Due Date_A Baby Contract Romance

by Emily Bishop

  “Rem. Hey.” Wes leaned across the table.

  * * *

  I forced my laugh to falter. Dropping my taco in front of me, I slid my fingers together, waiting. “Yes?”

  “I think you’re going to be a fucking good mom, if you want that,” Wes finally said.

  I just blinked at him. I felt a wave of something so familiar—so much like love. But I shoved it back, knowing it was irresponsible. It would poison us. I drew my eyes to my taco, suddenly feeling my hunger pangs leave. Wes reached across the table, trying to touch my fingers. But I yanked my hand back, shaking my head.

  “No. Please,” I whispered. Again, I felt an onslaught of tears, steaming into my eyes. My hormones were in constant flux, making me minutes from laughing, seconds from crying. No matter what.

  “It’s not good, trying to toy with my feelings like this. Especially when, well…” I trailed off.

  “Rem.” His voice was so dominant, a force in my ear.

  I turned my eyes back to his, waiting. What did I expect him to say? That he was going to stick around? That the ring on my finger actually meant something more than “just something he borrowed from a friend”? I tapped my fingers along the edge of my grape soda glass, feeling, suddenly, very much like a thirty-year-old. Not anything like that seventeen-year-old who’d giggled here years ago, her life stretched before her.

  “I just need to focus on the movie, Wes. And if you don’t think you can stick around for it, you need to tell me,” I finally stuttered. “Because I can find anyone else to take that role. Someone who will stick around. Someone who will learn their lines and—”

  * * *

  “You really don’t think I’ll do it?” he demanded, his voice growing more volatile. This was a familiar game. A fight we’d constructed before. “I agreed to it, didn’t I?”

  “Fuck, Wes! I don’t know what you’ll do from one day to the next. Quintin says he can’t rely on you, and I shouldn’t either!” I spat. I clambered out of the booth and strode toward the front door, my feet itching with desire to flee. Outside, I inhaled sharply. The air was fresh against my throat. I spun back and watched as Wes sped after me, his eyes burning.

  He gripped my shoulders on either side. I tried to strain away from him, to tell him to leave me alone. But I felt intoxicated: a flurry of emotions, memories, and something a lot like love. Before I knew what happened, Wes rushed toward me, filling the gap between us. His lips locked over mine, hungry for me. I tilted my head back, taking his with me. His tongue slid through my lips, parting them, and gliding along mine. A moan escaped my throat. My pussy pulsed for him, eager. I grew wet, even as his hands inched up my arms and gripped on either side of my neck. His thumbs traced back and forth beneath my ear. They were tender motions. I felt like I was falling back into a cloud. Like I was freefalling away from reality.

  Even my knees gave out, forcing me to fall into him.

  “Wow,” I whispered, the minute the kiss broke. “I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”

  There wasn’t anything to say. Within two minutes, Wesley had boxed up the rest of our food and called a car to drive us out to his cabin. We kissed like teenagers in the back of the car, my legs slung up over his lap and my fingers slipping along the girth of his cock. I could feel the veins pulsing just beneath. His cock was rock-hard, pressing so tightly against his jeans. His eyes burned with desire to thrust off his pants and glide into me. “You were always my home,” was something he’d always said, when we were teenagers. Now, I felt those words as if he’d said them only seconds before. Of course, he hadn’t, and wouldn’t. It wasn’t a part of the contract.

  * * *

  Maybe this was just residual emotion, I told myself. Maybe this was just something we had to tear out of our systems. Even as his baby formed cells in my belly, making me nauseated, a brimming bucket of sickness each and every morning, I knew we couldn’t fall in love. Not truly. Not again.

  Maybe we were too cynical for it now.

  The taxi dropped us at Wesley’s cabin, and he smacked several bills in the driver’s hand. He led me toward the door with a firm hand on my back, allowing his fingers to linger along the top of my ass. I gazed up at him as we entered the doorway, my lips hungry for his kiss. And god, he gave it. There, perched in the doorway, my finger holding the ring that lied, saying I was his and he was mine. For good.

