Chapter 2

I've spent the whole week mostly sleeping or just dragging around in my apartment. I've used the excuse that I had the flu... doing the fake cough and sneezing every time someone called to see how I was.

I haven't seen much of Joe either, he's been working around the clock on this big case and had only stop by once on Wednesday.

I have actually found enough courage and decided to tell him about the baby tonight during our date.

I am Catholic and I don't believe in abortions, so in this week's time I've come to accept the fact that I'm going to be a mother... oh brother!

I had everything set for our date... I thought it would be cute to surprise Joe with a present! Hehehehe. I wrapped the pregnancy test strip in a little long box and put a red silk ribbon on it.

I was dressed and waiting for Joe, he said that he would pick me up at 7:30... Well it was now 8:15! Damm it... he never kept his word. Maybe he forgot. Crap and this is the father of my child! I mean I cant even rely on him to pick me up on time for our first date. Just then he opened the door and smiled. See, that was the smile that kept getting me into trouble for the past fifteen years.

"Hey cupcake, sorry I'm late. I had paperwork to finish up." He was wearing light tan Dockers that hugged his ass, lucky pants! A light brown crew sweater that showed off his toned chest just beautifully, and brown suede shoes. He looked hot, and he knew it!

"Sure Joe, that's a nice excuse for forgetting our first date" I said in a low sad voice. What was I going to do…? I'm not even sure if I loved him enough to marry him... but I have a baby on the way... think about the baby Steph.

"No! Don't say that, I didn't forget. You know I've been working on this case for 5 months now" He said as he placed his hand on the small of my back and led me through the apartment door and locked it behind us.

"Now let's get in a better mood." He pressed my body against the wall next to the elevator as we waited for it, and gave me the mother of kisses; hot, very hot. He tasted like peppermint, smelled like soap. He'd just taken a shower and the clean smell mixed with his sexual essence made my knees weak. As the elevator opened he pulled away and tugged me towards it by my hand. I mean, he had to or I was going to fall right there.

As we pulled into the parking space of the restaurant I noticed Joe was checking a message in his pager for the third time since we left the apartment, he ignored it.

He came around my side of the car and opened the passenger side door and held out his hand to me. As I lifted myself from the seat I felt the dizziness and heat flash run through me again. No nausea this time, but the Dr. said that it would be normal to feel faint and nauseous from time to time. I slumped into Joe's chest and he held onto me tight.

"What's wrong Steph? Are you Ok!" I could feel the vibration in his chest as he spoke.

"Uhmmm, yeah, I'm ok" I said squinting my eyes shut so tight so that the world would stop moving.

"I think I still feel a little weak from the flu, but it'll pass." Hopefully, I mean this wasn't going to last the whole pregnancy.

After a few minutes of Joe holding me, I was feeling better; we were pulled apart by the vibration of his pager going off AGAIN. Damm it.

"Crap, the station keeps paging me. Lets go inside, get a table and I'll make a phone call" And so we did. After a few minutes Joe came back with his cop face in place.

"Cupcake, there might be an important brake on the case later on tonight, after dinner I'll drop you off at your apartment, I'll check out the source and I'll meet you at your place later tonight, ok?" Well this could be good news and bad news. Good news because I think I'm going to have to tell him here in the restaurant (hence public place) rather than take a chance that he might not show up at my place later. Bad news I don't want him to rant and rage about my pregnancy in public. What to do?

We ate dinner in blissful silence... Thank God. My palms were sweaty and the fork kept falling off my hand. I fidgeted on my seat all through the meal. Oh God, now or never.

So I dug my hand in my purse looking for his present. Just then his pager went off again; he made a growl sound, gave the "one minute" gesture and walked to the bar to make another phone call. I rested the present in front of his side of the table.

"Steph we need to go right now!" he said as he stood over our table, took out his wallet and dropped some bills on the table. He grabbed my left hand started tugging; I used my right hand to grab my purse and the present off the table. No need for the whole burg to find out about our little bundle of joy before Joe did.

He didn't even notice the tightly packaged box decorated with a silk red ribbon on the table.

"Cupcake, you can drop me off at my house, I'll pick up my car there and you'll go to your place and wait for me." He looked nervous, weird.

"I'll stop by as soon as I'm done working." He looked like he was in such a hurry that he almost looked a bit guilty. Why?

I felt that something was wrong? Why would he make drive to his house first?

As soon as Joe got out of the car I blew a good bye kiss to him and he got into his SUV, turned over the car and waited for me to drive away. And so I did.

But this whole thing felt weird. Why is he in such a rush... its not the "I gotta go to work" rush, no, it was more of the I gotta get away now rush. hhhhmm.

So I did what any normal burg girl would do. I pulled over on the next street in between two cars and waited for him. He pulled out of his spot and turned right. Right it is.

