Beautiful

by Christina Lauren

She scooted closer. “Yeah, crickets, I want all of it.”

  I turned my phone so she could read. The same confusion and then dawning understanding came across her face.

  “Do you want to go?” I asked.

  “Fuck yeah!” she said, grinning up at me. She turned, bending to pull her phone from where it rested inside her purse on the floor. “Hanna texted me, too.” She scanned it. “She’s apologized for likely missing me on this trip.”

  I grinned at her. “Or maybe you’ll show up and surprise her.”

  Looking back to her phone, Pippa’s eyes teared over. “Ruby texted, too. She doesn’t want to miss it. Is everyone going down there to celebrate?”

  “Probably. And normally I’d stay up here, buried in work. But if you’re in, I’m in,” I said. “They’re insane and overbearing, but . . . I think you’ll fit in perfectly.”

  She pulled back in mock insult. “You think I’m insane and overbearing?”

  “No. I think you’re fun, and smart, and wild.” I leaned forward, kissing her nose. “I think you’re fucking beautiful.”

  PLAYER EPILOGUE

  Will

  Hanna hung up the phone and then stared at it for a few confused beats. “He was in the car. He seemed super busy.”

  “Jensen? Busy?” I asked, lacing my voice with intentionally sarcastic confusion. Jensen always seemed busy.

  “No,” she clarified, “I mean, not like work busy, where he’s all business voice and monosyllables—if he even answers. I mean distracted.” Chewing her lip, she added, “He sounded suspiciously easygoing and happy. He said something about loving . . .” She shook her head. “I have no idea.”

  Shrugging, she circled the kitchen counter to wrap her arms around me, resting her chin on my shoulder. “I don’t feel like going to work tomorrow.”

  “Me either,” I admitted. “I don’t even feel like working tonight.” I lifted my arm behind her back to glance at my watch. “But I’ve got that Biollex call in about an hour.”

  “Will?” Her voice was a little thin, the way it got when she was trying to ask me what I wanted for Christmas, or whether I would make her a cherry pie just because it sounded good. For dinner.

  I looked down at her and kissed the tip of her nose. “Yeah?”

  “Do you really want to wait two years?”

  It took me a breath to figure out what she meant.

  She was the one who wasn’t ready for kids. At thirty-four, I was ready now, but of course was willing to wait until we were on the same page.

  I realized this was Hanna-speak for I think I might be ready. “You mean . . . ?”

  Nodding, she said, “It might not work right away. I mean, remember what Chloe and Bennett went through? Maybe it would be good to just . . . see what happens.”

  My phone buzzed on the kitchen island, but I ignored it.

  “Yeah?” I asked, searching her expression. It had been hard for Chloe to get pregnant. She and Bennett had tried for more than two years. All joking aside, part of me believed that was why she was so blissfully happy. They hadn’t let it take over their lives—the wanting—but there was undeniable relief and victory in their eyes when they told us they were finally pregnant.

  Hanna nodded, biting her bottom lip, but the smile lit up her eyes. “I think so.”

  “You should probably be sure,” I whispered, and then kissed her again. “It’s not really an ‘I think so’ kind of thing.”

  “I’ve kept the African violet in the kitchen window alive for the past seven months,” she said, and then grinned at me. “And I think I’m a pretty good dog mom to Penrose.”

  “You’re a great dog mom,” I said, caution holding my excitement at bay. “But you’re also a workaholic.”

  She stared up at me, and I realized what she was silently saying: It’s seven fifteen at night and—hello—I’ve been in my pajamas, not in the lab, for the past two hours.

  “This is one day,” I said, voice tight. “Most mornings you’re gone by seven, and you’re not home until dark. I know we planned that I’d stay home, but at first, you’ll want to. It’s a big deal, isn’t it?”

  “I’m ready, Will.” She stretched, kissing my chin. “I want to have a baby.”

  Fuck.

  I had a call in—I glanced at my watch again and groaned—forty-five minutes. And I’d wanted to review the due diligence package first, but now there was something I wanted more than that.

