by Lauren Wood
“And she was pregnant?”
“She is or was. She had the baby right before he showed up.”
“And he came to see you?”
“Yeah. The baby’s not his I guess and they’re getting a divorce.”
“So how did the date go?”
“Braxton left early. Said it was weird, though I can’t blame him. It was weird.”
She laughed. “I guess. I meant with Matt. Are you two back together? I swear you two are crazy and should just admit that you’re the one for each other.”
“I won’t get back with him until he’s divorced.”
“So where is he now?”
“He went back home to see her and get the papers signed. That was two days ago, and I haven’t seen him since.”
“Oh.”
Another sip of wine. “Yeah, oh.”
“Do you think…well, I mean, do you think that they’ve gotten back together or something?”
“I don’t know, but it kind of looks like it. What would you think?”
Callie gave me this sad look. “I don’t know what to say. After Jesse, I feel like I’m the worse judge of character. I’d thought that he was a good guy, but I’d been way off. Now I just don’t know. Do you really think that he’d come back and then leave again?”
I just gave her a look and considered how much back and forth we’d had. At some point I had to believe something. It didn’t feel like everything was going to be okay. It just didn’t. Instead, it felt like everything was falling apart again. If he would just answer his phone or call me and take me out of my misery. I wanted to know one way or another. I know which way I wanted it to go, but that didn’t mean that it would turn out that way. I’d learned my lesson about assumptions before.
“I don’t know what to think. I feel like this is all I do, pick the wrong guys and then I’m left with a mess like this.”
She tried to tell me that there was no way to know for sure until he called. I shouldn’t work myself up, but we both knew that I couldn’t help it. I was already thinking along the same lines as Jesse, sure that he was cheating on me with his wife, an oxymoron in and of itself.
“I wish I’d found someone like Stan.”
Callie agreed and smiled back at me. It was the purest look and I was jealous of her for the umpteenth time. I wanted to feel that way and when I was with Matt, I did. Maybe I should have given him what he wanted before. This could have all turned out differently.
My phone rang, and I looked at it. It was the number I’d been waiting for and I was two glasses in when I answered.
“Can you come over Anna?”
“Come over? To your house? I thought Nadia was staying there?”
“She is.”
I looked at Callie. She asked who it was quietly, and I mouthed back that it was Matt. Callie was straining to hear and I almost put it on speaker phone, but the way this conversation was going, it was probably best that I didn’t.
“I’m not going over there with her there Matt. Have you lost your mind?”
“She’s not here.”
“Then why do you want me to come over? And why are you there? Did she leave?”
I didn’t know what was going on. I was so confused, and I don’t think it was the wine that was doing it.
“Because she took off without the baby and I’m kind of in over my head now. I really don’t know what to do with him.”
“What?”
Now I was straining to hear him because I was sure that I hadn’t heard Matt right. Did he say that he was with the baby? Her baby? What?!
“No time to explain too much Anna. Will you help me?”
I could hear a baby crying in the background and it hit me what he wanted me to do. I had to say it out loud because it sounded so incredulous in my mind.
“You want me to come over and help you take care of your wife’s baby?”
“Yeah, I know. It sounds bad.”
That was an understatement if I ever heard of one.
“Yeah it does. Where did she go?”
“Not sure. I came over to get her to sign the papers. She invites me in, tells me to hold the baby. She showered, changed and took off. That was last night, and she hasn’t come back or called or anything. I’m starting to wonder if she is going to come back at all.”
“She has to, it’s her baby, Matt, not yours.”
“I know, but I can’t just leave this little guy alone. Mathew needs someone to stay with him until she comes back, and I think he’s hungry. I don’t know where she put all that food I bought.”
“Mathew?”
Did he just say that the baby was named after him? What the hell?
“Long story. Are you going to come or not? Come on Anna, I really need your help.”
“Fine, I’ll come, but there better be some explanation in all of this.”
“There will be.”
“And favors of my choosing.”
He agreed, but I could tell that he didn’t know what he’d just agreed to. I wasn’t going to tell him either.
When I hung up, Callie was looking at me like she wanted me to fill in the second side of the conversation that she hadn’t been able to hear. I did fill her in and then I got ready to go.
“So, you’re going down there?”
“I guess so.”
She shook her head at me and sighed. “You better tell me what happens. This is better than my soap operas.”
I really hoped that she was just joking, but I had a feeling that she wasn’t. Life was complicated, and I was still trying to figure this all out. Going to see Matt with Nadia’s baby wasn’t going to be easy. How had I gotten myself into this?
The drive down took a while and I stopped and got some essentials. I didn’t know much about kids, but there were some basics that were pretty much universal. He said he had everything that she needed there, but apparently not.
It was even stranger to go down there when I thought about the fact that I had just recently found out that I most likely will never have kids. I’d tried with my one night with Matt and nothing had happened. Thinking it was a fluke, I didn’t think nothing of it. But a check up revealed that it wasn’t the case at all. I wasn’t ever going to have any kids.
