Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 911 : Slapped with Reality

*Bianca*

For all the saints, Leo had been so mad. I could not tell him, nor could I stop crying. All I could hear was his voice, strong, angry, and filled with what sounded like hurt. Had I hurt his feelings? I ran to my room. This acting like a child thing is really getting old with me, but I couldn’t help it.

How could I tell him that I was pregnant? Look what sneaking around to go to the doctor had done. What if he did not want children with me? What if he just thought he loved me? What if pigs flew and ants were blue? The questions did not matter. I was just being a complete baby. I knew it, but I was in a state. Why could I not stop crying?

“It will be okay,” I told myself when Leo left.

Then I stripped down, and pulled my hair up in a bun so it would not get wet when I got in the shower.

Maybe a warm shower would be soothing enough to calm me down and at least slow the tears down if not stop them altogether.

I got in the shower and took my hair down. This was going to be a saturate myself day. The tears fell relentlessly, as I curled up at the bottom of the tub and let the water rain down on me. I sobbed as if my life were ending.

The water felt good against my skin. It washed the tears away, as I lay with my cheek against the marble and wept. It took a long time to realize that the shower just was not helping today.

I do not know why I felt like my entire stomach wanted to rebel. My eyes were like the fountain of youth that Ponce Des Leon never really found, and my entire body shook with nerves and tension.

I could not get rid of that feeling of dread deep inside me. I thought back to Leo’s angry face and uncommonly cold manner. He was not the type to raise his voice, but somehow it was as if he slapped me with it anyway. I felt chastised for getting checked up.

It was not quite a lie. Not really. I did go to the doctor for a check up. I also went to get my initial self-diagnosis verified. Come on, Bianca, I mentally scolded myself, you’re just splitting hairs now.

Why was it that my mental self always had the sophisticated and maternal voice of my best friend? I dried off and heard my phone ring. When I looked at the caller ID and saw that it was the very person I thought of, I smiled through the persistent tears and answered.

“Ciao,” I answered, trying to hide the tears in my voice.

Amara was attentive and usually figured things out before I could tell her, so I did not bet on her not hearing the tears in my tone. it was worth trying though. I did not want every call we had since I had been in the states to be about me. I could not try to play it off today, though, so I just greeted her in the most cheerful tone I could.

“What is going on, Bi?”

I sobbed with the back of my hand against my mouth and sat on the side of our bed.

“Nothing, I’ll be alright,” I lied.

“Bianca, you had better start talking. Leo called me, telling me that he had upset you but did not fully know why.”

“He did what?” I asked, standing from the side of the bed, my tears temporarily ebbed. I guess it took them by surprise and stopped them.

“He is concerned about you and said you needed a friend. So, here I am.”

“I can’t believe he called you,” I said, still in the land of shock and pacing the length of our bed.

“I can’t believe you did not. I am your best friend. I should have been first on your call list if you needed to vent. If you needed help, why didn’t you just call me? I could have been there for you when you needed support. I would not have turned you away or judged you. you know that.”

Damn it, now I felt like a heel. I had not only hurt Leo’s feelings. Apparently, I was spreading hurt feelings around like confetti. A tinge of guilt slipped into my belly to roil with the rest of those sickening emotions I felt when I ran upstairs to essentially hide from Leo’s wrath. Now, I had upset Amara too.

“I did not know what to do. I just needed to have a little time to myself. I am always being followed. I am stuck with that damn driver Leo insists I have, and if I want to go to the freaking doctor on my own without a six foot plus bodyguard that is my business.”

I was getting angry now while the tears were still just beneath the surface waiting for a weak moment to jump back into play. I was pissed. Why were Leo’s men following me and reporting back like little bitches? He could have asked me himself. Well, I would not have told him where I was going, but that was not the point.

“You realize Leo does not believe for one second you went to the doctor for a routine check up.”

“I figured he knew I was lying,” I all but hiccupped, the tears coming back with a vengeance, taking over and swamping the anger I briefly felt.

“Why didn’t you call me, sweety,” Amara gently admonished.

