His Baby

Chapter Nine

Rose woke up feeling fresher than yesterday, though she was a little uncomfortable she had to go out and look for a job. Dressing in black skinny jeans, a nirvana shirt which was baggy enough to hide the small bump she had and slipped on some converse.

By the afternoon, Rose wanted to rip her hair out, no one would hire her, because she would need time off in four months’ time, it was so frustration.

Rose had been to twenty different shops in town and no one was interested. She found a diner on the edge of the town and walked inside. It was old-school, she liked it.

Sitting at a table Ava grabs a menu from the centre and glance at the food options.

An older lady walks up to Rose with a pen and pad and smiles, “Hi sweetie, what can I get you?” she asks.

“Um, a strawberry milkshake and fries please” she ask quietly.

“Anything else?” she wonders.

The young girl sighs, “Know anyone that’s hiring?”.

She raises an eyebrow in question “Plenty of places in town” she states.

Rose shakes her head in defeat, “They won’t hire me” she says depressed.

The lady frowns “Why?” she wonders.

Rose sighs, “Because I was upfront with them and told them I needed time off in four months, they didn’t want that”.

“You’re pregnant right?” her Australian accent ringing around every word.

Rose was shocked, but the lady held a look that said ‘I knew you were pregnant the moment you walked through my door’ look.

“Five months” Rose said.

The lady smiles, “Well my grandson just got another job, so I have a spot open if you want it?”.

Rose’s eyes widen in surprise, was she really being offered a job here? “Really?” she asks.

The lady nods, “I don’t see why not”.

Rose grins “Thank you”, she couldn’t believe it.

“I will get your food and then we can discuss the job and what it entails”, the lady says before walking back to the kitchen to place the order.

The moment the meal was placed in front of Rose she dives right in, it was an odd combination, but Rose grabs her fries and dips them into the shake, moaning at the glorious taste.

The bell to the diner chimes, but she was so focused on her meal she didn’t look at who came in.

He looked over and saw the girl he flirted with at Starbucks and smiles, “I never thought our paths would cross again”.

Rose turns her head towards the voice and sees the guy from Starbucks. “What are you doing here?” swallowing her food before she spoke.

The young man looks at Rose as she puts fries covered in milkshake in her mouth, his face scrunches up in disgust. “Does that even taste nice?” he wonders.

Rose just nods her head, her mouth full of food.

He steps closer and grabs some fries, dipping it into her shake and then eating them.

Rose looks at him in shock, “Hey” she protests with a mouthful of food just as the old lady who served her slapped the boy up the back of the head.

She almost chokes on her food.

“Drew stop eating her food” she tells him off.

Drew lifts his hands up in surrender “Sorry gran” he speaks.

Rose raises an eyebrow in amusement “I like your gran even better”.

Drew scowls but there was amusement in his eyes.

Drew’s grandmother sits down opposite Rose and smiles, “Shall we discuss the work schedule?”

“Work schedule?” Drew queries.

Rose nods, “Yeah, your gran gave me your old job” which reminded her she needed to tell her “Which I need to say I have to have monthly visits to the hospital”.

Concern washed over Drew’ grandmother “Is everything okay?” she wonders.

Rose nods her head, “Yeah, the nurses say he’s a bit small for five months, so they want to keep an eye on us”.

Drew carried a look of confusion on his face, what was she talking about?

Rose looked at him and decided to tell him the truth “Yesterday when we met, I told you that you don’t want to be with a messed up kid, being pregnant is just one of the latest things in my messed up life” she laughs out.

Drew smiles and places a hand on Rose’s arm, “Still haven’t changed my mind”.

Rose smiles back “And you don’t even know my name” she giggles out.

“Drew you didn’t get her name?” his grandmother gasps.

Drew rolls his eyes, “Neither did you and you’re hiring her”.

Rose chuckles, “Rose” she says with a laugh.

Boy and woman look at Rose in confusion.

“My name is Rose” she states more clearly.

Drew’s grandmother whose names is Dana sat with Rose and went through her schedule for work, there was enough to keep her busy and keep the boredom at bay.

Drew hung around and kept Rose company, he often asked about Rose’s life, but she kept changing the subject and Drew caught onto what she was doing and stopped asking.

The first week working at the diner, Rose quickly learned who the regulars were and what they ordered. Dana knew everything that was happening around town and had Rose up to date on things in no time.

Fridays and Saturday evenings were the hang out spot for teens when there was no parties happening. Dana had a place of neutral meeting, popular and outcasts alike came to eat her.

Even Drew was at the diner when he wasn’t working.

Rose noticed that people stared at Drew and avoided him like he was the plague, when she questioned Dana about it, she almost fell on the ground in shock.

“Drew’s parents were the reason he is treated this way, when Drew was ten his parents were killed. They died because my daughter-in-law got in with the wrong people, she made deals she couldn’t get out of and they came back to kill her, taking my son out too. They didn’t know about Drew and came back to finish the job. He killed five men before they could kill him. For the past eight years everyone has been scared of that ten-year-old boy who shot five men in self-defence, as he got older, their fear thinking he would strike out at them”.

Rose shakes her head “He was a young boy, his parents were killed, and he defended himself, they shouldn’t be cruel to him” she remarked.

Dana nods her head in agreement.