  Why? Why couldn’t it be so? I wondered, before I fell back into feeling.

  18

  Wesley

  My head spun as I laid Remy out on the bed. Her tits—always so wholesome, so milky and large—were even bigger now. They strained against her T-shirt, making her nipples pop. Even as I looked at this woman who’d agreed to carry my child—to give birth for me!—I still felt my rock-hard cock throbbing in my pants. She filled me with almost boundless sexual energy.

  I dove to my knees in front of her, watching as she separated her legs. In one swift move, she unbuttoned her pants and shimmied them down. Within seconds, she removed her panties. My nose filled with the smell of her. Her pussy lips were soft, pink, stretching open for me. As I watched, captivated, Remy reached between her legs and began to stroke herself, gazing into my eyes. Her fingers found the dark hole beneath her clit, disappeared for a second, and came back shiny, wet. Unable to resist, I moved forward, kissing her fingers, tasting her.

  “Where the hell have you been?” I whispered, leaning over her. I removed her hand from her pussy and took the lead, sliding my fingers through the wetness. She tossed her head back in response, her eyes finding the ceiling before closing. A long moan escaped her lips. Not wanting to stop this wave, I moved my lips to her naval, dotting little kisses along where I knew our baby was growing. Remy laced her fingers through my hair, yanking it. I knew there were a million little unsaid things between us. I felt a surge of adrenaline to say them all—to say that, fuck it, maybe I did want this baby. That fuck it, maybe settling with Remy wasn’t anything like “settling” with some other woman, who wanted to tie you down and make sure you didn’t live again.

  * * *

  My tongue found the little nub of her clit and rubbed it. Remy moaned wildly now, ripping her T-shirt from her shoulders and allowing her tits to bounce. She squeezed at the large, brown coins of her nipples and stared down at me. She looked like she was unable to comprehend this depth of feeling.

  Remy reached for my thighs, lifting her head. Following her lead, my cock nearly ripping from my pants anyway, I brought myself up to her and watched as her little fingers scrambled at the button, revealing me. My dick fell into her hand, making her fingers look so small. Immediately, my cock surged with feeling, straining at her touch. Her fingers toyed with his ridge, making small drops of cum dot along her legs, just below.

  Had she been any other woman, I would have told her what to do. To suck my cock long and hard, to deep throat it. But Remy’s eyes burned with years of knowing my body, my mind. Suddenly, her eyes closed, she thrust herself forward, bringing the tip of my cock all the way to the back of her throat. My head lolled back. Her tongue traced the ridges and veins slowly, as if she were marking her territory. My head felt close to exploding.

  When she finally drew back, looking at me in a mischievous way, she pressed her hands against my chest and toward the pillow. She straddled me, her large tits bouncing and her hair curling wildly down her chest. She giggled like this was a game. And, I reminded myself, a “game” was very much what we’d been calling it the entire time.

  “Did you ever think you’d sleep with me again?” she murmured, bringing her mouth against the firm mound of my shoulder muscle and kissing it lightly, before biting me. Her teeth entered my skin, nearly drawing blood. “Hmm?”

  “It’s not like I didn’t think about it, you little monkey,” I said, reaching up and squeezing her ass. I allowed my nails to press, making her squirm and squeal.

  Jittery, alive, Remy lowered her pussy down onto my cock and began to hump me—slowly at first, like she wa
s trying to playact as some kind of professional sexy dancer. She let her hips ease back and forth, her ass sweeping against the tops of my thighs. She reached back, cupping my balls and bouncing them slightly, grinning.

  The slow, smooth motions drove me wild. I felt seconds from exploding. I sat up fast and flipped her over, sweeping her over the bed. She giggled, yet showed her shock with large eyes. I thrust myself into her from above, feeling her nipples brush against my chest. Holding her eyes with mine, I licked my lips, feeling sweat drip down my forehead, my cheeks.

