Victoria's baby?

The words hit me like a tidal wave. Memories of Hunter telling me about the pregnancy and looking absolutely heartbroken washed over me all of a sudden, until I felt like I was drowning.

I had to support myself on the wall with one hand. This time the dizziness wasn't just because of my concussion. "What about it?" I choked out.

Sean rolled his eyes at me. "Pull yourself together. It's not his."

"It's... not?" I echoed wide-eyed. "What do you mean it's not his? Whose is it then?"

Sean quirked a brow at me. "You really aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you? Do I need to spell it out for you?" He pointed at himself and said, exaggeratedly slowly: "The baby is mine."

My eyes were probably the size of saucers when I stared at him. "You were sleeping with Victoria?"

"For months," Sean said nonchalantly. "It's never been something serious, just a few hook-ups here and there."

"Then how did... it, you know, happen?" I asked, still trying to process the new turn of events.

"What, you don't know about the bees and the birds?" Sean snorted. "One night we were drunk as hell at a party. We were in a walk-in closet, neither of us had a condom and apparently she hadn't taken her pill. Boom, there you have a baby."

"I- okay... If she knows this, why did she tell Hunter it's his?"

"Because she's a shady bitch?" he suggested. "She knows that that's a way to bind Hunter to her."

I nodded slowly. "Sean... Why are you telling me all this? I mean, you could just play along and you wouldn't have to worry about having to deal with all of this."

Sean shook his head with an impatient scowl. "No, you don't get it. I want the baby. It's mine, not his. I know that he won't care about it like I would, because he hates Victoria and is probably disgusted by the thought of having a child with her." He took a deep breath. "I told my parents and they're willing to help me support the baby. Seeing as Victoria will probably never be a responsible mother, I want it to at least have a caring father."

I blinked at him, still dazed. "So are you going to take a paternity test to prove it?"

"I already did. Told Vicky's mom about the pregnancy and she forced her to go there to give a sample today. We'll get the results this week."

"Wow," I breathed. "I... thank you. This will help us so much."

Sean's glare replaced the almost soft look on his face immediately. "I'm not doing this for you. I just thought you should know so you don't have to be a cry baby about the whole pregnancy thing. Plus, I don't want to go to Hunter and tell him myself. You do that."

I knew that he wouldn't appreciate any more thanks, so I let it slide and looked after him as he turned around and left the house as fast as he had come.

+++

"No way. No way," Nate choked out when I re-narrated the entire story the next day at school. We were sitting on the stairs leading to the school's front door between second and third period. "She's really pregnant? With Sean's child?"

"Yes, Nate, for the fourth time," I retorted impatiently. "Sean told me everything yesterday."

"Maybe he isn't that much of an asshole after all," Alexis muttered. She sounded utterly incredulous at saying these words, much like all of us felt.

"Yeah, he is," Adam said from where he was leaning against the banister, lighting a cigarette. "But he's an asshole who at least cares about his own child."

"He really agreed to support Victoria and the baby?" Emily inquired. She was perched on the steps next to me with her cup of coffee half-way to her mouth. Apparently she had forgotten about it in the heat of the moment, so I reached over and took it from her.

After drinking a sip, I said: "Yeah. He seems pretty serious about it. His parents will probably be paying most of it."

"Well, they can afford it," Nate snorted. "If they can buy him a Cadillac for his birthday, they can probably easily pay for his baby as well."

"Do you want me to tell Hunter?" Adam asked after a moment.

I considered it for a second before I shook my head. "No, I want to tell him myself. But can you tell him I'll come over to his house tonight?"

Adam nodded and pushed himself away from the handrail. "Alright. I'm gonna check on him and Liam."

"Wait, I'm coming with you," Alex said and scrambled to her feet, grinning at Nate when he pouted in disappointment as she pulled her hand out of his.

"Don't take too long!" Nate called after her when she sprinted after Adam, despite wearing four inch heels.

"Hey, Adam!" I shouted. He turned around and raised a brow at me in question. "Thanks."

Instead of answering, he stomped his cigarette out under his heel and headed into the school building.

