Zero expectations, p.1
Zero Expectations, page 1
Zero Expectations
Copyright 2022 Monica Clayton
Published by M.E. Clayton
All Rights Reserved
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. The entire content is a product of the author’s imagination, and all names, places, businesses, and incidences are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), places or occurrences, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner, whatsoever, without the express written consent from the author, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Formatting: Smashwords
Cover: Adobe Stock
Warning: This book contains sexual situations and other adult themes. Recommended for 18 years of age and over.
Table of Contents
Author's Note
Contact Me
Dedication
Prologue
1. Roman
2. Haven
3. Roman
4. Haven
5. Roman
6. Haven
7. Roman
8. Haven
9. Roman
10. Haven
11. Roman
12. Haven
13. Roman
14. Haven
15. Roman
16. Haven
17. Roman
18. Haven
19. Roman
20. Haven
21. Roman
22. Haven
23. Roman
24. Haven
25. Roman
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books
Author’s Note
Just a couple of things before I let you go and get your read on. While I am doing my best to work with better editing and proofreading software, all my books are solo, independent works. I write my books, proofread my books, edit my books, create the covers, etc. I have one beta who gives me feedback on my stories, but other than that, all my books are independent projects.
That being said, I apologize, in advance, for the typos, grammar inconsistencies, or any other mistakes I may make. Since writing is strictly a hobby for me, I haven’t looked into commitments in regard to publishers, editors, etc. My hope is that my stories are enjoyable enough that a few mistakes, here and there, can be overlooked. However, if you’re a stickler for grammar, my books are probably not for you.
Also, I am an avid reader-I mean an AVID reader. I love to read above any other hobby. However, the only downside to my reading obsession is when I fall in love with a series, but I have to wait for the additional books to come out. So, because I feel that disappointment down to my soul, when I started publishing my works, I vowed to publish all books in my series all at once. No waiting here…LOL. Now, the exception to that will be if enough readers request additional stories based off the standalone, such as in Facing the Enemy. At that point, if I decide to move forward with a requested series, I will make sure all additional books are available all at once. As much as this is a hobby for me, I am writing these books for all of you, as well as myself.
Thank you, for everything!
Contact Me
I really appreciate you reading my book and I would love to hear from you! Now, unfortunately, because I do have a full-time job and one part-time job, plus a family that I love spending time with, I’m not very active on social media. However, for the sites I do participate in, here are my social media coordinates:
Website
Newsletter
Dedication
For –
Anyone still trying to find ‘The One’.
Prologue
I stared at the two children that were sound asleep in their baby carriers, and all I could think about was how neither of them looked anything like me. Now, I wasn’t sure if it was all men or just me, but I had always envisioned that, one day, my kids would resemble me a bit. Well, more specifically, I had always imagined that my son would look like me and that my daughter would look like her mother, something that I hadn’t minded. I mean, why wouldn’t I want a replica of the woman that I loved running around my house? Granted, in that scenario, I was supposed to be madly in love with my wife, so that’s why it’d made sense at the time.
However, I wasn’t in love with these children’s mother.
In fact, I hated the woman.
I despised her.
I loathed her.
I abhorred her.
I reviled her.
I detested the fact that she breathed oxygen meant for decent people.
I couldn’t stand the woman so much that an unfortunate accident wouldn’t put a dent in my day. I’d never met a woman as manipulative, calculating, deceiving, and unscrupulous as these children’s mother. I’d never met an individual as narcissistic as Naomi Feldman, and the world would be better off without her; that’s how much I despised the woman.
Yet, the babies looked just like her with their blonde hair and blue eyes.
Studying their faces, it was too early to see if Naomi’s facial features would also be noticeable, but the kids definitely didn’t have my brown hair or light brown eyes. Yeah, their hair was a darker shade of blonde and could get darker as they grew up, but I was pretty sure that they were going to be classified as blondes after it was all said and done.
It was also quiet as a tomb in my house, and I was man enough to admit that it was because I was terrified to move a muscle. After what had felt like hours, their crying and screaming had finally stopped, and they were both sounds that I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing again, though I knew that was an impossibility. I was going to be hearing their crying and screaming for a while before they moved onto throwing tantrums and sassing back at me.
This wasn’t the way that I’d had planned on bringing children into the world, but in the heart of all this temporary silence, I’d made a decision, and I wasn’t one to change my mind once I’d made it up. It was all about commitment and consistency for me. It was all about structure, stability, and all that other stuff that too many children lived without.