  Specifically, Hanna’s warm waist beneath my hands, and the tiny gasp she made when I lifted her up onto the kitchen island. I wanted the dig of her nails in my back and the clutch of her around me. It wasn’t the first time we’d had sex in this room—not by a long shot—but it felt different.

  “This is like super-married sex,” she said, pulling the thought from my head as she gleefully tugged the hem of my shirt out of the waistband of my jeans. “It’s our first productive—reproductive—sex! Goal-oriented sex! Sex with a mission!” She looked up at my face, beatific. “Missionary!”

  I kissed her to shut her up, laughing into her mouth and working her pajama pants down her hips. “Wait, wait.” I pulled back, looking at her. “You’re still on the pill, though . . . right?”

  She gave me a guilty shrug.

  “What?” I pulled back, gaping at her. “When did you go off?”

  Ducking into her shoulders a little, she admitted, “Maybe a week ago.”

  “We’ve had sex in the past week.” I blinked, thinking back. “Like, several times.”

  “I know, but I don’t think I’m, like, immediately fertile or anything.”

  Even in the face of her illogical confidence, warmth rolled through me. I know I should have been a little annoyed that she did this without any discussion, but I wasn’t. The possibility suddenly seemed so fucking real. We were going to have kids someday. Maybe even someday soon.

  Holy shit.

  Things turned into a blur of laughter and clashing teeth and limbs caught in clothes, but when I had her free enough to step between her knees and press into her, the rest of the world melted into the periphery. It wasn’t really goal-oriented sex after all, it was just . . . being with Hanna. The way I had a thousand times, with a tiny echo of anticipation and excitement that had nothing to do with the way she felt around me or the sounds she made. Her hair brushed over my face when I bent to kiss her neck. Her hands were smooth and sure down my back, gripping my ass. I had watched Hanna go from a glowing, innocent young woman to a confident, assertive powerhouse—and with me she still remained the sweet, wide-open, smiling Plum I fell for more than three years ago.

  Hanna collapsed back on the island, staring sex-drunk up at me.

  “Well done, William.”

  I kissed her breast, mumbled something incoherent.

  She reached blindly over her head when my phone buzzed again.

  “What the hell is going on with your phone? Did you have the time wrong for the call?” Catching it in her hand, she pulled it over her face to read it, keeping one hand buried in my hair.

  I felt her go still beneath me, her breath held in her chest.

  “Will.”

  I pressed a kiss right over her beating heart. “Mmm?”

  “You have a . . . few texts from Bennett, and another from Max.”

  I laughed. “Read them to me.”

  Hanna made a small sound of refusal and reached down, pressing the phone into my hand. “I think you’ll want to read these yourself.”

  STRANGER EPILOGUE

  Max

  “How have I had three babies before this one, and none of my maternity clothes fit?”

  Sara tugged at the hem of the shirt and looked up at my face in the mirror, misery written plainly on her expression. The T-shirt fit her well enough in the sleeves, the chest, the width. But it wasn’t nearly long enough: the fabric barely reached past her enormous pregnant belly.

  “Because little Graham refuses to be contained,” I told her, kissing the top of her head. “I fear
for your ability to sneeze without wetting yourself.”

  “That’s been true since Annabel.” She turned, leaning back against the bathroom counter. Her frown turned into a tight smile. “I love you.”

  I laughed. This was her new refrain these last few weeks: each time she secretly wanted to punch me, she would tell me she loved me instead.

  I didn’t have to ask her to know it was true; I had been told I love you a lot.

  My giant-headed babies made her pee when she sneezed: I love you, Max.

  We had to ask for a table instead of a booth at her favorite breakfast dive in Hell’s Kitchen because my giant spawn took up too much space: I love you, Max.

  Our second daughter, Iris—who was barely two—had already broken her arm once trying to “play rugby” at the park: I love you, Max.