I shrugged and turned back to Emily and Nate. Noticing that Nate was fiddling with something in his hands, I pointed at it. "What's that?"

He looked up with an uncertain grimace. "It's for Alexis."

"Can I see?"

Nate hesitated before he finally handed it over to me. "Promise not to laugh, yeah?"

Nodding absentmindedly, I took a closer look at the box. It was black and quadratic, without any decoration despite For The Most Amazing Girl I Know scribbled on the front in barely legible silver letters.

Emily nudged me encouragingly and leaned over to have a better view. "Open it! I wanna see."

I did so carefully, placing the lid onto the concrete next to me. A wide grin spread across my face when I saw the silver CD laying in the red velvet lining of the box.

"Is this what I think it is?" I asked teasingly as I took it out and turned it over in my hand.

My guess was confirmed when I read the track list scribbled on the backside of the CD.

"Oh my god, Nate," Emily exclaimed and reached over me to ruffle his hair.

He slapped her hand away and buried his blushing face in his hands. "I know it's kinda stupid. Maybe I won't give it to her."

"If you don't, I'll personally kick your ass to the other end of the country," I informed him, scanning over the song titles.

Most of them I didn't know, but the ones I recognized were all rock songs, the kind of stuff Nate always played in my car. The list started with Welcome To The Jungle by Guns N' Roses and ended with Enter Sandman by Metallica.

But more important than the actual titles was the order of their first letters. It took a few seconds, but then I realized that they spelled out Will you go to prom with me.

"You're setting the bar impossibly high for everyone else," I laughed.

"This is the most adorable thing I've ever seen," Emily added. "Alexis is so damn lucky."

Nate still didn't look confident with his gift. "I don't know. What if she says no?"

"Then she's insane."

"Seriously, dude, she won't say no. I'd bet my car on that," I said. Not that I have one at the moment.

My mom had driven me to school today and promised to do the same every day from now on. To my question if she didn't think she was taking it too far, she hadn't replied. Instead she had turned the radio on to prevent any more conversation with me.

It was weird; since the accident had occurred, my mother was all over me, constantly hovering and making sure I was okay. Still, whenever I wanted to talk and have an actual conversation with her, she blocked me out. I knew it was better than complete silence between us, but it was affecting me more than I cared to admit.

My father was still glaring at me every time he saw me and only talked to me in short commands and subtle side blows. More than once, he had just left the room when I entered. He was leaving a lot in general; it seemed like he was on business meetings and the like every other evening. I decided not to ask about it.

Nate wrestling his gift out of my hands, interrupted my thoughts before they could get too depressing. "So, what about you, Emily? Are you going to prom with Liam?"

Emily knew just as well as I did that Nate was trying to steer the conversation away from his love life, but she chose not to call him out on it. Instead she shrugged with a smile and said: "I'm not sure. He hasn't asked me and I don't know how to ask him."

"One of you needs to make a start," I said. "Watching you guys being too shy to actually do anything, is beyond frustrating."

"True. We all know you guys have the biggest crush on each other. Just date already," Nate said, ignoring Emily's scowl.

"Says you," she snorted.

Nate held up the black gift box. "Hey, I'm doing something about it! You should do the same."

Emily finally accepted that there was no reasoning with us, so she let out an annoyed huff and ripped her cup of coffee out of my hand. "Fine. Maybe I'll ask him later."

"Aw, look who's blushing," I mocked and pinched Emily's cheek before she could slap my hand away.

"I hate both of you," Emily groaned, but didn't try to ward Nate off when he slung an arm around her shoulder and said: "You love us."

+++

To say that I was nervous when I rang Hunter's door bell that evening, was an understatement.

Being able to come here hadn't been that much of a struggle as I had expected, because dad was out with his friends and mom was having a parent-teacher conference at school. Maya was being babysat at home, so it was easy for me to leave the house without anyone asking me where I was going.

It took so long for him to open the door, that I was already fearing he wasn't home. My breath caught in my throat when the door finally flung open and revealed him standing in the doorway.

"Jules?" he asked in surprise as he looked down at me. "I didn't believe Adam when he told me you'd come here."

