Fake Bump, Real Ex

You son of a bitch! You're out to dinner with another woman while I'm carrying your kid!

I screamed it until my throat tore, both hands braced under the small bump pushing out my dress.

Across the table, the society girl went white.

Rhys had one hand clamped to his forehead. Blood slid between his fingers. He kept flicking his eyes at me. Sell it. Sell it harder.

Cash up front, job done right. I patted the silicone belly and got ready for a clean exit.

My feet stopped like somebody had nailed them down.

One table over, Declan was watching me. Cold.

My ex. The one who cut the line and never looked back.

His eyes dropped to my "bump."

Beside him, his pretty new girlfriend was feeding him a shrimp dumpling.

Declan's mouth curled. "You really will do anything for money."

Chapter 1

I called my ex at midnight to ask for his student ID. Red Pot does thirty percent off after twelve.

The craving had hit me and I wanted hot pot. He hadn't spoken to me in six months.

His voice came back flat. "No. My girlfriend wouldn't like it."

"Okay. Can I borrow your student ID? Red Pot does thirty percent off after twelve."

"Stella." He was almost shouting. "There is something wrong with you."

"Fine, don't lend it to me. No need to make it personal."

He hung up on me.

I sighed and took a cab to Red Pot by myself.

Last month I found out he'd gotten into the grad program here. I sat on that number for a while before I dialed it.

Turned out he already had a girlfriend.

An hour later my phone lit up. Declan, calling back.

"What table?"

I was fishing tripe out of the red broth. Harder than it sounds when the broth fights back.

"Let me check."

"Don't bother. I see you."

I looked up. He was already crossing the room toward me, coat still on.

He lent me the ID. Then he paid my check before I could stop him.

"You want to eat?" I asked. Easy, like it cost me nothing.

His face did that impatient thing it always did. "No. Somebody's waiting for me outside."

"Then let me send you the money."

His eyes sharpened. "Thanks for the reminder. We should block each other's numbers too."

"Unless it's an emergency, don't call me again."

"I'm sorry."

Two words, and they didn't move him an inch. He added, colder, "It's the middle of the night. My girlfriend would get the wrong idea."

"Yeah. That's not a good look."

I pointed at his throat. "Then give me back my scarf."

He blinked. "Why would I do that?"

"You're with somebody now. Wearing your ex's scarf isn't a good look either."

"You gave it to me. That makes it mine." His jaw set. "Mind your own business."

His phone rang. We both looked down at the screen at the same time.

Sienna.

Whatever was in his face went soft. He picked up, turned, and walked out.

Chapter 2

I watched the broth roll and boil and lost my appetite one bubble at a time.

Outside, it had started to snow.

Declan came out of the boba shop next door with two cups in his hand.

His new car sat at the curb. In the passenger seat was a girl with long curls, neat as a magazine.

He passed her the drink, came around the hood, and got in on the driver's side.

The car pulled away. The snow came down harder.

I walked along the edge of the street and remembered something from before we broke up.

That was a snow night too. Twelve thirty in the morning.

My shift had just ended. A cab home ran twenty-five dollars and I couldn't make myself spend it.

So I called Declan and asked him to come get me.

He rode over on that beat-up scooter of his.

The road was iced. On the way back the wheels went out from under us.

We hit the ground together. I got up fine. He didn't.

The heel of his hand was scraped down to raw meat. His chin, his knees, all of it. He'd split the inside of his mouth open too.

He was the one bleeding. I was the one who couldn't stop crying.

At the clinic, while they scrubbed the grit out of his palm, he sat there taking it and talking me down.

Walking out, I couldn't look at him. Twenty-five dollars. I'd wrecked him to save twenty-five dollars.

He put his arm around me anyway, face scraped up like a bar fight. "Star, this isn't on you. Blame the tires. They're bald, that's why we slid."

"I'm going to work harder. I'll have a car before next winter."

"Then you ride shotgun with a drink and your music, and you sleep the whole way home, and you never have to worry about hitting the ice again."

I reached the fork in the road and the memory stopped there.

Roads end. So do people.

The car existed now. Somebody else was sitting in it.

I sent him the money for dinner that night.

Two days later a courier buzzed my door.

Inside the box was the scarf, washed and folded into a neat square.

He'd cut every thread between us, clean, in case I came back looking for something to hold onto.

I put it in the back of the closet.

Nobody gets to live in the past. He'd moved on. There was no reason for me to stand around holding the door open.

A week later I was packing when Rhys called.

He skipped hello. "Stella. Small job. Play my girlfriend. The pregnant kind who shows up and burns the place down."

My suitcase was half full on the floor. "Can't. I'm leaving town."

That stopped him. "Leaving? Where are you going?"

"Haven't decided."

"Then don't go yet. Come on, sis. One more time."

I heard him grind his teeth. "Eight thousand. Eight thousand dollars, you show up pregnant and you wreck my date."

"Done," I said. "Send me the address and the time."

"Sending it now."

The call cut off. My phone buzzed twice.

