The Baby Shift- Wyoming

  The Baby Shift: Wyoming

  Shifter Babies Of America 43

  Becca Fanning

  Copyright © 2019 by Becca Fanning

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Also by Becca Fanning

  Chapter 1

  “Black tea and honey, matcha vanilla, blueberry and corn,” Andy Halifax muttered to himself as he scribbled the names of potential ice cream flavors on a notepad. When he opened Casper Creamery three years ago, one of his selling points was that he changed the signature flavors every three weeks. It had seemed such a great idea at the time—keep the people guessing, keep them coming back to try each and every new flavor. But after three years, Andy was beginning to run out of ideas. There were only so many ways to use bright green matcha powder; only so many times he could riff on the latest cookie from Milk Bar. His creativity was waning.

  Andy had always wanted to own a food business. It had been his dream since he was a kid, and it was a dream that had grown only stronger when he met Addie, and they bonded over their shared love of cooking. But after they broke up, he’d turned away from the savory stuff. Sure, he’d worked on the Gem State Eats food truck, slinging red flannel hash and ribs galore, but he’d had no real passion for the food. It was when the truck started incorporating sweets—thanks to a romance between its owner Josh and local pastry chef Sadie Brown—that he started to feel excited about food again.

  Sadie, who had worked at an ice cream shop as a teenager, had taught him all about the craft, and Andy had quickly realized he had a knack for churning out unusual flavors, and thus, a dream was born. It had taken three years and more double and triple shifts than he could count, but now he could enjoy the fruits of his labor, the fulfillment of his dream. Or he was supposed to be able to, anyway.

  But in reality, Andy wasn’t happy. Wasn’t content. He’d assumed that being the owner of his own small food business would bring him the fulfillment he’d been searching for in life. And it should have. After all, he had a great team of workers who had stuck with him from the get-go. He was consistently rated one of the best ice cream shops not just in Casper, Montana, but the whole of the United States. Food Network had done a feature on the shop; countless newspapers and food bloggers had interviewed him.

  Yet despite all those accolades, what Andy felt most keenly was not pride in his work, not happiness that he had achieved his dream. No, what he felt most was loneliness.

  He’d tried dating both in Boise and in Casper with little success. No relationship ever went beyond the third date or a few fumbled hook-ups. He hadn’t had a serious girlfriend since Addie Maxine…not that he was going to dwell on those memories. Addie might have inspired his future career in food, but for the most part, thinking about her was far too painful. Far too real, even ten years later.

  Just focus on the flavors, Andy reminded himself as he stared at the notepad in front of him. Ice cream was chemistry, which was what he loved about it. Put in enough milk, cream, and flavorings and you were guaranteed to get something delicious. If only life were that simple…

  Picking up his pen, Andy was about to start writing out another potential flavor combo when the door to his office opened, and one of his employees, Cassidy O’Neill, popped her head in.

  “Andy? There’s a woman out here who wants to see you,” she told him.

  “Who is it?” Andy asked perplexed. It was seven a.m. They didn’t open for another two hours, which was clearly stated both on the hours painted onto the store’s windows and on the “Closed” sign hanging above the entrance.

  “She didn’t give me her name, but she said she knew you.”

  Putting down his pen and pushing off his standing desk, Andy walked toward the door. “All right, thanks for telling me. I’ll take care of it. How’s the Tahitian vanilla coming?” he asked as he walked through the doorway and shut the door behind him.

  “Good! Followed the recipe to the T and now it’s churning. Should be done in a few hours,” Cassidy told him brightly as they made their way down the hall and toward the front of the shop.

  “Great. I knew you could do it, Cass,” Andy told her, smiling.

  “Yeah, well, I learned from the master,” she quipped as she turned off toward the kitchen.

  The shop itself was huge. The main customer area took up only a quarter of it. The rest of the space went to the office, staff room, and, most importantly, the kitchen, where industrial-sized ice cream makers lined one wall, flavorings two more, and large waffle irons, designated for waffle cones, the last wall.

  Andy had bought the shop for a steal from its previous owner. It had been an old saloon-style bar, and Andy had kept most of the original décor. He hated ice cream shops that were neon or white inside, which, combined with the chill from the freezers, made everyone feel so cold they wanted to get their treats and run. He wanted his ice cream shop to be a place where people could hang out. They served not only ice cream but also milkshakes, affogatos, coffee, and smoothies. Andy had a reciprocal deal with a local bakery to swap his ice cream for their cookies, and the small oven by the counter meant that customers could get a warm chocolate chip cookie with their chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream any time they wanted.

  This atmosphere of comfort was partly what made the shop so successful, but it also meant that occasionally, they had customers who just didn’t want to leave. Students from Casper College and the local high schools came in to study and stayed for hours, slowly sipping espressos or frappucinos and trading gossip. Most business owners would hate that, but Andy didn’t mind. Better they hung out at an ice cream shop than a bar or behind the football fields getting into trouble or drinking their tuitions away.

