The Good Life

*Alex*

“Alex put the bottle down!!” Cass yelled at me.

I know I was only going to stay with them a month and then go find my own place, but Rian asked me to stay a little bit longer so he could not spend so much money on rent and start saving up for a ring for Cassadee. He said he was ready to take the next step with her and I envied him for that.
I was feeling depressed today because I went through some pictures of my phone of him and me together. I missed him more and more every day, but I was afraid to talk to him about it. I don’t even know how to approach Jack on this subject. I decided the only way to deal with my sadness was to drink it away. So I brought a bottle of Jack Daniels and started taking shots. I was on shot number four when Rian came home from work and asked why I was drinking in the middle of the day. I told him I missed Jack a little bit and he came and joined me. We drank for maybe twenty minutes before Cass got off from work and started yelling at me to stop pouring us shots.

“No! Co-come join us.” I hiccupped and Rian giggled.

“We can play truth or dare just like old times.” Rian added.

“Or we can play let’s act like adults and not get drunk in the middle of the day when we have to go to work tomorrow.” She hissed and tried to take the bottle away from me. I moved my hand so she missed.

“I-I like Rian’s game better than yours.” I told her. “Rian, I truth or dare?”

“hmmm truth.” He slurred.

“Is it truuuue that Cassadee gave you a blow job in the movie theatre that one time? Cause you said she did, but I still don’t believe you.” I asked him and Cass’s eyes almost popped out of her head.

“Yeeeeaaaaah she did.” He said and raised his hand up for a high-five which of course I gave it to him.

“Rian!!!” Cass shouted. “You told him about that?!?”

“I-I’m sorry. It was an accident.” Rian quickly lied. We were sharing sex stories one night and he told me about it. It was far from being an accident.

“You asshole! You know what, I’m playing now. Alex ask me truth or dare.” She demanded.
“Okay truth or-“

“Truth.” She stated before I could finish.

“Okay um how many gu-guys have you slept with? Not counting Rian?” I asked.

“Two.” She said, and Rian looked relieved. I could tell that she was lying because she looked to the left before she answered me.

“Liar!! The game is called truth or dare not lie or dare.” I yelled. It was always hard for me to keep control of the volume of my voice when I was drunk.

“Fine! Fine!” She glanced at Rian and then looked down before mumbling “Four.”

“Four?!?” Rian yelled. “You always told me it was two!”

“I didn’t want you to think I was a whore or anything.” She mumbled.

“I could never.” He said and stumbled over to kiss her. They made out for a few seconds before I decided I could no longer take it anymore.

“Can it be my turn now?” I whined.

“Yeah yeah. Truth or dare?” Rian asked me.

“I pick dare.” I said just to switch up the game a little bit.

“I dare you to call Jack and tell him you miss him.” He said with a smirk on his face.
“What?!?! No I can’t!!” I exclaimed.

“This is truth or dare not truth or chicken out.” Cass said mocking what I told her earlier.

“I’m not a chicken. I’m a man.” I grumbled and pulled out my phone. What harm could it do? All I had to do was slur my words a little bit more than I already was so Jack would think I was really shit-faced and he would think I was just drunk calling him. I went to Jack’s name in my phone and pressed call. My heart started to race as the phone started ringing. I looked up at Cass and Rian who were both staring at me with anticipation. After ten rings his phone finally went to his voice mail and I quickly hung up and let out a breath I was holding in.

“He didn’t answer so I’m in the clear!” I told them and they pouted.

“You got lucky, Gaskarth.” Cass told me.

“Well when you’re as awesome as me-“ I started to gloat, but I was cut off by my phone ringing. I slowly looked down and saw it was Jack calling me back. My heart jumped into my stomach and I looked up at Rian so he could tell me what to do.

“Answer it!” He quickly said.

“No I can’t.” I cried.

“A dare is a dare.” Rian said while my phone ringed for the fourth time. I looked at Cass for help, but she shrugged her shoulders at me. So I took a deep breath and picked up my phone. Usually alcohol would give me the confidence to do some risky things, but not this time.

