Uncomplicated Choices

by Cara Dee

  "Oh. I think I broke the washer on the yacht when I tried to fix it."

  My forehead creased.

  He waved a hand. "It didn’t work, for whatever reason. I had to go to the house to do my laundry, and…" He stifled a belch. "I was going to fix it today, but the machine and I got into an argument. So I went to a bar instead."

  I sighed, as relieved as I was worried. "Before you sit down—" I took his food and drink from him and set it on the chair. "Come here." I hugged him to me, and his breath hitched. The rush of emotions caught me off guard, so I hugged him harder as if I were trying to piece us back together. Maybe I was.

  "I miss you." His quiet admission sure as hell pieced me back together. "Casey, I miss you more than I can say. I know it hasn't even been a week, but—"

  "I've missed you, too." I palmed his face and kissed him firmly. The smell of alcohol wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, though it was clear he'd had more than he should've. "I've been a head case since I stepped off the raft."

  Tension left his shoulders, and he smiled carefully, visibly drained, as I combed my fingers through his messy hair. "I've been meaning to tell you… The definition of raft isn't what you think it is."

  I grinned, my eyes stinging. "Water castle."

  He exhaled and watched me in silence, and I did the same, brushing my thumbs under his eyes. He hadn't slept much lately. His eyes were glassy, full of weariness, and slightly bloodshot. The light was poor, so I couldn’t see properly. And despite it all, he was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen.

  How quickly could one fall in love? Could it start without someone's knowledge? Had this been building slowly for years, only to get a last, forceful push as our relationship evolved?

  It didn’t matter.

  This wasn’t a crush, nor did it resemble anything I'd felt previously.

  With Ellis, it felt like I was turning into an all-or-nothing kind of man. There was no off switch to find a balance and slow down.

  We hugged again, and I breathed in the traces of his cologne. I stroked his back, gently scratched his hair, and cupped his neck. It was unreal, this need to touch him and make sure he was here. The chemistry was out of this world and was only partly desire. The rest—I didn’t know how to explain it, but I was certain I knew the meaning of adoring someone now.

  "You're gonna be a dad," I heard myself whisper. It hit me a second later that I couldn’t be sure he knew yet, but it turned out I worried for nothing.

  He nodded once, nuzzling my jaw, then rested our foreheads together. "I apologize for Marilyn. I was infuriated when she told me she was here."

  "It's okay. We—we had words."

  He chuckled under his breath and brought my left hand to his mouth for a kiss. "Oh, she told me." Giving me a light tug, he walked us to the chairs, and I was impressed he remembered his burger and pop. "However you defended me made her call you my guard dog."

  "Woof." I smirked lazily and sat down next to him. "So what made you think soul-searching at the bottom of a bottle was a good idea?" I shrugged on the hoodie, after all.

  He shot me a narrow-eyed look and took a bite of his burger. "I'll have you know—excuse me." He deduced it was best to chew and swallow before he spoke. "I did all my soul searching sober. Today was just…" He blew out a breath.

  "A shitshow?"

  "Good word for it." He nodded. "There's the irritating, the painful, the overwhelming, and the embarrassing. Take your pick."

  Something told me the overwhelming was related to learning he was going to be a father.

  "What was painful?"

  He winced and peered down at his food. "She's already four months pregnant, and up until a few weeks ago, she was leaning toward having an abortion." He swallowed. "She wasn’t planning on telling me. I wouldn’t have known…"

  That hit close to home. All I could do was give his arm a squeeze.

  "The night before I asked Lincoln if I could borrow the boat…remember?" He flicked me a tired glance, and I nodded. He and Marilyn had tried to make up or something. Romantic dinner at home. He'd fled afterward. "She'd had second thoughts and decided to tell me about the pregnancy that night. But I wasn’t the only one who felt how forced our interaction was, thus she changed her mind again and didn’t tell me." He took a breath and rewrapped his burger, obviously no longer hungry. "I fear the embarrassing part and the irritating part are connected, and they involve you."

  "I'm flattered." Jesus, could I take this seriously? I felt bad.