Rhys: [This one's a tough sell. Make it real.]

Rhys: [Transfer sent. $8,000.]

Chapter 3

Money in hand, I got to work. The silicone belly was still in the closet from the last job.

I picked a fitted dress so the bump would read from across a room, then a trench coat that hit mid-calf over it.

The mirror gave me back a woman with her hair down, no color in her lips, and a small round stomach.

I patted it, satisfied, and went off to war.

Rhys is a trust-fund brat I happen to know.

Late baby of the family, spoiled from the crib. Life has never once told him no.

His whole plan is to never marry and stay out late until he dies.

Unfortunately for him, he has a sister, and she runs the family business the way a general runs a border.

She couldn't stand the way he lived, so she dragged him into a job.

Once the job broke him in, she started lining up dates.

Rhys likes girls with an edge, ones who can play the game.

His sister picks women who are either running companies or born into them.

He has to sit up straight and behave through dinner. He can do that twice. Never three times.

Some of them don't like him either, and everybody walks away clean.

The problem is the ones who do like him, who don't take a hint, who keep texting about next weekend.

That's when he pays me.

Back when I was picking up whatever work I could find, I did a run of low-budget streaming soaps. Always the bitchy other woman.

Big eyes, big screaming, no subtlety. Rhys caught one and decided I was a natural.

He pays well. I've made real money off that man.

Dinner was at a steakhouse you can't get into without a reservation.

I gave his name at the front and the hostess started walking me back.

I spotted him from halfway across the floor.

He was slouched sideways in the booth with his head propped on one hand, looking like he'd been dropped there.

The woman across from him sat with her back to me, spine straight, shoulders squared. Perfect.

I stopped. "I've got it from here," I told the hostess.

Rhys glanced up. The second he saw me he came alive and sat up like the principal had walked in.

I squared the belly with both hands and came at him fast.

He was still watching me with that hungry, delighted look when I swung my purse and cracked him across the head.

"You lying piece of trash! You said you were working late!"

He got both arms up. "Star. Star, calm down. Let me explain."

"Explain what? I'm carrying your kid. I've been throwing up all day, and you're out here having dinner with another woman."

The woman across the table had stopped moving entirely.

Rhys got to his feet, squeezing his eyes at me. "Baby, she's a friend. Sit down. Think about the baby."

"A friend. That's what you said last time. And the time before that."

I turned like I was leaving. He let go immediately.

"Fine. I'm getting rid of it tonight."

I'd gotten too into it. The belly was sliding south.

I caught it under the coat while I turned, took two steps, and saw Declan.

Across from him sat a girl with long curls. She dragged her eyes down me and back up, the way you'd watch a show you'd bought a ticket for.

Chapter 4

Declan's face went still as water. He looked away like we'd never met.

He picked something up and put it in her bowl. "Eat. It'll get cold."

So that's what his girlfriend looks like.

I hadn't felt this small in years.

Rhys caught up behind me. "Star. Give me one more chance!"

When I didn't move, he panicked and pinched my arm where nobody could see.

I came back to myself, one hand on the belly, and shoved him off with the other.

I ran, he chased, and behind us the poor woman was still calling his name.

"Rhys! Rhys!"

He threw it over his shoulder. "I'll explain later!"

Neither of us looked back.

He didn't breathe out until we were in the car.

He flipped the visor down and checked his face like it was an investment. "Star, next time bring a soft purse. That thing has corners. You almost took my eye out."

"This one's a tough sell." He was off and running. "I gave her nothing. Nothing. I was a disaster in there and she didn't even blink."

His phone buzzed on the console.

He picked it up, read it, and turned the screen to me with the face of a man seeing a ghost.

Meredith: [Don't panic. Let's keep the baby healthy first.]

Meredith: [Tell her to go ahead and have it. I'll be a good stepmother.]

Rhys stared at me. "She's insane."

I pulled the belly out from under my coat. "Maybe she likes you."

He laughed through his nose. "Likes me. She likes the balance sheet. What else is there?"

He grabbed the belly and held it up. "Poor kid. Your mama went and got rid of you after all."

I snatched it back. "Nobody's watching. Save it."

The words were barely out when Declan came into the lot with his girlfriend on his arm.

Rhys spotted him first. "Hey. Isn't that your ex?"

I swung the purse at him again. "Drive. Haven't we humiliated ourselves enough for one night?"

He started the car, muttering. "I sign your checks. Is this how you treat the guy who signs your checks?"

We passed the two of them. Declan pulled her in closer to his side without seeming to think about it.

I turned my eyes back to the windshield. Rhys was saying he never got to eat, that he wanted something hot and spicy to warm up.

The man does not have an off switch. All the way there.

"Your ex is doing all right for himself, though. That girl's the daughter of the CEO of Whitmore Technologies."

I was done listening. Then he switched tracks on me.

"Stella. Do you ever regret breaking up with him?"

My phone rang. Declan's name came up on the screen.

I hit silence and turned the phone face down. "No