Alex POV

It was the Monday after the whole embarrassing confession thing on my part. And after my decision to avoid Tyson like the plague.

The whole building was abuzz. Turns out another girl from our school got pregnant this year. At least this one was a senior, the first one being only a freshman. Apparently, the girl was dumb enough to share the news with her friends last Thursday. And of course by Monday everyone knew about it.

“Oh my God, Ally, did you hear?” Isabella squealed grabbing me by the arm. “One of the seniors got knocked up!”

I looked at her excited tanned face. I really thought Bella was a nice girl, but she was one of the biggest gossipers in our school. I mean, this blonde girl couldn’t keep a secret if her damn life depended on it!

“Yes, Bells, I heard.” I replied wearily. Her enthusiasm didn’t falter at the obvious lack of enthusiasm in my response.

“I’m so going to tell the rest of the gang.” And with that she left me.

“The chatty Bella cornered you too, huh?” Tara appeared to my left.

“Yep.” I nodded. “Let’s just get to homeroom!”

We greeted a few people on our way and chatted until we reached the room. Well, it was Tara who did most of the talking and I half-heartedly listened, letting out an “yeah” and an “aha” every now and then. My mind was still preoccupied by the events of the weekend.

We entered and I instinctively started searching for Tyson. I expected him to ditch today, but to my surprise, he was in his usual seat, gazing out the window. I briefly wondered why none of our classmates were staring at him; his black eye was hard to miss. But then I realized that they were probably used to seeing the boy in that state… And they had a much juicier gossip today.

The moment Tara and I had entered, we found our classmates in a state of animated gossiping about, you guessed it, the pregnant girl. Since she had yet to announce who the father was, some of the students were placing bets on it while others, a few boys actually, looked rather nervous. Could they be worried that the mystery man who impregnated the senior was one of them? Quite possibly; all the boys in question were players.

I was actually relieved when the teacher finally came in. At last! No more talk of unwanted teenage pregnancy and babies! But the topic didn’t change even with Mr. Johnson in the classroom.

“Given the recent events,” he started, “an emergency teachers-parents conference was held this Saturday morning. It was decided that you would be given these.” He pointed at about a dozen boxes stacked atop of his desk.

“What are they?” One of our classmates asked.

“I was just getting to that!” Johnson responded testily. “They are Real Care Babies. For those of you who do not know what that is,” he added when he saw the confusion on our faces, “I shall explain. Real Care Baby is a doll that makes it possible for people to practice caring for a baby. It’s a 24/7 job. The doll makes realistic cries and you’ll have to figure out what it needs: feeding, diaper changing, etc. Its software tracks if you are taking care of the baby and is it a safe handling. It records everything: exact times, missed care, specific mishandlings, head and neck support failure… It’s the closest you’ll get to the real thing. These babies will be given to all seniors as special project for a new Health class that you’re going to be taking.”

Here Tara raised her hand. Mr. Johnson nodded for her to speak.

“When will these extra Health classes be held?”

“Actually, we will be splitting Homeroom in two: you’ll have twenty minutes of Homeroom and twenty of Health class. Anyway, you’ll need to take good care of the babies because this whole thing will be graded.” He was interrupted by a collective groan. “But wait! There is more!” He said swinging his hands dramatically in the air. “Since these things are expensive, the school decided that it will be better if you guys work in pairs so we could order less dolls…” Again he was interrupted by our raised voices.

“You won’t be choosing your partners; you’ve already been paired on random.” He shouted over us all.

When we finally calmed down, he started to read the list of who will partner with whom. Tara ended up with jock star Mike Barbson while I…

“Alexandra Atanasova, your baby daddy will be Tyson Williams.”

*****

Tyson POV

“Alexandra Atanasova, your baby daddy will be Tyson Williams.”

My head snapped up at the mention of my name. No! No, no, no, no, no! They can’t pair me up with her. Anyone but her. Just yesterday I decided to keep away from her. Maybe I heard wrong. I turned to my right and saw the horrified look on Alex’s face. Nope. I didn’t hear wrong.

“You must be bloody joking…”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me…”

We both jumped from our seats, which wasn’t smart on my part as the sudden movement made the gunshot wound sting. Ignoring the pain, I joined in on Alex’s vigorous protest, but Mr. Johnson held up a hand to keep us quiet.

“I assure you both I’m completely serious. The list is final!” He added sternly when we begun to object again. “And no cursing in class or the two of you are getting detention! Well, the three of you now.”

He handed Alex the doll and returned to his desk. The brunette stared dumbly at his back, disbelief etched on her face. I was pretty sure I looked the same.

“Tyson…” Her voice was so small I barely heard it. “Wh-what are we going to do?”

Her eyes were wide open and so was her mouth. Her gaze kept darting between me and the doll in her hands. She looked completely appalled.