So, to go to his wife’s house and take care of her baby was more than he realized to be asking of me. I didn’t want to go, but he needed help and the baby did as well.
My mind tried to think of all the possibilities and I was sure that this was some kind of ploy to get him back. I didn’t want to lose Matt again and maybe when Nadia realized that some other woman was taking care of her kid, she would stop her charade and leave us alone.
I was nervous as hell when I pulled up at the address that he’d given me. I’d never been here before, but it was a pretty house and it made me a little more jealous. Nadia had everything that I wanted in one fell swoop.
Matt answered the door all harried, and I had a feeling he’d not had an easy go of things.
“Thank god you’re here Anna. I don’t know what to do.”
Matt
“I can’t believe you talked me into this. What in the world are we going to do?”
I didn’t know what to tell her. I kept thinking that something had held Nadia up and she was coming back, but now on the second day since she took off, I was starting to question that assumption. Maybe I was way wrong. Either way, I was stuck with this baby. I know that I could call the cops or something, but what was I going to tell them? My wife left me with the baby she just had? It didn’t seem feasible and instead I just waited. Anna’s frustration was my own.
“She has to come back soon. I’m sure something just tied her up.”
Anna wasn’t so sure by her expression and I can’t say that I was either. I didn’t think that Nadia was coming back, but I wasn’t able to say it out loud. Not just yet. That would require me to consider what I was going to have to do then and I wasn’t prepared for that just yet. Right now, I liked to think tha
t somehow everything was going to turn out.
“I don’t know Matt. How well do you know your wife?”
“Not well at all because I would have never thought that she would have done any of this. I really thought I was helping.”
“Must have been all that blonde hair and smiling that caught your attention.”
She was still jealous of her and I didn’t know how to tell her that she had absolutely nothing to worry about. I didn’t want Nadia. I did a time or two when I was out, but once I found out she was pregnant, I was running mostly on obligation. It wasn’t like we were doing anything now. I hadn’t had sex in months and it was starting to get to me being so close to Anna.
This wasn’t the time though.
“It hasn’t been that way in a really long time Anna. I wish you knew the truth. We haven’t been that way since before we got married. Once I said that I would, the true Nadia started to come out and I was just a means to an end.”
I don’t think I wanted her to feel sorry for me, but I did want her to realize that it wasn’t all this romance that she thought it was. It wasn’t, not at all. All I could really say for it was I thought I was doing the right thing.
“So why did you do it?”
I shrugged. “I wanted to do the right thing. I’d always wanted kids. I wanted them with you, but I figured this was as good of a way as any. It had already happened, so what was there left to do?”
She smiled and then looked away. “That’s never going to happen Matt.”
“What’s never going to happen?”
“Us having kids together.”
“You’ll forgive me in time. We’re meant to be together and I know that you’ll see that too if you already don’t know it.”
“It’s not that, but cocky much? I can’t have kids. I found out a few months back. The doctors say that the chances of that happening are very unlikely.”
“Well that doesn’t mean you can’t ever. There’s lots of ways. It will happen when the time it right.”
“I wish I was as sure of everything as you are.”
I wasn’t sure of anything, just that I wanted Anna and I wanted this business with Nadia in my past. With her baby in my arms and no sign of her, that didn’t look like something that was going to be possible now. Now, there wasn’t much hope for what came next.
Instead of worrying about it too much, I was thankful that Anna took over in a way. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, and I was glad that she came. I really didn’t know what I would do without her.
Later that evening, Nadia still hadn’t showed up and it was becoming clear to me that she may never be back. Maybe it was for the best. It seemed like it now. I had this wild idea in my head, but I didn’t know how to broach the subject with Anna. She might not take it the right way at all. She could get mad for all I know. I wasn’t sure how she would react, so I was going to hold out a little longer. It could all be in vain and Nadia would come strolling in at any moment.
“Well I’m going to get going and see if I can find a hotel for the night. I don’t want to go to my mom’s because she is just going to ask a bunch of questions.”
“Stay here.”
I had thought that it was a given, but apparently not.
“Here?” She looked around like the place was toxic. I guess it was in the way that I shared it with my wife, not her.
“Yes, why not? This is still my house and you’re here helping me. Nadia knows that me and her don’t have anything together. We haven’t for a long time, so why are you worried about it?”
“It’s just weird. This is where you and your wife live.”
“At the moment we’re married, but you know that it’s going to change very soon.”
She didn’t look so sure. “I told you I wasn’t getting back together with you until you’re a free man. I meant it.”
I was hoping that comment had been a thing of the past and that she wasn’t still on that. Apparently, I was wrong again.
“Come on Anna. You know that I’m not going to be able to divorce her if she doesn’t come back to sign these papers. She left her baby. I don’t think she is coming back.”