Amara must have heard the renewal of tears in my voice when I realized the anger was subsiding. Boy, had I made a hell of a mess of things. Now, like Lucy in those old funny sitcoms I had some ‘splaining to do. I had nothing left. What was the point of hiding it all when this was the result?

“I’m pregnant, Amara,” I sobbed.

There was silence on the line for a moment, as if I finally found something that could stun Amara into silence.

“Have you told Leo?” Amara asked, getting straight to the heart of the matter.

It was as if she could read my mind. She knew me all too well. Did she hear the guilt in my voice when I told her the truth? I felt overwhelmed by so many different emotions. I doubted everything Leo and I shared. I felt like I was going crazy.

No, I have not told him,” I said on a woosh of words.

“My God, Bi, no wonder you feel like crap these days. You’re not good at subterfuge at all. Why in the world would you try to keep something like this from him?”

I could not tell her about the whole ‘My man is the Don of the mafia in LA’ and all that comes with. Amara did not know about any of it, and I was not going to tell her. While we were an ocean apart, it could still put her in a kind of danger I would never pull her into.

“Bianca, are you listening to me?”

“Yes, I’m listening to you. I do not know. Leo is under a lot of pressure at the business right now. I did not want to add more by telling him about a baby neither of us planned for,” I answered.

Again, my words were not quite a lie. I was beginning to think I had majored in the wrong subject. At the rate I was going, I could have done well as a lawyer. I guess I could still go to law school.

“I think you should be honest with him and yourself. If you want this baby, you know it is going to become obvious that you’re pregnant soon enough, right?”

I gave a watery chuckle. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure eventually walking around looking like I swallowed a watermelon is going to do the trick in helping him figure out what is going on.”

Amara laughed a little too.

“Sweetheart, do yourself a favor and go talk to him. He is worried about you.”

“He is pissed,” I corrected.

“Yeah, a little, but I think he is not as angry as you think. He told me to call you. he said something like he thought you needed a friend, and he was not being such a good one right now.”

I smiled to myself. Now, that sounded like my Leo, kind, thoughtful, generous, and ready to take care of me even when he is ready to ring my neck.

“Okay, I’ll think about it,” I agreed.

We said our goodbyes with me promising to call her the next time, and we disconnected. I lay in bed, thinking over what Amara and I talked about. She was right, I was stressed out and moody because it was hard for me to keep secrets from the people I loved.

No one but Mom knew about the baby, not even their father. Even Mia was still in the dark, and I had just told Amara. She was the only other person in my life I felt I needed to tell something so personal. I lay curled in the fetal position for a while longer, contemplating my options.

I could not sleep no matter what I did. I was alone in our bed, missing Leo’s heat and wanting so much to share this with him. in order to feel better I knew what I had to do. First, I had to get up and get over myself. Leo deserved to know no matter the outcome. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

I got out of bed and slipped into a pair of shorts and a tank. I brushed my hair, which was a wild cloud around my head. My stomach was a little queasy, but nothing I could not deal with. I grabbed a bottle of ginger ale from the little fridge in our closet and headed to Leo’s office to tell him the great news.

I blew a strand of hair out of my face, squared my shoulders and started on the walk to his office.

When I got there, the door was abnormally ajar. Usually, Leo’s office door was closed tight and I had to knock for entrance, and hearing the rasp of Franky’s voice from the speaker of Leo’s phone made me very aware of why Leo’s office seemed to be nearly as secure as Fort Knox.

“Michael is getting worse. This is not the first time in the last couple weeks. He’s killed three of our men and shot up one of our drop off zones. Leo, man this has to come to an end soon.”

“He better hope I don’t get my fucking hands on him. I’ll strangle the sonofabitch to death if I do,” Leo growled.

There was so much menace in Leo’s voice. I had never heard him sound like that. I stepped away from the door and put my back to the wall flush to the door. I could not believe what I was hearing. It was horrifying.

I lifted my hand to my mouth to keep from crying out or just projectile vomiting right then and there. Leo and Franky were discussing death and killing as if it were an everyday thing. They were plotting ways to find this Michael person and retaliate.

My God, was this real? Did Leo really have to deal with stuff like this on a daily basis? More importantly, was this the kind of life I wanted to bring a baby into?