“He-hello.” I stammered when I answered the phone.

“Hey…I had a missed call from you. Did you mean to call me?” Jack said and I realized how much I missed his voice.

“I umm had a little too m-much to drink and probably could maybe called you on accident.” I said, not realizing how jacked up my sentence sounded.

“You’re drinking on a Wednesday?” He said sounding skeptical.

“I’m not having such a good day.” I told him. I looked up at Rian who was trying to get my attention. He mouthed at me to tell Jack I missed him and Cass shook her head at me and mouthed at me not to do it.

“Do you um want to talk about it?” he probably forced himself to asked. I decided to just blurt it out and hopefully he wouldn’t think anything of it.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day!! I miss you…I miss us.” I didn’t realize how much truth was in what I said until the words left my mouth.

“Alex-“ he tried to talk, but I stopped him.

“-I know we broke up for a reason, but maybe we should-“ He stopped me this time.
“-No Alex listen. I decided to move on with my life, I don’t think you’ll want to be with me when you find out what I chose to do.” He began and I shut up and prepared myself for whatever he was about to tell me.

“I met a girl…a pregnant girl who wasn’t ready to be a mother…and so she agreed to let me adopt her baby.” I could hear his smile through the phone. I, on the other hand, was in a state of shock.
“You can’t be serious Jack!” I raised my voice. I didn’t yell I just slightly raised my voice.

“What do you mean?” he proclaimed.

“I mean why would you choose to adopt so soon, and from someone you barely know?!?” Now I was kind of yelling. I’ll admit I was a little hurt to hear that he was doing something like this without me. I’m still not ready for children at all, but I thought he would at least wait for me and not go and do this on his own.

“People who adopt kids from orphanages never even meet the kid’s parents, but yet they still adopt them.” He retorted.

“But Jack-“ I tried.

“-But nothing. I’ve wanted this for a long time and there’s nothing you can say or do to me to make me change my mind, Alex. Now if you’ll excuse me I have somewhere to be.” He grumbled and hung up on me. I stared at my phone in disbelief seeing it say “call ended”. I sat my phone down, still staring at it.

“What just happened?” Rian asked after a few moments.

“Jack told me he’s about to adopt a baby from some lady.” I told him and Cass.

“Like she’s just handing him her baby right now?” Cass asked.

“I don’t think so. He said he met a pregnant lady so I guess she hasn’t given birth to it yet, but that’s not the point. The point is he’s moving on with his life…like without me. I know we had a fight and it was pretty serious this time, but I thought we were both just saying and doing things out of anger. I assumed we would just take some time off from each other and then realize that we can’t live without each other.” I said.

“Well you guys can still be together you’d just have be ready for fatherhood.” Rian said and I chuckled at the idea.

“I can’t be someone’s father, I can barely take care of myself. How am I supposed care for a smaller needier person?” I said.

“With lots and lots of love?” Cass questioned and I sighed.

*Jack*

I hung up the phone on Alex. I was caught off guard by his call and thought maybe he called me on accident, but apparently he didn’t. He said he missed me and I guess he basically wanted us to get back together with me. It was very tempting to say yes, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before we started arguing all over again so why bother.

I was on my way to meet up with Camilla and her boyfriend. We exchanged numbers when I was leaving the dealership about a week ago and decided to talk today. She called me and said her boyfriend wanted to get this all over with as soon as possible. We were meeting at a small coffee shop down the street from San Diego State University. I didn’t want to tell anyone what I was doing because I was afraid they might try and talk me out of it. It’s not like I have anyone to tell at this point. I just hope this meeting goes well with Camilla and her boyfriend so I can finally have my own baby girl or boy.

I pulled up to the coffee shop called Mochalux and texted Camilla to tell her I made it. One minute later she texted me and said she was inside with José, her boyfriend. I got out of my car and walked to door. There were college students standing all around, it made me feel old to be surrounded by all those ‘younger’ people. A few of them were wearing items from my clothing line, but they didn’t recognize me. I spotted Camilla sitting down at a table next to a good looking guy. He had dark brown eyes like her and thick dark brown hair. He was shorter than me, but defiantly had more muscles. He looked like he didn’t want to be here at all.

