Chapter 4. Friendly Worries

A week later

Valerie Hawkins stared at the back of the driver’s seat with her gaze latched onto the happenings of the past few days. Right after she was discharged from the hospital with a diagnosis of an early pregnancy, Val became perturbed as to what to do. The thought of aborting it crossed her mind, and once with a pill in hand, Val found herself unable to make such a huge decision all alone.

She’d never been faced with a greater difficulty all her life and she had no idea. On one hand she didn’t want to commit herself to anything of the sort and on the other, she felt the need to hold on to this as a memory of the only true thing she never came to regret in her life. However, something told her she wasn’t capable of being a single mother.

Val had no one to confide in except that one person. But she had no way of finding him. Everything was on the brink of crumbling until suddenly her phone rang. Cautious as to whom it was, Val took a while to pick up the call. However, what ensued wasn’t in any way what she had ever expected.

“Hello, Stranger.” She couldn’t believe that he was the one speaking, Val could make any other mistake but that didn’t include mistaking his voice for any other person’s. It was her stranger!

Apparently, his name was Bob Richardson and he had called to meet with Val for some extremely important business, based on his words. Val was obviously skeptical at first and thus, she chose a public place to meet when he asked. His identity was still unknown to her and she was done trusting people blindly.

Ever since that call, Val came to the conclusion that even she had a very important reason to meet him.

She looked down on her belly with a small smile on her face following that thought and placed her hands gently over it. Deeply in thought.

The Italian heritaged driver hummed and whistled along the tune of the music being played in the car with a shake of his head at every single part of the song. To him, the world had never been any better. He could see the dejected expression on the face of the woman sitting behind in his car through the rearview mirror but he decided to stay clear off her business. It wasn’t the first time he’d get yelled at for intruding in people’s thoughts and he’s learned his lesson. Suddenly, he felt something vibrate in his left pocket and he quickly reached to pick it up after seeing who it was.

“Hello, Mio amat—”

“Vaffanculo, Mateo! I warned you not to sborra dentro that last time we had it, no? Now look what you have fucking done!!” Mateo was cut off his teasing chuckle by the yelling feminine voice of the person on the other end of the call.

“Ayy, Mio amatio, what are you tal-king about?”

Valerie was brought out of her thought overhearing the little ‘commotion’ upfront. She couldn’t help but listen in on the conversation between the Italian driver and the one who seemed to be his lover from the way he addressed her.

“You bastarde, Sei uno stronzo!”

Even with the mobile being handheld by Mateo, Val could hear the crazy insults of English-Italian vocab pouring out from the woman on the other side of the line. The conversation was full of nothing but insults from his lover and Val couldn’t help but wonder just what he’d done to make her this furious and hurt. She knew Italian women were irritant and cursed a lot but, hell, this woman was so deep in there.

Worse was that, Mateo didn’t even seem to know what he’d done wrong as he just kept inquiring despite all the insults taken. The thick Italian accent was quite disturbing, but it was a common thing in San Francisco.

“What, preggnant?? Col cavolo!”

Val’s heart dropped hearing the word ‘pregnant’ out of nowhere and she unconsciously jerked into conscience. It was as though Mateo was addressing her in the instance. She was about to open her mouth to utter insults and inquire how he’d known she was pregnant only to stop to gain back control of herself when she heard him speak to the person on the other side of the call again.

“Mio amatio, I’ll call you backe, I’m at worrk right’ now. Ciao now, kisses,” he said and ended the call without a care as to what his supposed other significant had to say.

Silence reigned in the car again and as Valerie tried to calm her agitated heart and wondered what Mateo’s next action would be, as she kept wondering if he’d consider the chance of him being a father and as she continued to observe, she couldn’t have experienced any worse surprise.

She could only stare in disbelief when Mateo slowed down the car to simply pull out a cigar from his chest pocket while he reached to resume playing the music from earlier.

“Do you mind?” He raised the cigar as if to actually ask if Val really minded.

“No,” Val replied with a slight shake of her head. She couldn’t believe this was all Mateo could give as a reaction to his lover’s pregnant status. She wouldn’t be surprised if he deleted her number and literally walked out of their life just like that. Not as though he had ever been in it from the start. Who knows just how many women he’d done this to anyway.

“Grazie,” Mateo expressed, lit up the cigar and hit on the throttle after a few stroke of the cigar to his lungs.

Val couldn’t help but be scared for herself. She had planned to tell Bob about her state, however, what assurance does she have that he wouldn’t react the same way as Mateo? She knew there were men like Mateo and there were other men, but, who would believe she was pregnant from a one night stand and take her word for it?

As much as it counted she had been nothing else but a depressed horny whore that night and it was totally a one-off thing, no attachments involved.

‘I need to reassess before I make any decisions,’ Val resolved. But deep down in her heart, she could already see two choices and none included her stranger in them. And time wasn’t by her side either. She stroked her belly once again.

“We’ve arrived at yourr destination,” Mateo announced minutes later and Val couldn’t help but translate it into “Get out of my carr, cagna!” Her image of Mateo had sure gone beyond that point.

Nonetheless, after making the fare, Val stepped out of the car and couldn’t help but look up to catch the exotic view of a steakhouse restaurant, the rooftop of which was the place she had chosen to meet with Bob. Her thrumming heart and her worried mind were completely without synch.

She wasn’t gonna say she wasn’t anxious to meet Bob again, but the thing that troubled her deep down in her mind turned the anxiousness into some sort of worry.

Nonetheless, Val proceeded into the steakhouse after a deep inhale and exhale.