Bad Pennies Chapter 11
Erica had planned to tell Josh when he got home, but he’d pulled up in her father’s Galaxie. Hearing the engine and seeing it running again brought a smile to her face. It was his gift to her for ‘monthiversary’. It was the one day a month they set aside to do something special for each other. He’d fixed her car. She planned to take him out to dinner where they could talk about it. But somehow she ended up in the car without a word about her pregnancy.
Josh drove. They cruised down Ruston Way enjoying the evening air though the smell of low tide kept it from being idyllic. As they sped through Shuster Parkway towards Downtown she smiled.
She listened to Josh tell her all the things they’d fixed. Sort of. She listened to his voice, but wasn’t paying attention to what he said. It didn’t matter. He’d fixed the car. And now they were driving around like her and her dad used to do. Like maybe Josh will do one day with their child. The child that was growing in her belly right now.
She’d tell him at dinner.
Josh had only been to Pacific Grill once before. For Dominic’s birthday party. He’d only had enough cash for a drink or two at the time, but everyone else ordered dinner so he had also. He ended up maxing out his credit card keeping up with his friends. He’d spent three months paying it off. He did not belong there.
Despite the circumstances it had been one of the best meals of his life. It also was a reminder that some of his friend circles had been significantly more financially successful than he had been. Until recently.
Now, when he walked in with Erica on his arm, they belonged. Erica wore a simple long black dress that went well with her short black hair. Josh had on his black microfiber pants and a two hundred dollar white shirt he was terrified he’d stain. Once they were seated, he and Erica looked at each other. Something stirred in him.
Erica. Josh’s attraction to Erica wasn’t a surprise to him. Over the years, he’d learned that his sexuality tended to not much care about things like gender. Attraction had its visual aesthetics, of course, but at the core, attraction was a chemical thing. He knew that people like his father disagreed. Certainly dating a woman was an adjustment, but not as difficult as one might imagine.
Now he looked across the table at her and couldn’t help but watch her brown eyes stare back at him. There was something to that look.
“What,” he said.
“Nothing.”
“We take a leisurely drive in the Galaxie and end up here just so you can say, ‘nothin’?”
“It’s monthiversary,” Erica said.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you’ve got nothing to say.”
“Our food hasn’t even arrived. Do we have to get into it now?”
“So you’re admitting there’s an it.”
Erica didn’t immediately respond.
“C’mon,” he said. “Is it good news? Bad news? This isn’t a break up dinner, right?”
Erica laughed her small laugh and tucked a short lock of her hair behind her ear.
“No. It’s…really nothing.”
“Right,” Josh said, unconvinced.
Erica watched the wrinkle in Josh’s forehead deepen. His obvious frustration was kind of cute. She should just tell him, but doing that would change things. She had a situation. As soon as she told Josh, it wouldn’t be her situation anymore. It’d be his too. He’d want a say. And what if he wants to do something she didn’t want to do? Not that she knew what she wanted to do. Maybe it’d be good to talk to him about it. Maybe not. Yes. No. Binary. Like pregnant. And not pregnant. No one is kind of pregnant…or are they?
“So remember how I mentioned I was late?”
“Uh, yeah,”
“Well I took one of those cheap at home pregnancy tests and it came back positive.”
“Are you? Seriously?”
“I’m not sure. I got the cheapest test. Could be a false positive,” she said trying not to sound too hopeful and all too well aware that the chances she wasn’t pregnant had already evaporated.
“Yeah…but what if it’s not? Is it-”
“Don’t you dare ask if I’m sure it’s yours,” Erica said.
“No, no. I just,” Josh stammered.
“I don’t know,” Erica said. “Whatever questions you have right now, the answer is I don’t know. But yeah, that’s why I didn’t want a bottle of wine. Maybe I am. And maybe I want to keep it, but maybe I don’t. I. Don’t. Know.”
“Hey,” Josh said, “You saw how long it took me to order. We don’t have to decide anything else tonight. We have time.”
“Paul, you scared the shit out of me!” Byron said, standing up from the couch as Paul walked through the front doorway still splintered by the raid.
“You should be scared,” Paul said, trying to sound menacing as he entered the house. He had considered just hitting Byron and getting it over with.
“The fuck you talking about,” Byron said, picking up his beer and finishing it. He headed towards the kitchen to grab another one. Paul followed him.
“First, I give you a few grand to sleep on your nasty couch for a few months and when you ask for more I give you more. And then what do you do with that money?”
Byron turned around. Paul almost ran into him.
“Hey,” Byron got out before getting shoved hard in the chest. Bryon lost his footing and fell on the kitchen floor. “You keep it here,” Paul said. “Where you deal drugs. Brilliant.”
“Hey, fuck you, man,” Byron said getting to his feet. Byron turned away from Paul, opened the fridge, and pulled out another bottle of beer. “Truth is, I saved your ass.”
Whatever Paul expected Byron to say, it wasn’t that.
“You what?”
“Did I stutter? I saved your ass. You had to lay low for a couple of months? You been here what? Over a fucking year.”
“You got paid for that year. And then you rat me to the cops to save your own ass. You’re no hero.”
Byron opened his beer, took a drink, and walked past Paul into the living room, rolling his eyes.
“Oh. Fuck. Off,” Byron said. “You gay dudes are so dramatic. How is you stealing money my fault? You got busted.”
“They didn’t bust me,” Paul said again following Byron. “They busted you because you’re a goddamn drug dealer. Stop using your own supply.”
“And you’re a goddamn thief.”
Byron lifted his bottle of beer to take a swig. Paul knocked it out of his hand, sending it across the room.
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