  Our life was a jumble of kids and spilled juice and work calls taken in the loo and wiping jelly stains off furniture. But in reality I didn’t fear our even more chaotic future. Sara loved having babies more than she loved nearly anything, and we both seemed to be able to roll with the insanity pretty well. I told her I’d be fine with three. She wanted five. Even as pregnant as she was, she hadn’t yet changed her tune.

  Though I might suggest after this boy that we stop at four: for the duration of this pregnancy, Sara had been . . . spirited.

  Ezra screeched something at Iris in the other room, and the outburst was followed by a loud crash. I moved to the door, but Sara stopped me with her hand around my forearm.

  “Don’t,” she said. “It’s just the Fisher-Price record player. That thing won’t break.”

  “How on earth did you know what toy it was?”

  She grinned up at me, giving me a flash of my easygoing Petal. “Trust me.” She tugged at the hem of my shirt. “Come here.”

  “Why aren’t the kids in bed?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder.

  “You can figure that out after you come here.”

  I moved closer, bending down to kiss her, letting her tell me how much of a kiss she really wanted. And apparently she wanted deep and lingering, her hands sliding up my stomach beneath my shirt and over my chest.

  “You feel good.”

  I cupped her breasts. “You do, too.”

  She moaned happily. “Oh God, you’re better than my best bra. Can you just walk behind me, holding those up all day?”

  “You already assigned me to foot rubbing duty.” I kissed her once again, then hummed thoughtfully. “Though I suppose one task is for sitting, the other is while mobile.”

  Sara stretched on her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around my neck. “You’re so good to me.”

  I moved my hands down over her tight belly, feeling what was likely a foot pressing out beneath my palm. “Because I love you.”

  Her big brown eyes met mine. “Did you ever imagine this?” she asked. “Four years ago, that we’d get pregnant only months after we had sex in a bar, and now we’re having our fourth baby and I can still kiss you and feel this way?”

  “I suspect I’ll feel this way forever.”

  “Do you miss it?” she asked, and I knew without having to translate what she meant.

  “Sure, but we’ve got our return date settled.”

  After Annabel, we’d taken a few months to return to our room at Johnny’s club. But after Iris, the room no longer felt quite right. We’d tried it a couple of times, tried to get back to that place where it was liberating and erotic and ours. But for whatever reason, making love in the room with the giant glass wall felt different. It was almost too intimate, too exposed. Simply put, it didn’t work anymore.

  Instead, we had a new deal: Over our lunch hour, while Red Moon was otherwise closed, a brilliant photographer—whose name we never learned and who we’d never met—stood on the other side of the glass, taking beautiful photos while we made love. Johnny used them in tasteful decoration along the voyeurs’ hallway. Once or twice a month we would go for a session. More if we needed, less if life got in the way.

  The regulars liked knowing we were still at it.

  Sara liked being able to choose which images were used.

  And I had the reassurance that we would always find a way to make this need of hers work: we would have this private pleasure between us as long as we lived.

  “You’re happy?” she asked, dipping her hands beneath my shirt to press her palms to my navel.

  “Fucking blissful.”

  She stretched, kissing me again. “I think we should stop at four.”

  I laughed into her mouth. “I think you’re right.”

  “I like having a nanny. I don’t want him to quit.”

  This made me laugh harder. “I think George is pretty thrilled you have a nanny, too.”

  In the pocket of my trousers, my phone vibrated, and I pulled it out, reading.

  My heart stilled.

  “Should we get a house in Connecticut?” she asked, musing, as she kissed my collarbone. “Manhattan isn’t going to work much longer.”

  I stared unblinking at my screen.

  “Maybe we can drive up tomorrow, since your schedule is pretty light . . .”

  I read the text again, and again.

  Well, here we go. I let out a laugh. That poor bastard had no idea what was about to hit him.

  “Max?”

  Startling, I blinked over at her. “Yeah?”

  “Maybe we could drive up to Connecticut tomorrow afternoon?”

  With a grin, I turned my phone so she could read it. “Not quite yet, Petal. We’ve got a more important trip to make right now.”

