by London James
I debate whether I should text Ash right away. I want to, badly, but does he deserve it yet?
The weak part of me is screaming yes, text him! But the more cautious half of me that has grown in these past months holds me back and makes me run through the potential reasons why he’s done what he’s done. He might have reached out to them ages ago before all of our shit hit the fan. But that still would have been a really nice gesture if he didn’t feel the need to impress me.
The chill and dampness in the air isn’t helping me leave the house any faster. It’s almost Thanksgiving, so I shouldn’t be surprised that things are getting wintery. At least I have a cute new coat that will grow with my bump and comfortable boots.
I bundle up and walk to the train, trying to process what our talk with Modern New York Bride will even be like. I’ve imagined seeing BloomBrightly in the magazine since before Zara and I even came up with the name, and now it’s happening.
B are you still in the neighborhood or did you leave for work??? It’s Zara again.
I’m slow walking toward the train, just because I don’t want to go to work.
Okay good, meet me at that coffee shop near the station, the one with the good scones. My treat.
Those scones are amazing. She doesn’t have to lure me there with free food, though I’m always down for it. I make my way down the block and make a right onto the main street of my neighborhood, seeing Zara in her bright red coat from a block down outside of the shop. She waves frantically at me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, looking her all over.
“You need to sit down for this one. Come on, let’s get some food.” She opens the cafe’s door for me.
“You’re making me nervous,” I say as we get our food and coffee. I miss being able to down four cups in a day. My one latte has to do it for me now.
“Don’t be nervous.” She pulls her laptop out of her bag and opens it. “I got this email last night.”
I look at what she’s talking about, my stomach fluttering. It’s an email from an angel investor group in the city that I haven’t even heard of. I’m vaguely familiar with who’s who in the scene since we’ve been trying to get some funding for a while. We can’t go for the big VC funds since we’re so small, so we changed directions, trying to get some individuals to help us out. We’ve gotten one or two who gave us five or seven thousand dollars, which is nice, but not enough to put us over the edge.
This group wants to offer us $500,000 to invest in BloomBrightly.
“Wait, wait, wait.” I sit back in my chair, my hand going to my bump like I’ve gotten in the habit of doing. “Why are these people offering us that much money when they haven’t seen our executive summaries or made valuations or any of that?”
“Because Ash must have showed them. I’d sent him copies of our pitches and executive summaries from when we were interviewing for that little startup incubator months and months ago.” She highlights the name of the group—FiveAlive Angel Funds—and Googles it.
Sure enough, Ash is a part of the group, along with a woman named Talia, who he’s mentioned is his company’s CFO, and three others.
“He’s just doing it to be nice…” I say weakly, swallowing a bite of scone. “He’s a billionaire, and he can throw his money around all he wants.”
Even though he isn’t that kind of person. Even though he’s a smart businessman, who doesn’t do things lightly.
“It’s not like Ash strong-armed them into giving up $500,000. They had to be behind the idea.” Zara sits back again and takes a long sip of her coffee. “I need to crunch some numbers, but this is going to be insanely helpful. Like, game-changing levels of helpful.”
I tear up and stuff the last of my scone into my mouth to keep it together.
“I think you should call Ash,” Zara says, smiling. “He may or may not have redeemed himself, at least enough for him to not be blacklisted.”
“I should.” I whip out my phone and call him right away.
“Briony?” he says, picking up on the first ring. He sounds hopeful. To hear his voice again after so long makes me smile involuntarily. I try to cut it out. I can’t totally forgive him yet.
“Can we talk?” I ask.
“In person?”
“Uh, sure.”
“Where? I’m free right now if you are. Are you going to work today?” he asks. I hear Sarge bark in the background, so he must be at home or dropping him off at doggy daycare.
“I’m at a coffee shop in my neighborhood. Um… I guess I can stay here? I’m not in a huge rush to get to work since my morning is clear.” I look at the table and away from Zara, who is currently staring a hole right into my head. I give Ash the name of the place, and he hangs up. “Ash is meeting me here.”