Rose looks over to Drew, he sat alone in the corner, everyone else had friends about them many of which were staring and whispering about him.

One booth waved Rose over, so she went to serve them. Three guys and four girls sat together. The guys each wore a letterman jacket and the girls had extraordinarily little clothing on.

“Hello, what can I get for you?” Rose asks nicely, she could see they were trouble, but she had a job to do.

“Three burgers and root beer, and four salads and waters” one guys says.

Writing them down she looks back at them “Anything else?” even though she wanted to get as far away from them as possible.

“Yeah your number?” his flirty smile did nothing for Rose.

She scoffs, “When hell freezes over” she responds with a sarcastic smile.

The guy mock pouts “Oh come on, no one can resist this” he gestures to his body as he does a wiggle in his chair, it looked like he was having a seizure.

The other two guys in the booth laugh at his attempts. “That’s not how you get a lady” another speaks.

He turns to Rose and roughly grabs her wrist, pulling her forward, her stomach smacks into the edge of the table, her face scrunches in pain, but the guy didn’t notice.

“Want to go out?” he smiles, his face inches from her own.

“Like I said” she grounds out, biting back a cry of pain “When hell freezes over” she spits, she stands up straight and yanks her wrist from his grasp, turning around she hunches over when a sharp pain shoots through her stomach.

Groaning loudly had even one in the diner looking at her. Drew shoots up from his seat “Rose” he calls out and rushes to Roses side.

Everyone in the room freezes and tenses up at the call for Drew, when he is by her side, he looks her over, she was holding her stomach. “Are you okay?” he asks worriedly.

The pain subsides and she stands up again. “I’m good” she says but Drew wasn’t convinced.

“I think we should get you to the hospital, to make sure everything is okay, just in case” he says.

Rose again shakes her head, she felt fine, nothing felt off. She was going to speak but movement within her stomach had a smile cross her lips, taking his hand before he panicked, Rose places it on her stomach and a second later another kick.

Drew breaks out into a Cheshire grin, “Did he just kick?” he asks.

“I think he’s okay” Rose confirms.

Drew nods his head and turns to head back to his table, but not before sending a glare at the bastards who almost sent Rose to the hospital.

Everyone looked between Drew and Rose in shock, they now knew she was pregnant and assumed Drew was the father.

Dana checked out Rose despite her confirming she was okay, she got the drinks ready for the table and delivered them to the group, “Your food will be here soon” Rose says and they all nod silently, none of them look up at Rose in fear of Drew.

At least there was some advantage to Drew being feared. Five minutes later and the food was delivered, and Rose moved on to another group that came in.

The evening came and the diner was now empty of customers, Dana cleaned up and gave Drew and Rose some food.

*

Home no one wanted to do anything, Rose was the one to keep them in line, make sure they did what they had to, Tommy even put on the television show Rose liked, he didn’t watch it, but it felt like she was there, and no one complained, it was a comfort to them.

It had been hard; they had no luck finding Rose and were beginning to lose hope. Her laughter and bossiness was no longer around them; their training even came to a halt until Scott realised his brother’s legacy was in jeopardy and he needed to do something about it.

Scott was sure Rose would be found and knew she didn’t want to see the mess the boys had become.

Scott had been out of the paperwork so long it was confusing, Rose took over and the technology grew in that time, he still worked old school so half of it made no sense. When he got to the files, Scott smiled, Rose and her organisational skills. Colour coded and alphabetised, as he took files out, he took care when putting them back, making sure they landed in the right place.

Ace was in a similar position; he had his men scattered all over the place looking for any sign of his girl and their baby. But a week and no one had returned to him with anything.

Though he didn’t know Rose long, but the moment he laid eyes on her at the party he felt something inside of him change. He only had information she had told him at the party but it was hazy, he spent hours trying to figure out what was aid in case it held information to help him find her, but he kept drawing a blank.

Even though he was worried, he knew Rose would keep herself safe, and their baby.

Lana and Richard Mathews had never seen their eldest son like this, he was always acting out, getting in trouble, then Rose came along and he changed, Rose was somewhere in the world, carrying his child; their grandchild and he was focused solely on finding them.

They thought of Rose as a daughter, they missed her presence in their house, it had only been a week, and everyone acted as though there was nothing left to live for. Even Tyler stopped bringing girls to the house.

Tyler grew to like the security team as they spent time at his home, he grew close to Ryan, they became friends, it was because of Rose that Tyler gained a true friend. Now she was carrying his niece or nephew he wanted her home like everyone else.

*

Drew looks at Rose as she eats her fries and shake, “Why did you come to Australia?” he questioned.

Rose looks at him, he hadn’t asked anymore since the first day they met, he had been so kind to her and figured he should know.

“I moved from England to America a little over five months ago, the night we finally moved in the guys told me to go to a party a few streets over, I never really went out so they push me to do so, it was your typical party, but a drunk guy came up to me and tried to pull me to a bedroom, I shoved him off but he wouldn’t let go. He didn’t like that I said ‘no’ and slapped me” Rose breathes out.

Drew grips the counter, that made him angry that someone would try and force themselves on Rose.

She places a hand on his arm to sooth him, “A boy named Nathaniel came and stopped him before anything else happened, he beat the asshole until he fell unconscious, I was going to leave, but Nathaniel took me to the garage for ice, then we went and played video games” she smiled at the day they met.