When Naomi had dropped these children off on my doorstep, telling me that they were my problem now because I’d refused to do the right thing by her, at first, I’d been shellshocked as hell. Second, I’d been angrier than I’d ever been at another human being. Third, I had panicked when she had stormed off, proving that she’d been serious.
With only one diaper bag to get me through, Naomi had dumped the children and their stuff at my feet, then had walked off, not caring that she was leaving her children without a mother. I mean, who fucking did that? What kind of monster abandoned her children for whatever reason?
Finally moving from my spot, I glanced around the living room, and I knew that I was going to have to get moving on making room for these babies. Right now, they were young enough that I could stuff them both in one room, but that wasn’t going to last long. I was going to have to do a lot of rearranging, maybe even move into a bigger house. In fact, I knew that I was going to have to move into a bigger house. Children needed room to play and be themselves, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine what twins needed. I mean, were they going to be okay with being separated, or were they going to go live their lives stuck to each other like glue?
Not knowing the answers to any of these questions, I did the only thing that I could do. Luckily for me, my mother hadn’t dropped me off on someone’s doorstep before vanishing into the night.
“Hey, Mom,” I said after she answered my call.
“Hey, honey,” she greeted cheerfully.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“I need your help.”
Chapter 1
Roman~
Looking at me, no one would think that I was freaking out like an idiot. Looking at me, no one would think that I didn’t have my shit together. I mean, I was a thirty-six-year-old man with a thriving landscaping business, one that did way more than just mow people’s lawns. I had a degree and was technically considered a landscaping architect, not that fancy titles were my thing. Nevertheless, Scott’s Redesigning had been contracted many times over the years to create some of the loveliest residential and commercial landscapes in town. I wasn’t bragging, either. That was just a fact.
There was also the fact that my parents were as respectable as they came, and they’d raised me to be reasonable, rational, responsible, and all kinds of other r-related adjectives. My father, Jeff Scott, was a retired police officer, and he’d been the one to teach me how to assess before I reacted. Dad had to be one of the most level-headed people that I’d ever met, and he had the patience of a saint.
Now, my mother, Christine Scott, still worked as a school secretary, and since she worked at one of the two local high schools in town, she was another paragon of patience. I mean, you had to have patience to deal with a hoard of teenagers that knew everything, right? Ste rn, yet understanding, Mom was the perfect combination of sweet and sour.
Together, my parents had done their best to raise me and my brother to act like we had some sense. Growing up, my parents hadn’t been shy with the belt, but they also hadn’t been shy with their love. In all honesty, whenever things had gotten to the belts stage, Alec and I had deserved it.
As for my brother, Alec was two years younger than I was, and he was a high school basketball coach, teaching at the same place that Mom worked. Maybe that’s why Mom didn’t get too much static at work. Everyone knew that Christine Scott was Coach Scott’s mother, and Coach Scott was no joke when his temper came out. All you had to do was ask his students and athletes to know that.
The both of us had taken after Dad with our dark brown hair, light brown eyes, and height. I was six-foot-two and in shape because of what I did for a living, but also because of Dad’s good genes. Alec was six-foot-one and coaching kept him looking like he was still in his twenties, though he was thirty-four. He was also single with no kids, not looking to rush anything. Basketball and his players really were Alec’s life, and a parent couldn’t ask for a better coach or mentor than my little brother.
So, if you took a good look at my life, how could you assume anything other than perfection? I had a great family, good friends, lived in a nice, safe neighborhood, owned my own home and business, and I wasn’t bad to look at when I made the effort, which wasn’t often, admittedly. While I spent a lot of time at the office because I was my own secretary, I spent a lot of time out at the jobsites as well, so looking my best wasn’t always a priority. Contracting meetings were about as dolled-up as I got.
Nevertheless, here I was, sitting in the parking lot of Clementine Elementary, doing my best not to freak the fuck out because I’d just dropped off the twins for their first day of kindergarten. Things had been overwhelming, hectic, loud, and a tad scary-for me-but Zach and Zoey had been so damn excited to be going to school that I’d done my best to save my meltdown for later. As twins, they hadn’t had to suffer that anxiousness of walking into the classroom alone or wondering if they’d make any friends. My kids loved being together, so they were lucky in that regard.
Since the second that they’d been dropped off on my doorstep, I’d done them the disservice of overcompensating for them not having a mother, and every minute of my free time had been spent with my children. Sure, Mom had been a godsend that first year, but because she and Dad weren’t spring chickens anymore, it hadn’t been fair or reasonable for her to upend her life to help with my fuckup. Besides, she still had a job that she felt very dedicated to, and she’d already raised her children.