“Should I leave? Or should I sit in the back and pretend that I don’t know either of you so I can attack him if necessary?” Zara shuts her laptop.
“What, are you going to launch yourself at him like a spider monkey?” I laugh. Zara is 110 pounds soaking wet.
“What I lack in size, I make up for in rage, especially when it comes to you and my godchild.” She stands up and puts her computer in her bag. “But seriously, want me to stay?”
“I think I’ll be fine.” I hope.
“Okay. Text me if you need me.”
She gives me a long hug and exits, leaving me twiddling my thumbs and building up a nervous sweat. I should have asked her to stay and talk me through my strategy.
Ash has done some big things for me, but I don’t know if that’s enough. He’s burned me more than once. But I don’t feel right rejecting him flat-out if he’s still willing to devote his time to the things that matter most to me.
It’s just a chat. I don’t have to marry the guy.
I pass time scrolling through Instagram, jiggling my leg so much that the woman a table over gives me a dirty look. I get up and buy another scone, this time a lemon one, and a tea. The curse of pregnancy is having cravings for everything, but also not being able to eat those things without acid reflux or weird digestive problems. But food is still soothing.
I see Ash before he sees me. He’s dressed for work, his same button-down and jeans under a raincoat. His hair is wet, either from the rain or from a shower. I haven’t seen him in so long that I forgot how good-looking he is. Half the people in the shop turn and look at him when he walks past. He’s started to grow a beard, which suits him more than I thought it would. I want to run my hand along it.
“Ash?” I say quietly from my spot, waving.
“Briony.” He looks relieved like he didn’t expect me to be there. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I feel my cheeks flush while he studies my face, then my bump. The naked anxiety on his face makes me feel slightly less scared. I have the power in this situation. He is the one who has to make it up to me.
“You look nice,” he says, clearing his throat. “Can I sit down?”
I nod, and he sits across from me. We don’t say anything for a bit, both of us keeping our hands folded on our laps.
“I don’t know where to start,” I say. “I guess I should start with a thank you for your help with BloomBrightly.”
“It wasn’t a problem,” he says, tugging off his coat. “Seriously.”
“Getting $500,000 wasn’t a problem?” I give him a skeptical look.
“It really wasn’t; once I showed people the information you and Zara had put together.” He shrugs. “I was serious when I said that it was a good idea. It didn’t take a lot of convincing for my colleagues to want to invest. The wedding industry is only growing, and people want to have more control over their planning.”
I swallow, feeling so proud of what Zara and I have done that I’m about to burst.
“And I think that it would be good to get the company on the path to getting off the ground before the baby comes,” he continues, looking down at my bump. Its presence seems to confuse him like he didn’t expect to see me actually looking pregnant.
> “It’ll help us a lot, thank you.”
“Can I apologize, even though saying it isn’t enough to make it up to you?” he says quietly, his brows furrowing. “I’m sorry. I fucked up spectacularly by letting my own bullshit guide my decisions. I should have followed how I felt instead of how I assumed I’d feel in the future.”
I look down at my cup of tea. He’s hitting the nail on the head. He must have done a lot of introspection for him to go from Mr. ‘Feelings are Scary, Let Me Shove Them Down’ to… this.
“I really, really like you, Briony, and I want to be involved in our child’s life,” he says. Hearing him say ‘our’ child is so weird but so right. “I understand if you don’t want to give me another chance, even though it would devastate me.”
I bite my bottom lip. He sounds sincere, and the mask he usually wears to hide how he feels deep inside isn’t there. Are his eyes tearing up? Or is that wishful thinking on my part?
“How do I know you won’t get scared again? The reasons you gave me were the result of some deep-seated shit.” I sip my tea, trying to sound less annoyed than I am. He at least deserves for me to listen to him openly.
