldn’t, but he’s on edge anyway. Thank goodness she will be leaving the building soon. 

As for Charlotte, she is pleased as punch. It is true that Jake doesn’t know yet, but she will tell him tonight. She isn’t sure how he will react, but she has a strong feeling that he is not the kind to walk away. Dan looks a little green around the gills and Charlotte tries to convince herself that he is upset that his window of opportunity is no longer open. 

 Just reread that last sentence and try to tell me it didn’t make you chuckle a little. 

But actually, he is glad that she will not be trying to convince him to enter the opening anymore.

I’m sorry. I had to write that last sentence too.

Charlotte could hardly wait to tell Liam. 

When she does, he simply asks her if she knows who the father is. 

If Eve had been around to hear that response, she would have burst out laughing, and then she would have hugged Liam. His question stung, for though no truth in it, Charlotte knows that he knows that she did not come by her pregnancy honestly or without motive. She wonders since when Liam had the power to make her feel so small, for she could not remember feeling so cheap. Liam had gone from treating her like a queen to treating her like a servant with ambition. Considering how much she had belittled him, to be belittled by him is hard to take.