It took a few seconds for me to understand his astonishment. "Because of the pregnancy thing?"

Hunter's eyes grew even wider when he stammered: "I... yeah. The pregnancy thing. You... you still want to see me?"

The look of tentative hope in his eyes was enough to make me cross the small distance between us. I caught his face in my hands and said with a smile: "I have news."

Hunter blinked at me in bewilderment. "You...do?"

"The child isn't yours."

"What do you mean, it's not mine?"

"It's Sean's." When he just stared at me in shock, I pressed a short kiss to the side of his jaw. Unable to hold back a relieved chuckle, I said: "Everything's fine, Hunter. It's not yours. We're okay."

For a moment, Hunter looked like he was about to cry. Then a smile that could've outshone the sun formed on his face as he quietly repeated, more to himself than me: "We're okay. We're really okay."

Before I could answer, he pulled me into a bone-crushing hug and dragged me inside, finally shutting the door behind us.

I could feel his heart racing against my chest as he buried his face against my shoulder. He was trembling beneath my hands, every inch of him shaking, while his fingers clung to the back of my shirt.

After minutes of me whispering reassurances and holding onto him, he leaned back just enough to be able to see my face. "I really want to kiss you right now."

"Then why don't you already?" I shot back with a grin.

Hunter didn't need to be asked twice; the next thing I knew was that I was being pushed back against the door, Hunter's hand cradling my chin while the other was running through my hair.

I felt my knees getting weak as his teeth scraped over my bottom lip and his tongue found its way into my mouth. My hands instinctively locked behind his neck to keep my legs to give away under me.

Hunter didn't care. Instead he made things even worse when he hooked a cold finger under my chin and turned my head slightly to give him better access to my neck. He smiled up at me before he lowered his lips to the sensitive skin right over my collar bone.

"Not where anyone can see," I breathed as my head fall back against the door.

Instead of answering, Hunter kissed his way down my neck. Only when he arrived at the collar of my hoodie, he hesitated.

"Can I-"

"Yes."

"I missed this," he said and pulled the collar of the hoodie down a little so he could get to work there. His eyes were dark when he looked up at me through long lashes while his hands held me in place against the door.

In that moment, I was completely sure there wasn't a single person as beautiful as him .

After a while, he began sucking long enough for bruises to form on my skin. One of my hands dropped into his hair as my eyes fell shut.

"You're so pretty," Hunter said softly against my skin, the movement of his lips sending shivers down my spine.

"Not like this."

"Especially like this."

I shook my head and leaned it against the door.

"What is it?" Hunter asked with a concerned frown and brushed some stray hairs that were sticking to my sweaty forehead away.

"I just..." I began, but broke off when I didn't know how to say it. How could I possibly describe the feeling of the warmth in my stomach? Or the fluttering in my chest whenever I looked at him? "I think I might love you a lot."

A smile twitched around his mouth before he pressed another short kiss to my lips. "I think I might love you more."

After a second I grimaced and fell back against the door. "We're one of those couples now, aren't we?"

"Shit. I think we are," Hunter murmured before he broke into laughter. Then he asked: "Wanna take this to my room? It's a little uncomfortable in this corridor."

I chuckled and let him pull me to my feet and up the stairs to his room, where we both collapsed onto his bed.

Hunter reached over to the speaker on his nightstand and turned on a song I didn't know.

Then he settled back against the headboard and wrapped an arm around me while I rested my head on his chest.

The warmth of him beneath me, his hand lightly caressing my cheek and the calm, dreamy song were enough to make me feel as comfortable as I hadn't felt in weeks.

"I can't believe this is happening," Hunter uttered after a few minutes.

"What?"

He waved his hand around, indicating the two of us. "This. That I don't have to worry about being a father just yet. That you're here. That you don't hate me."

"I could never hate you."

Hunter took my hand and guided it to his lips to press a short kiss to my knuckles. Still, the look in his eyes showed that he was a hundred miles away.

I rolled over a little so that I was full-on laying on his chest and grabbed his chin in one hand. Once I turned his face to look at me I asked: "What is it?"