  He let out a low laugh of surprise. "Don't ever change, Casey."

  I smiled a little, a lot relieved.

  "There's another reason she didn’t think she wanted the baby at first." He got us back on track. "She's been dating and didn’t believe it was mine because—well…"

  "Holy fuck, are you—You gotta be kidding. Ouch." That would fucking kill me.

  "…I wore protection, of course. And we've only been intimate once or twice in the past year…"

  "I mean, honestly," I went on. "That's way more suspense than I'd be able to handle. Although, technically, I guess you didn’t—if you didn’t learn of the pregnancy until she was sure it's yours, which—" I quirked a brow. "How does she know the baby's yours?"

  He stared at me, and I frowned, registering what he'd said while I rambled over him. My bad.

  "Ah, right." He cleared his throat and scrubbed his hands over his face. "She had a paternity test in the…sorry, I forget what week. It's been a long night with a colossal amount of information." He grabbed his pop off the floor but didn’t drink from it. "It was between this new man she's been seeing and me, and the results ruled him out."

  "Good God, it's like a soap opera." I rubbed a hand over my mouth and jaw, processing everything. "Let me get this straight. She's with two men—you and someone else—around the same time. Since she believed the father was the other guy, she didn’t want the baby—presumably because they barely know each other." I didn’t mean for it to sound like I was judging her in any way; I just wanted to get the facts right. "Then she had a paternity test done…with the intention of going through with an abortion?" Didn’t quite add up to me.

  "She went back and forth, she told me," he said. "Or rather, she went from definitely not wanting a baby to hesitating, at which point she contacted the other guy and went through with the test. When the results showed he wasn’t a match, she reconsidered further. It's…goddamn, so complicated." He leaned forward, resting his face in his hands. "I told her I want to take a paternity test as well, to be sure, but she has no reason to lie. She's—well, as we all do, she has issues, but she's not devious."

  I wouldn’t go so far as to call her devious, either. "Okay, so what's the embarrassing part?" 'Cause I could do the math on the irritating bit. Learning about the pregnancy this late, the timing, and all the details, I'd be ticked off, too.

  "We should play it safe and get tested, Casey."

  The way he said that caused me to recoil. "Wait, what, we?"

  "I feel awful about this, but if the protection failed with her, it means I haven't been completely…"

  Safe. Shit.

  "Right." I rubbed the back of my neck. "Yeah, I guess that will make a fun outing. Getting tested for STDs together."

  Although we hadn't fucked unprotected, there was still a risk with oral.

  "I'd understand if you're mad," he told me.

  He was being silly.

  "This is literally the least of my concerns," I chuckled. "Let's move on instead. Is there still a second date in our future? Marilyn was pretty vocal about not wanting me around."

  His jaw ticked with tension, and he leaned back in his seat. "I almost told her where to go." Knowing him, he'd feel guilty. He didn’t have a malicious bone in him. "I can't apologize enough, Casey. This isn't your mess to deal with—"

  "I want you to be my mess," I replied bluntly. "I mean, I want your mess to be mine. You know what I mean."

  He watched me, a soft smile tugging at h
is mouth. Then I felt his fingers slipping between mine. "Fuck, I missed you."

  Glad I wasn’t the only one. Mirroring his stance, I leaned back, my head resting against the house wall. The silence was so comfortable that the night crept back in, and I yawned.

  "You haven't blogged much," he noted.

  I smirked sleepily and closed my eyes. "Have you been stalking me online? Please say yes."

  He chuckled quietly. "I admit I checked a few times and made sure I was still a subscriber."

  Life goal: achieved. I'd always wanted an online stalker. "I did post a selfie with the girls the other day."

  He hummed. "I saw it. You were wearing your beanie."

  Dammit. I didn’t want him to read too much into that—or, possibly, see the truth. Opening my eyes once more, I tightened my hold on his hand and pulled off what I hoped was a convincing smile.

  "You look hot in a beard."

  He wasn’t impressed by my change of topic. "Be serious with me, please. Have you been having anxiety?"