  The kids tended to occupy the couches by the windows, where there were low, oak tables for them to spread their books out and pillows aplenty they could relax on. The couches also got the best light, with the sun’s rays falling squarely on the cushions from 11am-5pm most summer days. The sun had only just risen when Andy walked into work that morning, so he was surprised to find that as he walked into the customer area, there was a ray of sunshine glowing on the woman waiting for him. Who, as he walked closer, revealed herself to be none other than Ada “Addie” Maxine. The woman who had broken his heart over a decade ago.

  Chapter 2

  “Mom! I thought you said I wasn’t allowed to have ice cream for breakfast?” Nicholas Maxine said to his mother as she walked briskly down the street beside him.

  Addie looked down at her son and frowned. “Well, normally, yes, but today is an exception. Besides, it’s so hot out. Good day for ice cream, right?” she said, wiping sweat from her brow. Her hand came away covered in tinted moisturizer, and she grimaced. She’d spent so long getting ready this morning, applying her makeup with extra care, actually running a brush through her hair instead of putting it in her usual top knot. She’d chosen an outfit that did not include any form of yoga gear, and she’d even sprayed a bit of perfume on before they left the house.

  She had, in short, gone whole hog for this meeting. But after not seeing Andy for over ten years, she figured she needed to make a good impression. Maybe her matching outfit and the slick pink gloss on her lips would quell the anger he would no doubt feel at her as soon as she revealed that the ten-year-old boy skipping merrily down the street bes
ide her was his son.

  Addie hadn’t meant to keep Nicky from Andy for so long. But after the horror of their breakup—all of which was her fault—she’d known that even back then, when she’d escaped to a yoga teacher training in Costa Rica; pregnancy had been the last thing on her mind. After all, she’d had no nausea, no breast tenderness, none of the signs that usually told a woman she was with child.

  She’d been happily doing headstands and backbends and all sorts of poses unsuitable for pregnant women until one day, during a moon cycle yoga class when the teacher mentioned menstruation. And Addie realized she hadn’t had her period in four months. This was not uncommon given the amount of exercise she was doing and the fact that she’d always had a somewhat erratic cycle, but something told her this was different. And one hastily purchased pregnancy test from the farmacía later, she had her answer: she was up the duff.

  It was Andy’s. She hadn’t slept with anyone else since their breakup; she hadn’t wanted to even think about men and romance after what had happened.

  They’d been making their usual Sunday night meal, Sunday sauce with homemade pasta and meatballs, when it had happened. Addie had been swamped at work the week before, working double shifts at the gym to cover for a few people who’d called out sick, all the while still attending her non-profit administration classes during the day. Stress made her shift; she knew that about herself. It was why she spent so much time and energy at the gym, attending yoga classes in between shifts to make sure she kept herself calm enough that the wolf in her didn’t rear its ugly head.

  But after one too many sleepless nights and a pop quiz in her ethics class, there was nothing she could do when Andy surprised her from behind with an embrace. Her fight or flight response went into overdrive, and in five seconds flat, she went from a tired twenty-five-year-old to whacked-out werewolf. The claws came out, literally, and he watched in horror as she tore apart Andy’s kitchen.

  Cabinet doors were ripped off their hinges, the counter was swiped clean of every appliance and utensil that had been laying on it, and then Addie turned to Andy. Her claws had been in the air, ready to strike, when for a moment, her rage cleared, and the human in her recognized the fear in his eyes. He was terrified of her, of the monster she had become. That was when Addie knew she couldn’t keep fooling herself. She couldn’t keep pretending to be a normal woman living a normal life when she had this otherness inside her.

  Andy hadn’t taken the break-up well, begging her to reconsider.

  “Ads, it was one time. One time in two years. I don’t care. You know I love you, every part of you, even the parts you don’t like.”

  “Even the wolf that nearly killed you just now?” she had bitten back, eyes tearing making her vision blurry.

  “Especially that,” he said, but Addie didn’t believe him. Couldn’t believe him, not after the way he’d looked at her, like she was something foul and fearsome. She couldn’t stay with him after seeing that look in his eyes, knowing she had caused it.

  After that, anything that reminded her of him had to go. The pot they always used to make the Sunday sauce recipe her grandmother had handed down to her; the cake pan she used to bake her mom’s famous coconut cake for their birthdays, his big, boxy Boise State t-shirts she always slept in—it all got bagged up and donated to the nearest Goodwill, never to be seen again. She vowed never to eat any of the meals they’d cooked together again, which ruled out most of her comfort food favorites, but it was worth it if it meant she didn’t sob at every mealtime.

  But though Addie had rid her life of anything Andy-related, she hadn’t factored in the vestige of himself that he had left inside her, the little bit of him that had combined with the little bit of her to make a baby neither of them had expected. But when she saw the plus sign on the pregnancy test, she knew instantly that she was keeping it. Call her a masochist, but she wanted—no, needed—some part of him with her always. She knew she wasn’t good for him, but maybe, she could be good enough for his baby.

  She had meant to tell him about the baby, eventually, after things had settled down between them, and when thinking about him no longer caused a vise-like pain to squeeze around her heart. She didn’t want him involved, didn’t think she could survive seeing him as often as he would no doubt want to visit their child, but she knew that wasn’t her call to make.