Now, Dad had been a bit of a different chapter, though still the same book. Though he was retired and was readily available in a way that my mother wasn’t, he was still retired, and he had also raised his children. While they had both helped way more than I had probably deserved, Zach and Zoey were my children. They were my responsibility.
Even Alec had helped a lot while I’d been trying to get my bearings that first year, but I’d been the one to make the decision to do this on my own. I’d also been the one to make sure that my children couldn’t legally be taken away from me. I’d made the decision to keep them with me, raise them the best that I could, and forget all about their fucked-up mother. So, that first year had been filled with a lot of paperwork and lawyer appointments. When two years had gone by with still no word from Naomi, I had moved forward to strip her of all her parental rights, and there was no way in hell that she could ever show up and try to take my kids from me at this point.
So, with no mother in the picture, I’d done my best to show them so much love that they wouldn’t miss her. I went out of my way to never forget anything and to always show up on time for whatever it was that we had going on. Naomi had abandoned them, and I’d be damned if they’d ever feel that way from me. Now, was it hell on my sex life? Yeah. Depressingly so. Still, I wouldn’t trade any day with my children for some meaningless sex. Besides, meaningless sex was what got me here in the first place.
Now, the problem with dedicating your entire life to your children was that you ended up an emotional mess in their school parking lot while they were inside their classroom, not giving a fuck that you were becoming a Hallmark movie.
When my phone rang, I grabbed it out of the console, and I laughed when I saw the name flashing across the screen.
“Yeah?” I answered.
“How you doing, Momma?”
“You’re a dick,” I chuckled.
Lucius Traxler was a fellow blue-collar worker. He was a brilliant electrician and also owned his own business, LT Electric. We’d met about ten years ago during a mutual job, and we had ended up hitting it off like two pre-teens at summer camp. Lucius was thirty-six, six-foot-one, had dark brown hair, hazel eyes, was built like a workhorse, and was smart as a fucking whip. It was safe to say that Lucius was the closest thing that I had to a best friend, apart from my brother.
As for Lucius’ sister, Phoebe, she had also saved my life after the twins had turned my world upside down. Phoebe had been a stay-at-home mom at the time-something that she had loved being-and she’d been more than happy to babysit the twins while I worked. Her children had already been in school, so the twins had filled her days…or so, she had claimed. She could have just felt sorry for me, but I’d been too frazzled to care about my pride at that time in my life.
“If it’s any consolation, Phoebe’s also trying to act like she’s not missing them,” he replied, the grin easily heard in his voice.
“I’ve just never left them with anyone that wasn’t family,” I whined like every first-time mother out there. “And now they’re off…coloring, learning to count, drawing, and all kinds of wild shit without me.”
“If coloring, learning to count, and drawing is what you consider wild these days, you really need to go out and get laid, Roman,” he chuckled. “Seriously.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “How am I supposed to just step back and let them go about living their lives without me?” I asked unreasonably, knowing that I sounded incredibly unhinged. “What kind of monster just lets their kids…go…go do things?”
Lucius started laughing in my ear. “Jesus, Roman, you’re losing it, dude.” He was right. “They’re at kindergarten. They’re not joining the military. They’re not knocking off a casino. They’re not cooking meth in some mobile home in the woods. They’re learning their numbers, colors, or whatever, making new friends, and doing whatever five-year-olds do. You need to get a grip.”
He wasn’t wrong. Though I knew very well where this was all stemming from, it didn’t help. Naomi had given me some serious abandonment issues when she had discarded the kids as if they’d been nothing, and my greatest fear was Zach and Zoey ever thinking that I didn’t want them. My greatest fear was them ever thinking that they were a burden or unloved. One day, someone was going to ask them where their mother was, and they were going to be old enough to understand just what that question meant. I wanted to make sure that my children didn’t care where their mother was. I wanted to be enough for them. I wanted to be everything for them.
“I know, I know,” I rushed out. “I just…I didn’t know that it would feel this…that’d it’d be this hard.”
“Look, it could be worse-”
“How in the hell could it be worse?” I croaked. “I feel like I’m having a goddamn heart attack.”
“They’re not alone, Roman,” he reminded me. “Zach protects Zoey just as much as you do, man. Your babies are safe, Roman. They’re safe. For fuck’s sakes, Zach even knows how to braid Zoey’s hair if her hair comes undone, and he’s only five. They’ve got each other, Roman. They’ll be fine.”