I followed him all the way to the outskirts of Trenton; he was heading to Hamilton Square. That's odd, why would he need to leave Trenton to go see a "source."

But little did I know that things were going to get even weirder. He stopped at a diner, got out of the car and walked inside.

The diner had that old style look of a trailer so it had big windows all around. I could see that he ordered a drink and something else. He paid, got his bag and walked out. We just had dinner!

He walked across the street. I hadn't notice that the diner was located in front of a motel. Maybe that's where he's meeting his informant. He went to the motel office; I'm assuming he was getting a room. He was in there for about five minutes and then walked to door number 27. He walked into the room and I waited. Obviously his informant wasn't there yet.

About ten minutes later I noticed a real nice sports car drive up. It parked near the stair case that leads to the second floor. I thought my heart stopped when I saw Terri Gilman get out of the car.

She was dressed in a long leather coat. And it's spring! She was over dressed… odd. She sprinted to the stairs and went onto the second floor. Her short blond hair was done up perfectly, even through the coat you could see her big boobs and curvy butt. She wore black FMP that shone brightly every time she passed a light.

She came to a stop in front of #27. How did she know? She fixed herself up and opened the door. She stood there at the entrance looking in. She opened her coat and out of nowhere I saw Joe grab her from her waist, kiss her and pulled her into the room and slammed the door shut.

"Oh God" tears started falling. "This can't be happening." I started sobbing.

"Not again." I felt my heart ache the same way it did the day I found the Dick screwing Joyce Barnhart. I froze in that position, clinching the steering wheels until my knuckles turned white, my head thrown back into the head rest.

After about 15 minutes in that position my blood began to boil. I thought about all of things that could have been between Joe and me. We had a baby on the way, but that was no reason to keep going on with this charade.

I got out of my car and stomped all the way to the stairs. With every step up I took I got more furious, hurt, betrayed, laughed at, played with and broken. I had to see his face. I had to confront him.

I remember that in his moment of heat he had just slammed the door. I bet they didn't even lock it. I took three big breaths, took out the present from my purse and put my hand on the doorknob. With one swift move of my hand the door flew open.

They were on the bed, facing away from me. The skank was on top of Joe naked, riding him. Their surprise was so grand that she hopped off of him and he sat up instantaneously.

"Stephanie!" he screamed.

"What... how...look..." he gasped, as he tried to find his clothes around the bed. The slut was just laying there naked with the biggest smirk on her face. I wanted to claw her eyes out, rip her hair out of her skull and kick the shit out of her.

I stood in the hall outside of the room staring at him. It seemed I was there for an hour, but it was only one minute.

"Look it's not what it seems... I ..." he pleaded. Bastard. How could he. He doesn't love me.

"This was your surprise for tonight" and with that I threw the perfectly wrapped box with the silk red ribbon and flung it at him. It hit him on his chest. I wanted to see the look in his face. I wanted to the shock, the pain in his face. I needed him to understand what he had just done.

He stared at me and I motioned with my finger for him to open it.

"Here? Now?" he yelled. I could see the sweat start to drip from his forehead. The veins in his neck were throbbing deeply. I knew he was nervous, almost scared.

He started to unwrap the bow, staring at me. My eyes began to fill with tears, my hands started to shake. He ripped the box open. Staring at me still, not wanting to see what was in the box. I nodded towards the box and he finally looked down.

He stared at the box for a whole minute with his other hand frozen in the air. His closed his hand into a fist and I could see all the muscles in his body tense up. He started breathing heavily and fast. He knew what he had done. He knew how much he'd hurt me. How much he'd hurt our baby.

He finally looked up at me with sad, half closed eyes. My face was a mess, full of tears, red from anger.

"Do you see what you've done?" was all I could muster out of myself. I turned towards the stairs and started running. I could hear him yelling out my name, I could hear him asking me to wait. But I knew I had a head start on him. He was still naked and I knew he was not going to run after me in his birthday suit.

I charged the stairs two at a time, fumbling with the rail and trying to hold on as much as I could. As I made it half way through the lot I heard his voice out in the open and I knew he was going to start chasing me. I ran as fast as I could. Tears blinding my sight. My head spinning in every direction possible. Dizziness starting to take over my body.

"Cupcake wait, we need to talk, please give me a chance to talk to you" He pleaded as I heard his voice getting closer to me. "I need to explain myself."

Without even thinking I came to a sudden stop, not realizing that I was in the middle of the busy street. I turned around to see his desperate eyes pleading for me to stop. But I didn't want to stop I wanted to run all the way home. I wanted to run and forget my problems. But as I turned around I caught a glimpse of two headlights, boy they were awfully close.

"Steph look out; get out of the way, please!" He screamed at the top of his lungs but it was too late, too dark for the driver of the SUV to see me.

Then everything went black.