"Nothing," he said and leaned down to kiss me, but I pulled back and glared half-heartedly at him.

"Stop trying to distract me!" I huffed. "You look sad and I want to know why. Talk to me."

"I don't want to ruin the mood."

"You're not," I insisted. "I know you, Hunter, I can tell when you're upset. I don't care what it is, just tell me."

Hunter studied my face for a few seconds. Then he said: "I was thinking about prom, that's all."

I quirked a brow in surprise. "What about it?"

"It's just..." He let out a long breath. "Everyone else goes there together. Liam and Emily, Alex and Nate. But we? We can't. We can't just go there and dance and drink and be stupid like everyone else."

I had to advert my gaze, swallowing hard. Of course I had thought about it. Still, it was hard to hear it from him, knowing that it was hurting him just as much.

Then I firmly said: "We don't need a stupid prom."

Hunter looked at me questioningly when I got off the bed and turned the music up.

Smiling awkwardly at him, I bowed and held a hand out. "May I have this dance?"

Hunter sat up, a grin forming on his face, and slipped his hand into mine. "I'd be flattered."

I didn't really know what to do next; I had never danced with a guy. In fact, I hadn't really danced with anyone up to this point.

Hunter took notice of my uncertainty and pulled me close without hesitation. He placed both hands on my hips, so I slung my arms around his neck.

At first it couldn't honestly be called dancing. I was nervous and clumsy, almost stepping onto his feet a few times.

Luckily, he was way better at this than I was and quickly took the lead, until we were somewhat moving to the slow rhythm filling the room.

"This was a better idea in my head," I admitted, feeling my cheeks heat up.

Hunter laughed lightly and spun me around, only to send me tumbling against his chest and clinging onto his shoulders to stop myself from losing my balance. "I think this was a fantastic idea, sugarpie."

"Oh, that nickname is back," I snickered. "I thought it was outdated?"

"It's still good to make you blush," Hunter smirked and placed a butterfly kiss to my temple.

"I take back what I said. I definitely hate you."

Hunter held even tighter onto me and leaned down. Expecting a kiss, I got onto my toes, but he stopped before our lips collided, hovering just inches away from me. Before I could complain, he murmured: "Somehow I don't quite believe you."

"Stop being a dick," I groaned and, sneaking a hand to his neck, I dragged his face down and crashed my lips onto his.

The kiss didn't last very long. The shrill ringing of the door bell interrupted us. Hunter groaned in irritation and reluctantly let go of me when the ringing didn't stop.

Whoever was at the door seemed to be of rather short temper.

"Wait here, I'll get it," he said and hurried down the stairs.

I flopped back onto his bed and hummed quietly to the music, but immediately got to my feet when I heard a loud bang and shouting voices.

"You can't see him. Listen, I'm-"

"Shut the fuck up before I-"

I was on my feet at lightning speed and almost fell down the stairs in my hurry to get to the front door. I slithered to a stop there just in time to be able to throw myself between them as my father raised his fist for a punch.

"Dad, no!" I screamed and pushed Hunter behind me.

"There you are, you little bastard," my father growled and gripped onto the front of my shirt. The smell coming from him was strong enough for me to know he was drunk. "Did you really think I wouldn't find out you're hiding here? Do you think I'm stupid?"

With every word he shook me, making my teeth clatter.

"No, I-"

"Shut your fucking mouth. I don't want to hear a sound from you," he barked.

I flinched and immediately fell quiet.

Hunter apparently lacked those survival instincts, as he now said: "You can't do this. He didn't even do anything wrong, he just-"

"Quiet," my father spat. "Or I'll break your fucking nose."

"It's fine," I said frantically, looking over at Hunter. "It's fine. I'm coming with you."

My father stared at Hunter for a few more seconds before he nodded shortly.

I suppressed a whimper when he buried a hand in my hair and dragged me out of the door by it. All I could do was claw at his hand and try to keep up with him as he forced me over to the car.

Once I was roughly shoved onto the passenger seat, he got in next to me and let the engine roar.

The last thing I saw when I looked back was Hunter standing in the doorway, one hand pressed to his mouth as he started to cry.