“I’m working on that. I got a therapist and everything,” he explains, sheepish. “Turns out just getting a dog and hoping he’ll magically cure your neuroses isn’t a good plan.”
“Yeah, Sarge is probably not a good therapist, considering the whole dog thing.”
“Please, Briony,” he almost begs. “I can’t promise you that I’ll be perfect, or that I’ll be a great dad or anything like that, but I can love you and try my best. And I can sure as hell be a better dad than mine ever was. It’s better to try and fail than to just give up, right?”
I reach across the table and grab his hand. It’s rough, like I remember it being. He squeezes it, its size swallowing mine.
“I’m willing to give us a shot,” I finally say.
“Really?” He smiles so beautifully that I can hardly handle it.
I nod, his smile triggering mine. “Yes, really.”
He leans over the table and kisses me, soft and slow. He tastes like the toothpaste he keeps in his guest bathroom.
“I hope you don’t mind that I did that,” he says. God, he’s cute when he’s shy.
“I definitely didn’t mind.” I kiss him again, long enough for the same woman who gave me a dirty look for jiggling my leg to clear her throat purposefully. I shoot her a dirty look this time. Can she go to hell? “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Can I get coffee first? I think I’m going to crash after this adrenaline rush,” he admits.
“Yeah, if you get me another scone.” I stand up, pulling on my coat.
“Deal.” We stand next to each other in line, the backs of our hands brushing together. I’m probably grinning like an idiot, but I can’t care less.
Once he has his coffee and I have my scone, we step outside. The rain has stopped, leaving the air weirdly humid and chilly at the same time.
“Shoot, I’m so late for work,” I realize, sighing.
“You should quit,” he offers. I give him an incredulous look. “Seriously. You hate it, and BloomBrightly is going to take up more of your time. And the baby and everything.”
“What about health insurance?” I ask, which is the only reason why I don’t just whip my phone out and put in my notice immediately.
“We can figure it out.” He takes my hand. “Let’s play hooky again.”
“You can’t play hooky again, Ash,” I say.
“Thanksgiving is next week. Half of my office is already out anyway.” He tucks my hair behind my ear. “Come on.”
“You’re such a bad influence,” I chuckle, pulling my phone out regardless. I shoot off a quick email to my boss saying I have to take a personal day and close my email app. “Now what?”
“The weather’s kind of disgusting. Want to just hang out at my place?” he asks. “We can watch all those shows we were in the middle of.”
“You didn’t watch them without me?” I’m touched.
“Nope. Did you?”
“I didn’t.” I go up on my tiptoes and kiss him again. It’s a relief knowing we can just be and not worry about whether things are going to collapse right away.
“Thank god. I thought I was a miserable fuck for saving the shows for us to watch together.” He hails a green cab that’s passing by.
“Maybe you’re just more of a romantic than you’re willing to let on.” I slip into the cab.
Ash holds my hand the whole way to his place, sometimes looking over at me with such warm affection that it lights me up.
Being back at his house after a break is strange, like coming home from being on vacation for a while. It still looks and smells the same, but Sarge hasn’t come running up to greet us.
“He’s at doggy daycare,” Ash explains. “Shit, we have to figure out daycare and nannies and all that, don’t we?”
“Eventually, yeah.” I hang my coat up. “But maybe not today? Let’s just hang out.”
“Agreed.” He kisses my forehead and takes my hand, guiding me to the living room. We curl up next to each other, closing the gap that we always kept between us. I’m the little spoon to his big spoon, my bump just barely staying on the couch. He turns on Netflix and picks Star Trek: The Next Generation. I didn’t think I’d like the show, but Ash has convinced me otherwise.
I snuggle closer to him. This is the best way to skip out on work—the rain is pouring down, and Ash is warm and comforting. His hand skims my belly, tentatively, then with more confidence.
“This is so weird,” he whispers quietly. “Not in a bad way. But I wasn’t expecting for you to be actually showing.”
“I’m five or so months along, Ash. I’m only going to get bigger.” I lace my fingers through his.