“Jack! It’s nice to see you again. This is my boyfriend José. José this is Jack.” Camilla said as I sat down in a seat across from her. I stuck my hand out for José to shake and he did.

“Nice to meet you, José.” I said to him.

“Yeah. Look just because I don’t want this kid doesn’t mean I want it going to some weird psychopath so if you don’t mind we’re going to ask you a few questions. Let’s get this over with.” He said and I nodded my head telling him to continue. Camilla pulled a notepad out of her purse with prewritten questions in it.

“How old are you?” He asked me.

“I’m twenty-seven and I’ll be twenty- eight on June eighteenth.” I answered quickly.

“Have you ever been abused or in an abusive setting?” Camilla asked.

“No never.” I answered honestly. I liked the questions that they were asking. Even though they didn’t want the baby, they still cared who would take it.

“Have you ever had a drug or alcohol problem?”

“Nope.”

“Will this be your first child?” Camilla asked.

“Yep”

“Are you married?” José asked and I shook my head no. “Why would a single guy want to adopt a baby on his own?” José shook his head at me. I was nervous he was going to ask what my sexual orientation was and then refuse to let me adopt the baby when he found out. Luckily Camilla asked the next question so I didn’t have to worry about that.

“I know you told me you’re an entrepreneur, but what kind of business do you have?” she asked.

“I started the clothing line called Jagk, the one spelled J-A-G-K.” I told her and José choked on his coffee.

“You…you started that. You’re the owner of it?” José asked in a state of shock.

“Yeah I started it all by myself.” I said proudly. José looked at Camilla and spoke again before she could stop him.

“Change of plans, Jack. I don’t care about your life. I don’t care what you do. You give us fifty thousand dollars and pay for the hospital and doctor bills Camilla will have and the baby is all yours. ” He said with a devilish grin on his face. I take back what I said about them caring about who would adopt the baby.

“José, isn’t it illegal for him to pay us for the baby?” Camilla scolded at him.

“Nobody will ever find out, it’ll be our little secret. So what do you say, Jack?” He gestured towards me. Fifty thousand dollars was nothing to me, I was more concerned with getting in trouble with paying them for the baby. I know that it was a slim chance that it would happen, but there was still a chance it could happen. But I guess that it was a chance I was willing to take.

“Yes. I will give you fifty thousand, but not until the baby is born and I signed the birth certificate.” I assured them.

“Great, but there are a couple of ground rules. For starters after we graduate from college, Camilla and I are moving to another state. We won’t tell you where we’re going because we don’t want anything to do with this kid. Don’t tell it our name or anything about us. We don’t want our family finding out about this. Camilla told her sister and she’ll be the only other person to know about it. Luckily our family stays in Brazil so they most likely won’t find out about it anyways.” José told me. Camilla had tears running down her face, but she agreed with him.

“If that’s what you guys want then I’ll respect your wishes. Now can I ask you a few questions?” I wanted to ask them a few heath questions just so I would be prepared for any problems the baby might have.

“Yeah go ahead.” Camilla said as she wiped her eyes.

“You both don’t have any serious health problems that run in your family do you?” I asked.

“No none that I can think of.” José said.

“I used to get ear infections a lot when I was a baby, but that’s all.” Camilla sniffled.

“Okay that’s all I needed to know.” I told them and they nodded.

“Well I guess we’ll call you when she’s going into labor.” José said quickly and he began to stand up, pulling Camilla with him.

“Wait!! You guys don’t need me to help with anything?” I asked before they could leave.

“We’ll call you if we need more money.” José said and continued to leave. I would have been angrier at how he was talking to me if they weren’t doing me such a huge favor.

I just ignored him and walked out to my car so I could drive home and rest before I had to go to a meeting tomorrow.

Notes

I feel bad for Jack