  Okay, fine, I could fess up, but I refused to make this bigger than it was. "I've been anxious, sure, and I've been fretting like whoa—all of it self-inflicted. I worry too much. I know it's irrational."

  "Hm. Well, if my mess is yours, your mess is mine. I want to be there for you."

  "Mi mess es su mess," I mumbled, because I couldn’t not go there.

  I was a dork.

  He smirked and shook his head.

  "So…" I trailed off. All questions hadn't been answered. "What do we do now?"

  "Deal with our messes?" The exhaustion blended with the remnants of humor. "Marilyn and I are meeting with our lawyers next week. On that front, there isn't much to do but wait."

  Okay, good, confirmed. The baby news didn’t change anything in that respect. They were still getting divorced.

  "Is there any bad blood between you?" I wondered.

  He weighed his answers. "Not too much, I'd say."

  "That's good." It was a big relief, actually. "Children pick up on that." It was way better if the parents were on friendly terms.

  It was unlikely that they'd already hammered out details on custody, so I figured I'd wait a while before asking. He probably needed more time to digest it all.

  "I don’t want to look for my own place, Casey."

  I furrowed my brow, instantly guarded. So he was going to stay at his house with her? Ex-spouses turned roommates and co-parents? That might be poking a little too hard at my insecurities, not that I'd speak up. Children came first. He had responsibilities bigger than ever now.

  "Okay," I replied warily. "Have you discussed this with Marilyn? You living together, I mean."

  It was his turn to frown. "What? No. That's not—I spoke to Lincoln, and he told me I could stay on the boat for however long I needed." Straightening in his seat, he shifted his chair to face me more. "I've thought this through more than once, so please bear with me here." He took a breath. "I've kept my personal life as simple as possible for as long as I can remember. Easy marriage, easy roads. And it would be very easy to go back to that. Marilyn and I would be just another married couple raising a child together, and…we'd be completely miserable at home."

  Sounded lovely. Sounded exactly how my parents raised me. They stayed together because it was convenient.

  Ellis wasn’t done, and he gathered my hands in his. "Choosing you would complicate everything in my everyday life, yet it's the most uncomplicated choice I've ever made." Fuck me. "I don’t want anyone else, and though it wouldn’t do me any good to rush into anything new, I need it to be clear that it's ultimately what I want."

  For some reason, I probably wouldn’t reach for my beanie tomorrow. Because he wasn’t going to look for his own place, because his place might eventually be here, because he was choosing me.

  I'm not gonna get mushy.

  In all seriousness, it was good we didn’t rush. Taking our time to date and explore this new relationship in our regular life was exactly what I wanted, too. Everything was easy on vacation. Less stress, fewer responsibilities. Here at home, we'd have a shitload of all that. Haley, work, a new baby on the way—adjustments coming in every direction. And I couldn’t fucking wait.

  "Come here." I fisted his shirt and pulled him close for a kiss, because words failed me. I kissed him hard and deep, excitement brimming over while my mind, for fucking once, was at perfect ease. "You're in a relationship with Complicated now."

  He chuckled breathily and pinched my thigh. "You're not as complicated as you seem to think, sunshine."

  I grinned. "Let's not make that nickname stick."

  "Maybe it'll be as sticky as princess."

  That was a tough one. To unstick sunshine, I'd have to drop the princess.

  "I'll think about it." I went in for another kiss, contemplating asking him to stay what was left of the night. Was it weird that I looked forward to a bit of sneaking around? Our family obviously didn’t know about this, and I wasn’t going to rush that, either. Not where Haley was concerned, anyway.

  "I should get back to the boat," he murmured huskily.

  "Worst decision ever." Especially now with the lust evident in his voice. "You're sober enough to be quiet on the stairs now, aren't you?"

  "Don’t tempt me," he warned under his breath. "I'm not sober enough to fuck you quietly."

  "Shit." I shuddered, a bolt of lust shooting through me. "Actually, I didn’t say I'd put out."