He goes quiet for a bit until I feel his boner popping up against my back. He scoots backward, but I grab him by the hip.
“Why are you trying to hide your hard-on?” I ask. I wish I could roll over to face him gracefully, but I can’t without falling off the couch.
“I don’t know. Do you want to? Can you even have sex without anything getting messed up?” he asks, sounding embarrassed.
I laugh. “Yeah, I can. It’s not like your dick can hurt anything. The baby’s behind like fifty layers of fluid and membranes and whatnot.”
“Thank god,” he says in my ear, reaching around my body, touching my thighs. I feel myself get wet almost immediately. “I haven’t stopped wanting you. And I think you look particularly sexy right now.”
I snort. “Is it because my boobs are gigantic now?”
“That’s about ten percent of it,” he says. “Get up; let’s go to my bedroom.”
He helps me to my feet and pulls me up the stairs to his bedroom. I haven’t been inside of it before, but it is very Ash—modern, simple, and clean. His bed is simple, as is the armchair across the room next to a side table stacked with books. There’s a dog bed on the floor next to the human bed, but it looks relatively unused. I imagine Sarge sleeps cuddled up with him. How is that going to work when we sleep together? Chunk would have to be curled up on one side and Sarge on the other. Hopefully they won’t use our bodies as a battleground.
Ash grabs me and kisses me, gently, backing me up against the bed. I thread my fingers through his hair and down to his new beard. It makes him look distinguished.
“I like this,” I murmur, stepping back to look at him.
“I’m glad you like how it looks now. I’m not sure if you’ll be saying the same thing when you’re going to get some beard burn between your thighs.” He grabs the bottom of my sweater dress and pulls it over my head, then tugs down my leggings. My bra is far from sexy, but from the way he looks at me, I might as well be wearing expensive lingerie.
He unclips the bra and lets it fall open.
“Holy shit,” he gasps, his eyes widening as he cups my breasts. They were sizeable before, but I’ve gone up two who
le cup sizes. “This is an amazing side effect.”
“So says you. Your back isn’t the one being strained.” I arch into his hands as he tweaks a nipple. It’s so intense that I suck in a breath. Wow, that is new. I had sensitive nipples before, but this is a whole new level, in a good way.
“Mm, but you like it too, don’t you?” He swipes his tongue across my left nipple, then my right. His voice has dipped into that low register that makes me squirm.
“Yes,” I smile, clutching his shoulders. I can’t grind up against him the way I want to with the bump in the way, to my frustration. So I scramble backward onto the bed, grabbing his shirt and pulling him to me. I kiss him with everything I have, nipping his bottom lip and letting our tongues slide together just enough to be tantalizing.
He kisses down the side of my neck to my belly, which he touches gently before placing a kiss right above my bellybutton. Then he yanks off my underwear and tosses it across the room with flair.
“What if I need those later? You’re going to make me get out your cozy bed to grab them?” I grin, working on the buttons of his shirt.
“You’re not going to need panties any time soon, Briony.” The look in his eyes makes me shiver. “And you’re not leaving this bed until I’m done with you.”
“Oh, so we live in this bed now?” I give him a cheeky grin.
“More or less.” He gives me the same grin right back and crawls over me, burying his face in my breasts again and sucking on them. The sensation is almost overwhelmingly pleasurable like I could come without him even touching me between my legs.
I reach between us and play with my clit as he loses himself in my cleavage, focusing only on the incredible warm sensation flowing through me. Ash’s beard is ticklish, yet soft, and when he rubs it gently across my breasts, planting kisses up and down my neck and cleavage, it ignites fires in me I haven’t felt for too long.
All of the feelings and emotions cascade through me, and it sends rushes of pleasure and adrenaline shooting down my spine like a bullet. Before I know it, I manage to bring myself off in a startlingly short amount of time. It’s been a long time since I’d gotten any—since the time way back in July—but goddamn. That is unusual. Not that I mind.