Chapter 0003

Nora tried to swallow her disappointment when they got to the semi-full bar and there was no sign of Austin anywhere there. Of course, he wasn’t there. The bar wasn’t his home after all. She sat rigidly with Sally’s new love interest and his friend, wishing that she hadn’t even come at all.

Soon enough, as Nora had known that she would, Sally excused herself with the guy that she was interested in, leaving Nora alone with his friend, who immediately proceeded to begin to hit on her … hard.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not in the mood for any sort of relationship, serious or otherwise, right now. And once, again, I’ll prefer it if you kept your hands to yourself.” She told the guy, whose name she hadn’t even bothered to memorize, for what felt like the umpteenth time.

“You heard the lady. Stop bugging her.” Austin’s voice came and Nora immediately whirled around to find him standing behind them. Despite the fact that she had been watching the door unconsciously all evening, she hadn’t noticed him enter the bar. The guy that was sitting with Nora frowned his face, looked like he was going to argue, then thought better of it and slunk away without a word, leaving Nora with Austin.

“Why’d you leave so abruptly this morning?” Austin asked Nora in an accusatory tone, occupying the seat that the other guy just vacated. Nora stared at him, the events of the previous night flooding into her brain and making her blush a little sheepishly.

“Um, I had to leave so that I could get to work early.”

“Ah, I see. Something tells me that that wasn’t the real reason, though. Was I that bad between the sheets? I know we were both a little out of it, but even then … ” Austin trailed off, smiling like the cat that ate the canary.

“Look, I’d have you know that I don’t make it a habit to jump into random strangers’ beds mere hours after meeting them,” Nora informed him testily, hating his smug tone. His tone suggested that even though they had both been tipsy, he was confident that he had done a good job, which he indeed had, but that was not the issue at hand.

“Ah, I get it now. There’s nothing to be ashamed of though. I usually don’t have sex with people after knowing them for mere hours either, so we’re even. We’ll blame it on the alcohol, then. By the way, my name is Austin. I already know that yours is Laura, because I heard your friend mention it yesterday. There, we’re no longer strangers to each other.”

“It’s Nora, not Laura.”

“Oh, my bad. But okay, it’s nice to meet you, Nora. What do you say I buy you a drink?”

“I already have one,” Nora replied pointedly, gesturing to the drink in front of her.

“Cool, so how about I buy you dinner instead?” Austin asked, not looking in the least like one who was going to give up.

“Why do you want to buy me dinner?”

“It’s because I want to get to know you better. Come on, it’s just dinner. I promise to be on my best behavior. Besides, once I leave, I have a very good feeling that the man who was pestering you earlier is going to come back again. In case your mind is still made up not to have a meal with me, I’ll like to inform you that your ex is here again, and he’s glaring daggers at us. I drive a hard bargain, I know.” Austin finished mischievously.

For all his dark and brooding looks, Austin was actually kind of goofy, a trait that Nora found somewhat endearing. A quick glance around the bar showed that he was right. Sam was indeed sitting alone some distance away and was staring unashamedly at them, the jealousy coming off him in waves.

Where was this energy when she was madly in love with him? Now, he merely irritated her, and she mused at how fast she had gone from moping about and wondering what was wrong with her that Sam kept treating her the way he did, to seeing him as nothing but a mere irritant in about a day.

“Sure. Let’s go get dinner.” She told Austin, downing her drink in one go and taking his proferred arm. They left the bar together after Nora bade a surprised Sally goodbye. Austin took her to one of the fine dining restaurants in the city, a place where she had never been, and frankly, would have never been able to afford, at least not with her salary.

At the end of the night, she found herself following him to his house for the second night in a row, and this time around, she could not blame alcohol, because she was as sober as they came, but she was no longer embarrassed. That night, they had sex again, and it was just as good as the first time, if not even better, so they had it again and again. Before Nora knew it, she was sort of seeing him and spending literally every night in his house.

Everything was going fine, and as much as she had not thought it possible so soon after her breakup, Nora was beginning to like Austin more than a little. She was as good as living with him, because each day after work, he picked her up and took her back to his place, where they ate and made love or did other things that appealed to them, only to repeat the cycle the next day. Nora knew that she was playing with fire, doing all these things with a man as handsome as Austin, who did not look like he was in the least bit interested in pursuing something serious, but she was content to live in the moment.

Being responsible adults, they were being careful. A week after they first met, they went for tests to ensure that neither of them had any STDs. Their results showed that they were both clean, but all the same, they used condoms whenever they had sex, because they had not talked about being in a relationship or being committed to each other.

So it came as a very rude shock to Nora one day, three weeks after, when she went to see her doctor, complaining of flu-like symptoms, and after necessary tests, was told that she was very much pregnant.