  Who was I trying to fool? Not me, definitely not Ellis. He gave me a heated look, a knowing look, that said…yeah, I'd definitely put out.

  "We need some time soon, though." He sighed softly and rested his forehead against mine. "I miss touching you…sharing a bed with you."

  "Yeah. So much." Thinking of when we could have a moment together made me think of Sunday. I was dropping off the girls then, and we were back to our regularly scheduled brunch. "I'll see you Sunday for brunch, right?"

  He nodded. "Wouldn’t miss it."

  Chapter 16

  Some news traveled fast. Not all of it, though definitely the part where Ellis and Marilyn were expecting. To everyone's surprise, it was Marilyn who'd called Adeline to break the news, so it was the hot topic at brunch that Sunday once the girls went off to play.

  Even Madigan graced us with his presence today. "Talk about a special parting gift. I hope Hallmark makes cards that say 'Happy Divorce Day! Also, You're Gonna Be a Dad.'"

  I snickered into my coffee, earning myself a playful glare from Ellis.

  "And four months along already? Wow." Adeline was baffled by the whole thing. Who could blame her? "Do you know what you're having yet?"

  I shot my gaze to Ellis, curious about that one, too.

  He shook his head. "We have an ultrasound next week."

  Ultrasounds were fucking terrifying, though that was coming from a guy who hadn't had his life together when he found out he was gonna be a dad. Given my late start, I was still in school when we found out.

  Lincoln, who'd been eerily quiet about Marilyn's pregnancy, finally spoke up. "Are you happy?"

  "I'm…" Ellis paused, then nodded slowly. I didn’t miss the brief glance he sent my way. "I'm getting there. It's a lot to process, and it's difficult to break free of the mind-set where I consider everything as a married man. Once I remind myself that we're getting divorced, it gets easier. I don’t want parenthood to be tainted by a toxic marriage."

  Adeline settled her hand on his and smiled reassuringly. "We'll be here, too."

  The gratitude was visible in Ellis's eyes.

  Lincoln wasn’t done, evidently. "I assume you'll be sharing custody, and…you'll be raising your kid on the water?"

  Oh, shut up, you inquisitive bastard.

  I'd done the math. After a year of dating, it was perfectly normal for a couple to move in together—if they had the same goal. The remaining time of the pregnancy plus the first few months where the baby understandably wouldn’t leave Marilyn's side much would add up
to at least eight or nine months.

  "I think I'll find a place before that becomes an issue." Ellis was good. He took a sip of his coffee and kept his expression composed. In a situation like that, I'd fidget and laugh nervously.

  Lincoln was satisfied with the response. "In that case, don't we have shit to celebrate? There's your divorce, your baby, Kid's park project, and my boy signing with Vancouver."

  I whipped my head in his direction at the head of the table. "He did?" Madigan and I spoke at the same time.

  This was fucking awesome. Abel could come home more often if he played for a team just two hours away. It sure as fuck beat having him on the East Coast.

  "He didn’t want to tell us until his agent knew for sure." Ade was practically vibrating in her seat. I knew it'd been rough for her to have Abel and Jesse far away. Now it was one down and one to go.

  "Fucking A." I grinned.

  *

  I donned my Mr. Mom hat after brunch. Lincoln wanted to show Madigan something in the studio, Ellis excused himself to go to the bathroom, and that left Adeline and me to discuss some back-to-school crap for Haley and Lyn.

  "Haley asked—since she'd finished her first year now—if she was finally going to be in Lyn's class." I shook my head. It hadn't been a fun conversation. "When I explained to her it doesn’t work that way and that Lyn's also finished another year, Haley got so fucking angry."

  "Aw, sweet girl." Adeline laughed and pouted at the same time. "I'm seriously dreading next year."

  I nodded, sharing the sentiment. This would be their second and last year in the same building. If having them in different classes was a struggle, it was nothing in comparison to how it would be when they were at different schools.

  "Did you see they raised the tuition again?" she asked.

  "They do that every year." I opened the app on my phone where I kept all notes about Haley. "You're in charge, Mrs. Hayes. Where do we go first?"