  AT-LONG-LAST EPILOGUE

  George

  Will poked his head up from under the covers, mouth curved in a proud grin. His hair was all perfectly rumpled and, no lie, if I weren’t such a gentleman I might be tempted to take his picture and share it with a few hundred followers on Snapchat.

  Lucky for him, I was a gentleman.

  “You alive?” he asked, kissing my chest.

  I let my arm slide away from where it had been tossed across my forehead. “No.”

  “Good.” He crawled up, kissing my chin. “Mission accomplished.”

  I rolled to face him, pulling him close. With no space between our bodies, I could feel the heavy thump-thumping of his heart. Moments like this made me want to stand on the bed and burst into song.

  Er, maybe later.

  “Can I tell you something?” he asked, kissing me, shaking my shoulder a little so that I’d look at him.

  I opened my eyes. His expression was nervous, like it got when I walked out of the bedroom wearing something completely badass and I could tell he wanted to loan me a pair of old jeans and one of his T-shirts instead. His brown eyes had flecks of yellow, and they danced as he flickered his gaze over my face, studying. “I got you something.”

  Oh. A very different kind of nervous, then.

  He certainly had my attention. “A present?”

  Laughing, he rolled away, reaching for something in the drawer of his bedside table. The sheets fell away, and I slid a palm up his back. “Not only do you have the perfect name and the perfect back, you bake, and you tolerate my love for boy bands, but you get me presents? How did I get so lucky?”

  Every day I thanked the universe for the subway train that ran late so that:

  1. Will Perkins was late for his interview for the manny position with Sara and Max Stella.

  2. He was still there when I came by begging a change of clothes because I’d been drenched in filthy curbside water two blocks away and was closer to Sara’s place than mine.

  3. They’d introduced us.

  4. I laughed and flirted simply because his name was Will.

  5. He stared at my shirt clinging to my chest like he’d just found religion.

  I always knew it was destiny I’d end up with Will. I had just picked the wrong one the first time around.

  And I would have made endless fun of myself for ever believing in love at first sight, b
ut fuck me with your spikiest Louboutins if it’s not real.

  Just don’t tell Chloe. She’d pull out a ruler to measure her dick to mine.

  Rolling back, Will put a small box in my hand, and the world tilted.

  I’d been expecting a fancy lollypop from one of his outings with Iris and Annabel, or maybe a gift certificate to get my favorite shoes resoled because I’d been mourning their imminent death lately, and Will Perkins was thoughtful like that. But this gift fit in the palm of my hand. It had weight. It was black, and soft, and . . . it felt like a meaningful box.

  It felt like a box Will Perkins might hand his boyfriend George Mercer on their one-year anniversary before saying something enormous and life altering.

  “It’s cuff links, right?” I said.

  He grinned, his blond hair falling over his forehead as he leaned back over me. “You don’t wear cuff links.”

  “Because I can’t figure them out—not because I’m not fancy enough,” I insisted.

  Will laughed, kissing my nose. “You’re definitely fancy enough. But you shouldn’t ever have to worry about things like cuff links, or taking out the trash, or fixing the garbage disposal.”

  My eyes went wide with thrill. “You fixed the garbage disposal?”

  “No more shoving carrot peelings down there, Peach. That’s what did it.”

  I reached up and grabbed a gentle fistful of his hair. Who knew talk of home repair would one day be my thing? “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” He stared at me, his brows pulling together. “Do you want me to open the box?”

  I looked down at it in my hand between us. On the top in delicate gold script was a single word: Cartier.

  “Earrings?” I whispered.

  He shook his head. “Your ears aren’t pierced.”

  “Fancy earbuds?”

  “From Cartier?”

  Turning back to meet his face, I felt the tight sting of emotion across the surface of my eyes, the heaviness in my throat. God damn it.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “I’m loud and disorganized and I shove carrot peelings down the drain.”

  He shook his head, running his finger across my bottom lip. “I can’t ask if you don’t open it, G.”