“We’re going to create a schedule and take care of the baby I guess…”

“But, Tyson, I don’t know how to take care of babies!” She protested in a panicked voice.

“Do I look like I do?” I shot back.

“Bojichko, zashto az?!”

“What?”

“It means: “God, why me?”,” the girl explained.

Wow. I guess the whole baby thing really freaked her out. I’d noticed she only spoke Bulgarian when she was angry, annoyed or upset. Or when she was cussing and didn’t want the teachers to find out.

“Po dyavolite!”

“What?” I asked again.

“Damn it!” She translated. She closed her eyes and took a deep calming breath. She opened her chocolate browns and stared straight at my mismatched eyes, trying but failing to seem relaxed. “Okay! It can’t be that bad, can it? I mean, you have some experience with Angel’s siblings… right?” She added hopefully, begging me with her eyes to confirm that theory. The look she had was so desperate, I actually felt guilty that I couldn’t.

“Nothing close to this,” I responded, crushing all her hopes.

She groaned at my answer.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to figure it out.”

“Not like we have much of a choice!” I muttered.

*****

“Why should I get Fridays?” Alex asked furiously.

We were sitting on the ground, under a tree in the back courtyard, not far from the spot I took her to have our fight on her first Monday here. We were supposed to be discussing our schedule. Instead of that, we had been arguing for the last fifteen minutes and the both of us were running out of patience.

“Because I might be… busy then.” I knew I had to take it easy for a while, but I’d eventually get back to the Ring. I didn’t want to tell Alex I might be working on a Friday night, because then she would ask me what I was working as. And the less people who knew about what I did, the better.

“Oh, and I don’t have social life?” She went on.

“Well, you’ll just have to shag whoever you’re screwing Friday night some other time! Maybe you could squeeze them in with your Saturday fuck-date.”

“Does that mean you’re watching it Saturday night?”

“No.”

“And why not?” She asked through an exhale, trying to keep calm.

“Might be busy.”

“Do you like pandas?” The girl queried out of the blue.

“Huh?” Was I could mutter, surprised by the random question.

“I asked if you liked pandas. Because if you keep replying with “might be busy”, I’ll turn you into one!”

I rolled my eyes at her threat to smack me and give me another black eye.

“Now back to the schedule,” she went on. “Friday or Saturday? Which do you choose?”

“Neither.”

“Tyson Williams, you’re not getting the whole damn weekend off!” She screamed at me just as “our baby” started crying again. “Oh, shut the fuck up or I’m going to leave you in front of some church!” She shouted at it.

“I pity your future kids if this is how you handle children,” I stated, taking the doll and rocking it gently.

“It’s just some damn doll. Besides, the moment I get pregnant, I’m getting an abortion. I don’t want any kids; not now, not ever!” She seemed completely serious about it.

“You seemed pretty comfortable with Angel’s siblings,” I mentioned, remembering the time we babysitted together.

“Well, they are pretty cool kids. And they are past the baby stage,” she added, glaring at the doll I was still swaying. A moment later, it stopped crying and fell asleep.

“You see that; you know how to take care of it.” She said. Then her face suddenly lit up as she thought of something. I really didn’t like the way she was looking and grinning at me now; I was sure I wasn’t going to enjoy whatever brilliant idea she had just come up with. “Hey, how about I pay you to look after it all the time? Kind of like being a single parent who gets child support.”

At first I gapped at her, shocked by what she had just proposed. How the fuck was I supposed to take care of the doll on my own, all the time?

“You better be joking!”

“Oh, come on, Ty!” She whined. “I don’t even know how to hold the damn thing let alone fucking take care of it.”

I sighed heavily and put the baby down.

“You pick it up like this...” I got the doll in my arms again, “and hold it like this. You can do it; I’ve seen you holding that cat that hangs around the school in this very position. It’s the same thing, only with a person instead of an animal.”

“You mean a doll instead of an animal.” She rolled her eyes at me. “I wish they’d given us kittens or puppies instead. Animals are cute and human babies are plain ugly.”

“Alex, let’s just get back to the schedule!” I pleaded tiredly.

“How about this: I get Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and you get Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. This week I get Sunday, next week you get that day and so on and so on until we’re done with this torturous project?”

“Seem fair,” I uttered cautiously, searching for the catch. There had to be one; Alex was not to be relied on about this, she really wanted nothing to do with that doll. And yet I couldn’t find any signs of deception. Maybe she had just given up and decided that in the end honesty was the best policy.

“Fine! Now give me the bloody thing,” the girl commanded, getting up and placing her rucksack on her back. “I gotta go!”

I handed her the baby. The moment she touched the doll, it started crying.

*****

A/N: Alex has her reasons to act that way around babies and you can read about them later on.