“Maybe we can get into the clinic early,” I nearly groan, wondering if I’ve lost my mind.
“Maybe it would be best if we just wash… ourselves?” Kayla suggests.
She’s probably right. I let her have her way—grudgingly.
We finish the shower in silence. All the while, I’m praying we can get things settled at the clinic quickly.
CHAPTER 23
KAYLA
“Kayla! Is that you??”
I hear the loud screeching voice and for a second I hide my face into White’s chest.
“Who’s that?” he whispers, his voice vibrating through me like it always does.
“That is my worst nightmare.”
“Huh?”
“Kayla! I knew that was you! Where have you been?”
“Hey, Gladys,” I answer, turning around to face her. Against my will.
Gladys works part-time at my school as a teacher’s aide. She probably would have gotten on full-time by now, except every teacher who has ever had her in class, myself included, begs the principal to never bring her back. She’s a nice enough person. However, her annoying qualities are so numerous, you could grow old listing them. She’s loud, and this comes from me, a person who deals with small children all day long. They’re loud enough to wake the dead at times. Gladys is over-the-top loud. My classroom is at the end of a hallway and I swear I can hear Gladys in there with my door closed. That’s even if she’s on the other side of the school, or maybe out in the parking lot with every car there running. She’s that loud.
Also, she has no filter. Zero. She makes Ida Sue’s off-the-wall comments seem tame at times. You can’t tell her that you don’t like someone. Why? Because she will march up to them and ask what they’ve done to make you dislike them. One of my coworkers made the mistake of telling her that one of the physical education teachers, Brian, had body odor. Gladys went and bought a mop bucket, filled it with soap, deodorant, shampoo, loofas, and washcloths, then gave it to him the next day and told him that all the teachers were avoiding him because he stunk. He quit his job that evening. She didn’t see why everyone was upset about it. In her mind, she had done him a favor. All that aside, Gladys is also the biggest gossip in the western hemisphere.
That’s why seeing Gladys here is one of the things that nightmares are made of. And it’s a particularly bad nightmare because White and I are outside the family planning clinic, and by the time this conversation is done, and White and I walk back to the Riverwalk where makeshift booths are set up to celebrate fall, then stop and order a pumpkin spiced latte. Gladys will have called at least ten of the people I work with to tell them she saw me skipping work today when I was supposed to be sick, to tell them exactly where she saw me, to tell them who she saw me with, and perhaps worst of all, to tell them all that I’m knocked up. It won’t matter than I’m not, or even if I make it clear to her that I am in no way, shape, fashion or form standing before her with a bun in the oven. She won’t care.
Shit.
“I thought you were home sick today? I had to help the sub take care of your kids.”
“I had a sinus infection, nothing major,” I tell her, my smile strained. I step away from White, hoping against hope that she won’t think that the two of us are a couple, when he pulls me back into him, his hand going possessively around my stomach. All hope of that is now thrown out the window.
“Well, that’s good,” she says, but she’s already dismissed me from her mind. Now her eyes are looking White over—slowly, appraisingly. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“I doubt it. I don’t think we’ve ever met,” White notes easily. He’s not being overly friendly, either. Perhaps he’s picking up on the tension coursing through my body.
“No. You look familiar. I’m sure we’ve met somewhere before. Maybe you’ve come to work and picked Kayla up there,” she says. I want to moan.
“I don’t think so,” White responds, sounding bored. His hand is brushing against my stomach, almost as if he’s trying to comfort me. Yeah, I think it’s pretty safe to say he feels the tension in me. I watch as Gladys’s eyes move to White’s hand rubbing my stomach possessively, a stomach that is standing outside of the family planning clinic.
I start to try and do damage control until I realize that I might have bigger issues.
“No. I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere. Not with Kayla, though. I mean, I’ve met her fiancé Tommy, and you two look nothing alike. How is Tommy, Kayla?” she asks, her eyes sparkling with glee.
God must be punishing me for taking birth control pills and keeping it from White. That’s all I can figure.
“I’m sure he’s fine, Gladys. I haven’t spoken to him in a few days,” I tell her, and I have to force myself not to wince as White’s hands bite into my stomach.