The Outliers (The Outskirts Duet #2)

“And?” I called out.

Finally, after what seemed like eons, Finn emerged with a huge smile on his beautiful face. Tears in his blue eyes. He stalked over to me and lifted me up in the air. “Baby?” he asked, planting kissing across my eyelids and down my cheeks.

“Yeah?” I asked, breathlessly.

Finn’s smile grew even wider. He looked deeply into my eyes and whispered, “We’re having a baby.”

“We are?” The happiness warmed my body from the inside out. I was tingling all over.

Finn and I had created life.

Together.





Chapter 19





Sawyer





There is something about impending motherhood that creates a shift within you. A shift toward the future. It also brings out the most protective parts of you. I spent every waking moment thinking of how best to protect this baby.

I’d gone to the doctor with Finn shortly after I’d taken all the tests. The doctor confirmed I was more than two and a half months along which means I’d probably gotten pregnant immediately after Finn and I had gotten together. If I’d have found out any later it would have been my belly that would have tipped me off. It was like the second we found out I was pregnant it popped out like the baby got word we knew and it was okay to show people now.

Which reminded me of the other thing is something else impending motherhood changes.

It takes your current patience level and shreds it.

I was on edge like never before.

I was in the library trying to write to ease my mind, but only two words came to me. Protect. Defend.

I wasn't a real poet by any means, but even I knew that two or three words still wasn't enough to string together something that made any sense.

Frustrated with writing I gave up.

I decided to read the poem The Caged Bird by Maya Angelou.

Each time I’d read it in the months I’d been in Outskirts I’d felt either sad or angry or powerful, depending on my mood.

I read it again and again.

Nothing.

I sighed and closed the book. I reached for a rag and began to clean the outside layer of dust from the tattered cover. I might as well get some work done if I couldn't concentrate on anything else.

Maddy was standing guard outside. Since my mother didn’t require full time care anymore she volunteered to stay with us and help protect us until this business with Richard was over.

If it was ever over.

I really want it to be over.

The bells above the library door chimed, pulling me from my inner thoughts. Maddy peeked her head inside the door. "Josh called, said this one was on his way."

"Thank you," I said, grateful that she decided to stay on with us although I found it odd she still wore her pink smiley face scrubs.

In walked a young thickset man who I’d never seen before. He was in his early thirties and no more than five and a half feet. The gleam from the overhead lights shone off his completely hairless head. His clean-shaven cheeks were as round as the rest of him, giving him an additional air of youth. The sleeves of his untucked white shirt were rolled up to his elbows. The collar stained with sweat.

He looked around the room from the walls with a curiosity and wonderment in his eyes. He was adorable in a way I never thought an adult man could be.

I painted a smile on my face to cover the worry. “Hello. We’re not quite open just yet. But feel free to look around. Can I help you with something?” I asked.

The man looked at me and instantly smiled, showing off two bright white front teeth that were slightly longer than the rest. His voice was smooth and high-pitched, almost feminine. “Why hello there, cutie-pie. O.M.G. I love your hair. So fierce. I want to scalp you so I can make me a wig out of it.” He looked at the confusion I could feel written all over my face. “And yes, that was totally a compliment.”

“Thank you?” I responded to this odd yet wonderfully strange man.

“I am Wilfredo,” he said, holding his hand to his chest, bowing at the waist. “My friends call me…Wilfredo.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. His personality was huge and took up most of the space in my tiny library. “I’m…”

“Sawyer, I know. Joshy-boo told me. She said you reopened the library so I had to come check it out for myself.” He looked around from shelf to shelf, running his hands across the spines of the once dusty books that between Finn and myself were nearly all clean and restored into lendable condition once more. “Bravo, my dear. Well done. This place doesn’t look nearly as condemned as it used to."

“Are you from here?” I setting down the book of poetry on the table.

Wilfredo nodded. “Born and raised in the mud, but I moved out to California a few years back after meeting the man of my dreams online.” He blinked rapidly and looked wistfully into the fluorescent lights overhead.

“Sounds romantic,” I commented, finishing wiping off the book and setting it on its usual spot on the shelf.

“Yeah,” he sighed dramatically. “It was. Until I got out there and alas, my Justin Bieber look-a-like was a lot less Biebs and a lot more…Lyle Lovett.” He scrunched up his nose so I took it as a bad thing.

“That’s a shame.”

“Not really. I may not have found my dream man, but I fell in love with Cali. Been out there ever since. What about you? Josh says you haven’t been here too long. How are you liking our little backwards town in the middle of nowhere USA?”

“Actually, I love it here,” I said, but the feelings that normally came with that statement were nowhere to be found. "It's home."

“Yeah, I get it. I want to hate this place, I really do. But it really is a great town.” Wilfredo pulled out a chair and sat down, fanning himself with a yellow pamphlet. He chuckled. “I mean, if the homo population ever increased from say…one, and by one I do mean THE one, being me, then I’d move back here in a heartbeat. Living with my beautiful ripped swamp-boy in overalls. Watching him de muck things or pick up heavy things, or whatever it is they do around here that could be sexy if I think about it hard enough.” He smiled. “I’d be living my own little gay redneck fantasy. Ah, that would be the life.”

I laughed and sat down across from him. “I think I like you, Wilfredo.”

“I like you too, Sawyer. So, what’s your story? How did you end up in Outskirts?”

“It’s a very long story,” I said with a sigh.

“Give me the short version of your long story. I’ve got time. My sister is still at the Dr. Maloy’s down the road getting her last check up before the baby is born. That’s why I’m back in town. To spoil my new niece and nephew. The newest members of my sister’s ever-growing litter of human cubs.”

“Congratulations.”