  “Jesus, Rem,” I whispered. “You’re a fucking tiger.”

  When we finally did come, we did it together: me, fast and hard and rough, with a small finger up the little dark, tight hole of her ass, making her toss her head back, grip my shoulders for some sort of last tether to reality. When she finally opened her eyes, a few tears fell out. Her lips seemed brimming to say something real. Something perhaps like, “I love you.” But she held it back. She must have known it would overcomplicate it.

  We’d already overcomplicated everything.

  Remy and I fell asleep in one another’s arms, her cheek tight against my chest. I listened as her breathing slowed showing her entering into darkness. My hand pressed against her lower back, still marveling at the baby that grew beneath.

  This baby. It was real now. And—for whatever goddamn reason—I’d agreed to stick around San Francisco while it happened. I’d agreed to be in Remy’s film.

  * * *

  Doctor’s appointments. Table readings. Probably long, sleepless nights while Remy remained awake, unable to calm herself or fight off pregnancy sickness. I was going to be around for all of it.

  That familiar pang of regret filled me, making my heart bump wildly in my chest. It was fear. Fear of building something when I hadn’t stuck around to build anything before.

  What if I couldn’t do it? What if, when the baby came, I really did run away from the situation as fast and as hard as I could—finding myself with a well-stocked bank account in some wild East Coast town, where no one knew my name? Of course that sounded delicious. All adventure did, to me. But as the thoughts raced, Remy cooed against me—far away in dreamland. This small noise felt bigger, more intimate, more powerful, because I was the only one in the world who’d heard it. I was the only one gifted this time with her, to watch her sleep.

  What the hell was I going to do?

  19

  Remy

  It was four months after that fateful night at Wesley’s cabin, and one of the last days of filming for the movie.

  The flowers from “Your Baby Daddy” awaited me, right on top of the director’s chair. They brimmed with life, their yellow petals capturing the light streaming in from the large windows in the little San Francisco church we were filming in that week. Now, at five months pregnant, I lifted the flowers from the chair and fell into their place. My body felt strange, alien to me, with the belly popping up beneath my dresses. “Do I look pregnant, or just fat?” I’d asked several members of my film crew lately, teasing them and testing them. “Be honest, Jeffrey. I can take it.” Of course, Jeffrey had just looked sheepish in return, fumbling with the boom and pretending to talk to someone else. The answer? I was definitely growing. Fat, pregnant, whatever it was—it was happening.

  We’d been filming for about six weeks. It had been difficult, in the beginning, to secure permits to film in all the locations I wanted to film in, and beyond that, we’d struggled endlessly with finding the proper sets and set designers. Sam had helped me with much of that search. We’d even driven to Los Angeles once, to scout out some old now-strangers, but soon found ourselves shuffling back to San Francisco, eager to shake out the memories of our Los Angeles years.

  “Just don’t call Tyler, all right?” Sam hands had gripped the steering wheel tightly. “You haven’t heard from him at all since you left?”

  * * *

  I pressed my lips together, my heart surging with apprehension. In actuality, in the previous few months, I had heard from Tyler. His texts had been surprisingly kind, almost funny, although our relationship had been anything but. “If you ever come back to Los Angeles, I know we could try again,” one of them had read. “You were always the one for me, Rem. I knew it ever since I laid eyes on you.”

  “It’s not like I want to see him again,” I sighed to Sam, slipping my sunglasses over my eyes to block out that penetrating Southern California stream. “He was absolutely atrocious to me.”

  “Well, so was Wesley,” Sam offered. “And it seems like you guys are—well, I’d be surprised if you’re not fucking. I know you don’t want to talk about it. But…”

  “Just. I don’t need any judgment,” I’d sighed in return, making long scribbles down my notebook.