  She didn’t tell him. Not after she got back from teacher training, not during the rest of the pregnancy, and not after Nicky was born, either. And then, proceeding ten years had been so busy that any other normal person would have been able to forget about the ex that had inadvertently broken their heart. But not Addie. Nope, she still thought about Andy every goddamn day. How could she not, when Nicky was practically the spitting image of him? And when she’d never really stopped loving him, pathetic as that was?

  It got worse when Nicky started getting curious. Addie had been mostly honest from the start about who Nicky’s father was, calling him “Andrew” and telling Nicky about how they met, fell in love. She left out the details of the breakup, going with the old adage that they “just grew apart” rather than telling her son she’d majorly fucked up, ran when she should have stayed, and had spent the last ten years seriously regretting her decision.

  For a while, Nicky had been content with these details, but as he’d gotten older and seen his friends bonding with their dads, he’d started getting antsy. “Mom, can we meet Andrew someday?” “Mom, do you know where Andrew lives now?” And finally: “Mom, can I meet my dad for my tenth birthday? It’s the only present I really want.”

  Which was why Addie had taken the day off, pulled Nicky out of school, and was marching down the street towards Andy’s ice cream shop to finally fess up. She didn’t care if he hated her for all eternity. She wasn’t doing this for herself. She was doing this for Nicky. She couldn’t resist his inquiries any longer; it was killing her.

  But as they approached Casper Creamery, Nicky still happily skipping along the sidewalk, Addie began to wonder if maybe this had actually been a terrible idea. She hadn’t given herself the time to stop and consider Andy’s reaction to all this. She’d been so concerned with preparing Nicky and herself that she’d barely given a thought to the third person in the equation.

  What if Andy threw them out of the shop? Or worse, what if he didn’t? What if he forgave her, wanted to be a part of Nicky’s life, and Addie was therefore forced to spend time in the proximity of the man she never should have left behind? What if he slowly infiltrated the barriers she had put up so long ago? She wanted him, God, how she wanted him, even after a decade of distance, but Addie knew that if she and Andy were to pick up where they left off, it would only end in the same heartbreak and tragedy that their relationship had before. Many other parts of her might have changed, but her inability to let people in, let people understand and love her, sure as hell hadn’t.

  “Mom! We’re here! And we’re the only ones! Do you think that means they’ll give us an extra scoop?” Nicky asked, jumping up and down excitedly as he pointed inside the large shop on the corner of E 13th Street and S Wolcott. Addie shook her head, dislodging the negative thoughts from her mind and looking at the door in front of her. It looked exactly like the one on the shop’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter pages, which she had spent a good five hours stalking last night.

  “Um, maybe!” Addie said distractedly as she approached the door, feeling a trickle of sweat run from her neck down her spine.

  “Inhale, two three four, exhale, two three four,” she recited in her mind, using the breath pattern her first yoga teacher had taught her way back in high school when she’d taken classes at the local YMCA. It had seldom failed to calm her down, but even tried-and-true-methods would be of no help to her today. This was way too big a mind-fuck for anything to help her de-stress. She had no choice but to put one foot in front of the other and hope the torture went by quickly.

  Nicky, who was still bouncing on his toes excitedly, opened the door for
them both and ran excitedly into the large space it opened into. The shop was outfitted like an old saloon, with dark wood paneling, light fixtures made of what looked like deer antlers, and comfy red couches in the corner next to large wooden tables circled with plush chairs. It wasn’t at all what Addie would have expected in an ice cream shop, but then, Andy wasn’t exactly a normal guy, so why should his shop be any different?

  That was what had first drawn Addie to him, his complete disregard for what was expected, what was usual. When she met him at a popular student hangout and coffee shop on the Boise State University campus, he’d been wearing a cowboy tuxedo, desert boots, thin-framed glasses, and the worst mustache she’d ever seen. He didn’t remotely fit in with the jocks in t-shirts and baggy jeans surrounding him, and Addie had loved that. It was what had made her strike up a conversation with him, which had led to coffee, drinks, dinner, and the most outstanding sex she’d ever had all in one night.

  As Addie followed Nicky to a couch in the corner of the shop by a large bay window, she pushed thoughts of sex with Andy out of her mind and focused on the magnificent space around her. Framed behind the counter were countless awards the shop had won in the three years since it opened, and not one of the accolades surprised Addie, and not just because she’d already read about them all while digging up dirt on Andy online.

  Andy had been a star chemistry grad student when she met him, and he’d obviously used that knowledge to turn his food business into an award-winning endeavor. He’d always been destined for greatness. Addie had known it the moment he first kissed her, so confident and cool, but also somehow sensitive and caring. He wasn’t like other boys, and it behooved him. Seeing the evidence of his success, Addie settled into her chair with a bit more ease. She was glad he’d accomplished so much in the years since their break-up. He’d been so devastated that night when he’d left, she’d worried she’d ruined him forever. Clearly, that was not the case.