Chapter 4
a few weeks later
Kelly had managed to avoid the morning sickness until she was out on a Saturday morning, actually thinking about buying some maternity clothes, not the old fashioned kind, the cool kind, when at the mall she bumped into him. Ryan. And he wasn't alone.
She stared at her first. Blonde, skinny, the kind he always wanted to take home to his mother. She would have been perfect if Kelly didn't hate her so much. And Ryan..he did not look good. He looked a little strung out, but that wasn't her problem. Her problem was that she was worried about baby clothes and eating right and he was out partying and living it up with some low life that he didn't even know. How could he do this to her?
Kelly felt the tears coming, but she wouldn't cry, not in front of Ryan. He didn't deserve them, not when he so obviously didn't care about himself or anyone else. She had to get to her car. Once she got there, she finally allowed herself to break down, maybe it was the hormones, maybe it was the shock of seeing Ryan like that, but once she started crying she couldn't stop.
Finally she picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Toby?" she sniffed.
"Kelly? What's wrong? Where are you? Is the baby okay?"
"My life is over!"
"Where are you? I don't think you should be driving right now. I'll meet you in ten minutes."
"I'm at the mall. Outside of Taco Bell. Yuck. Who can think of food now?"
"Okay Kelly, I'll be there. Just hang on."
And true to his word, Toby was there in eleven minutes.
"Kelly what happened, what did he do this time?". She didn't have to say it. He knew her well enough to know that only one thing could make her this upset. Ryan. He worked with the guy and had to be professional but it was getting hard to be polite with him when he saw what he was putting his friend through.
"Well for one thing he's using again. What kind of father does that?"
"Do you want me to fire him?"
"Please don't Toby. I need him. You don't understand. One day he'll realize what he's done and then he'll come back to me and be the father to this baby that I know he wants to be."
Toby could see the desperation in her eyes. She was starved for Ryan's affection; any kind of acknowledgement from him that she was alive in his world, even a hello or a look in her direction meant that she was validated. He understood. He'd been there. He had the power to fire Ryan; he ought to. But Kelly would not only hate him forever but she would fall to pieces and he believed that she would have nothing to live for, not even her baby. Against his better and professional judgment, he would keep an eye on Ryan, not for his sake but for Kelly's.
He squeezed her hand, acknowledging that in so many ways, he did understand, more than she thought he ever could. So he sat back and did nothing, not for Ryan's sake, though he had the means and the motives to can the sorry excuse of an employee; nor was he doing nothing for Kelly's sake, though he knew she would never forgive him if he did can Ryan and hate him forever. He was doing it for the baby, giving Ryan a chance to clean up and for Kelly to put the baby before Ryan. It would be hard, but maybe those two could open their eyes and get it together before the baby came. And if he had a hand in it? Toby smiled. Well, he always did like to be needed.