“I will help you with Mathew, Matt, but that doesn’t mean we’re back together.”
“What are we, just friends?”
She smiled and agreed. “That sounds about right for now.”
It didn’t sound right to me at all, but Anna had made her mind up and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I wanted to know why she felt this way, but I wasn’t going to push it. I was going to do what I could to meet her demands. At least she wasn’t going to leave me out to dry.
Nothing went smoothly and after a month, I was still running an ad in the paper that I had to do for another two months for Nadia for the divorce without her. She hadn’t come back. She’d left me with a baby that wasn’t mine and all I could do was the best I could do.
We moved up to live with Anna. She had to go to work and I was able to stay back and take care of Mathew. I know that Anna had tried not to get attached, but it was impossible not to. She was the one that suggested we move up there a few days after she came to the rescue.
What hadn’t changed, and I really wished it had was the fact that we still weren’t having sex together. It was starting to get on my nerves and the more I thought about it, the harder it was for me to sleep at night. I wanted Anna, but she was clear. Nothing was going to happen until I was a free man. That distinction was taking a hell of a lot longer than I thought it was going to, frustrating the hell out of me.
Anna had taken to teasing me as well. I don’t know if she did it on purpose, but every time I turned around, I could see little flashes of her chest in a tank top or too much thigh in a pair of night shorts. I knew her body, every inch of it and I wanted to get reacquainted with it, though Anna didn’t seem willing. She made herself clear of what she wanted and all I knew for sure was that I wasn’t going to be able to wait forever.
When she walked out with that damn beige tank top on again, I groaned inwardly. Anna of course had to pick some toys up off the coffee table in front of me and it gave me a good view of her swaying tits. They were transfixing, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
“Are you even listening to me Matt?”
I shook my head that I wasn’t. I didn’t even try to change my view because it was just too perfect. If I was alive, if that scene was in front of me, I’m going to stop and look.
“I can’t hear a word that is being said when you’re dangling those things in front of me.”
Anna looked down and waved me off. “Please, I’m so tired and I look a mess. They fail to mention the whole never sleeping again when they talk about babies.”
I grinned at her, but I still couldn’t pull my eyes away. I’d heard about half of it. She didn’t realize how damn hot she was. When she got closer I pulled her into my lap and took a kiss. I loved the feel of her in my arms and the soft lips were only resistant for a minute and then she was going right along with it.
I started to hope that she would forget this silly little criterion for sex that she’d created. I was never going to see Nadia again. Wasn’t that enough?
Anna pushed back off me and stood up, giving me a dirty look. “Hands off until…”
“I know, I know.”
I was hard and frustrated, still not sure what the hell she was talking about. How was I supposed to function like this?
Anna
The suspense was killing me. The process of Matt getting divorced was a lot longer than I had expected it to be. I don’t know why I said it at first, but I’d been so adamant that instead of backing out of it, I had doubled down and now we were both paying for it. I wanted Matt, but I didn’t want him as a married man.
It was only a month or so into at least a four to five-month process and I was already ready to throw in the towel. I was going crazy and every time I came home from work, I knew I was going back to him.It was nice because we got to
try out the whole living together thing, but it wasn’t at all what I’d seen happening. Then Matt would do something sweet and I’d been in the mindset of giving him everything that he wanted.
Tonight, I was in the mindset quickly. He was cooking, a not too manly thing, unless one considered the shirtless man that was doing it. His muscles bulged while he cooked. Mathew was asleep not too far away and I was left unable to speak. I’d missed that body and it was hard to look away. I could see all of him when I closed my eyes and it was hard not to fill in the spots that were covered. One part of him had been on my mind all day today.
He didn’t hear me come in, so I went off to my room and got undressed and popped into the shower. It had been a long day and I felt like I needed a cold shower like I needed my left kidney.
When I got out, he was still in the kitchen and something smelled good.
“You cook now too?”
“I can cook like three things and this is one of them.”
I didn’t know what was in the pot and I didn’t care. My eyes were on the hard lines of his chest and the heart beating behind his skin. He was hot as hell and I was having a hard time ignoring him.
“Uh huh.”
“Are you not listening?”
I’d said the same thing myself and I guess that I wasn’t. I pulled the towel a little tighter around me and it was the first time in a long time that I looked at the man in front of me. Our eyes met, and I wasn’t the only one bothered.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
Matt growled, and I had to giggle from his response. He was always so in control.
“Like you want to be ravaged.”
“I don’t think that it’s a thing.”
“It is. You are begging for it.”
He moved closer and I moved away from him a bit. I didn’t trust myself with him and no matter how much I liked to think that I was in control, I knew that I wasn’t. He was always the one that could make me think twice about everything and he’d certainly done so with this waiting thing. It had been what seemed like forever and this was just a fourth of the time. That realization had my heart going a little faster. Was there any way that I was going to be able to deal with that?