Telling Alice {ManxMan} | MPreg

Chapter 09

Chapter Nine:

Eshe sighed looking down at his yellow notepad, he'd cleaned the shop, sent home his employees, checked the register, and now he needed to lock up so he could do inventory. He locked the front door, turning over the door sign from"Notice: Unfortunately We're Open, Fortunately We're Awesome" to the side that read "Notice: We Are Not Presently Open Because We Are Closed..So Fuck Off". He couldn't help but smile at the sign, it had been a gift from his mother when he finally bought the place. Crazy to think he'd owned the shop for almost eight years.

It was one of those crazy thoughts that made him smile, kind of the way he did when he thought about how Alice would be ten just next month. Every parent worried about their babies growing up but Alice had always grown up quicker than Eshe wished for and she was certainly growing into her own person, he shook his head at the thought. The day had been more stressful than he would have liked but it was Tuesday night and that meant a quiet night of counting coffee beans. Cyro had let Alice spend the night with Maxine so that was just one more thing he didn't have to worry about. He had been at Cyro's nearly all afternoon, he'd known that tracking down someone you hadn't seen in nearly ten years would be difficult however, he hadn't thought it would be as difficult as it had been.

He'd spent the majority of the time on the phone pacing back in forth in Cyro's living room, on a three-way call between his doctor and military bases. He'd started with the red cross hoping to get the hard part out of the way first: proving he had a real reason to locate a soldier. That had taken less than a half an hour and most of the time that was because they'd been waiting for his doctor to fax over paperwork to the red cross workers. What Eshe hadn't been expecting was for one person to have been to so many bases in the last 10 years, not to mention units.

Letting out a frustrated breath Eshe forced himself to forget the hours he'd spent on the phone waiting while people ran around just to give him wrong information or transfer him to another not current unit. He refused to think about that anymore, he hd gotten in contact with his current unit and hopefully they would get a message to him so he'd get back to Eshe, that's all Eshe could hope for at the moment anything else would make him go insane. Honestly Eshe was still on edge about the idea as a whole but it was the decision he and Alice made together so he'd have to stick by it.

He leaned back, half sitting on the front counter as he forced himself to relax. Taking a deep breath in and letting it flow out, he was going to enjoy this quiet night alone if he had to force himself, Eshe didn't want anymore outside distractions but the world seemed determined to pick on him anyways. A tapping noise sounded from the glass front door caused him to growl deep in his throat as he turned to promptly give whoever was tapping on his store door the finger. There was nothing more aggravating than people who refused to read the sign on the door or worse those who noticed the door was locked and pulled on it repeatedly anyways.

But as he looked at the person his hand dropped. Even though he considered flipping him the bird anyways, Eshe didn't, he simply sighed and straightened off the counter to let Jerome into the cafe.

"How sweet of you to come help me on inventory night." Eshe mocked as Jerome walked past him, it was a well known fact to everyone Tuesday nights were Eshe quiet time. Locking the door once more he turned to face his fiance. He'd expected to see a small smile on Jerome's face maybe even a slight frown at Eshe's joke but his face was more blank than anything.

"No, uh, I'm not gonna bother you too long I just got a kind of weird text from Lauren." Eshe groaned internally fighting the urge to storm out of the shop and kill Lauren at that very moment. Sure, she was probably just doing all this to help Alice but at the same time, he was sick of her interfering with everything. Jerome shifted uncomfortably, shoving his hands deep into his jacket pockets as he continued. "She sent me this text that said 'Can't wait to see if Alice's dad is really a sexy beast' with some weird cat emojis. Um, yeah, I uh, I asked her what she meant and she just said she meant to text Cyro and then didn't say anything else."

"Okay." Eshe sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he walked back to the front counter. His heart stilled in his chest and his stomach seemed to grow cold as he seated himself on the space next to the register. He'd been hoping to enjoy a quiet night alone in the stock room and deal with Jerome another day but it seemed that just wasn't going to work the way he'd hoped. He stared at Jerome waiting for the onslaught of questions he knew was coming, giving up on the idea of getting inventory done tonight.

"Is that, ya'know, is that happening?" Jerome asked nervously. "How did he even find you, you said it had been a one-night stand."

"If you mean is Alice's father coming here by 'that', I honestly don't know I haven't spoken to him yet. Also, he didn't find me I found him."

"But how? Why?" Jerome's eyes clouded with distrust as he looked back at Eshe, a look that made Eshe more upset than he knew he had the right to be. This was the man he was going to spend the rest of his life with. Eshe sighed his gaze drifting down to his engagement ring as he reminded himself this was for the best.

"Alice isn't the product of a one-night stand, her father and I were together for about a year and a half before I left him when I found out I was pregnant. I never told him about Alice, I just told him we were over and I left." Jerome opened his mouth to reply but quickly closed it as he seemed to be sucked into a deep thought consuming him. Eshe could tell by the look on his face he couldn't figure out what to think of this situation, but then honestly neither did Eshe.

"So Alice wants to meet him?" Jerome mumbled and Eshe nodded in reply not sure if the question was really asked to him or just out loud. "And what about you, are you still, I mean, like, do you miss him?"

Their eyes met and Eshe knew Jerome was searching for an honest answer, one he probably didn't really want. How could anyone not miss a person they'd loved so much, a person they saw reflected every day in their child's face. Alice's bright green eyes had haunted Eshe for years after she was born. Eshe tore his gaze away from Jerome's, shrugging his shoulder slightly. Suddenly fighting off the memory of how he used to stare into those soft spring green colored eyes, the same color as Alice's. Of course he missed him, of course he wanted to see him, of course he still loved him.