  I hadn’t wanted to tell Sam about fucking Wesley because I didn’t want to rationalize it or try to build it up in my mind as anything but just that. But each time we did—although it was becoming a bit more difficult, with my growing belly—I fell deeper into him, imagining him holding our child in his muscular arms, imagining him using his large hands to dot a tiny diaper on our child, to hold his hair while he cried…

  Of course, I was still too chickenshit to ask if he planned to stick around. To ask if this world mattered to him at all.

  When we’d found out the gender of the baby—a boy—Wesley had held my hand so tightly, I’d lost all the blood from the fingers. Within seconds of leaving the doctor’s office, he’d scrambled his phone to his ear to call his own dad. “It’s a boy, Dad. I know. I’m going to have a son.”

  * * *

  I’d never heard such sincerity in his voice. Such promise.

  But that didn’t mean he was going to stick around.

  It was thirty minutes before the actors would arrive on set, leaving me a bit of time to prep. The cameramen positioned themselves and then began their light banter, nibbling on doughnuts and slurping burnt coffee. I simmered in the director’s chair, holding the flowers against my chest. I knew these were an apology. That Wes was anxious I was angry about him missing half of rehearsal a few days ago. In truth, when I looked at the situation realistically, I’d been shocked that he hadn’t missed more rehearsals and shoots in the previous few weeks—knowing only that “Wesley was unreliable,” that he couldn’t care about my project as much as I did. Quintin echoed these words to me constantly. “Just the fact that he’s showing up to more than fifty percent of them should make you happy,” he said. “He barely came to fifty percent of high school classes.”

  But Jesus, no. It didn’t make me happy. It enraged me, made me stay up many sleepless nights, cursing myself for ever involving Wesley in my art project. Sure, he was damn good at acting—he really lit up the screen and filled the character, providing a gruff, almost animalistic quality. But was it worth it? It seemed to be ripping at our quasi-relationship: one of pure fucking, and the occasional ill-conceived hope that maybe, just maybe, Wesley would want to settle down. To be with our son and me.

  It was a consistent thing I had to fight back against. “He doesn’t want that. And you don’t need it,” I’d muttered to myself, time and time again. “He’s just a means to an end for you.”

  Sam arrived on set, her trench coat streaming behind her. She slipped her sunglasses from her nose and eyed the floral arrangement with pressed lips.

  * * *

  “So. He’s apologizing, is he?” she sighed.

  “It appears so,” I said, my voice sarcastic. “As if a few flowers are going to mop up the fact that we lost like three hours of work.”

  “Did you really think it would go any other way?”

  “I thought he fucking knew that this movie was the only reason I was doing any of this,” I scoffed. “I mean, I wouldn’t be pregnant if he hadn’t dangled this money, saying you can finally make your dreams come true. Blah blah blah.”

  Sam chuckled slightly, her eyes still burning. “Not to mention what it’s doing to the rest of the cast. Gwen to
ld me she had to reschedule a doctor’s appointment because of the asshole. Any idea where he was when he bailed? Or is it just one of these magical, mystery things that old Wesley does to keep you on your toes?”

  “I don’t know,” I sighed, shrugging. “I mean—”

  “Well, he is coming today, right?” she asked, cutting me off. “Because this scene between me and him— Well, it cinches the entire climax of the second act,” Sam said, speaking in a high-pitched, know-it-all tone.

  “Jesus, Sam. Sometimes you talk like you’re the one who wrote the goddamn movie,” I sputtered, standing quickly. I hobbled back toward the bathroom, my bladder full and sloshing all over again. When I reached the mirror, I gazed at myself—an unrecognizable force, as of late. A bulbous woman. A bubble.

  I heard Wesley before I spotted him. I angled back from the bathroom and watched as he spoke to one of the cameramen, a San Francisco native named Eric, with gruff words. His tone was that of a bad boy, filled with arrogance—so unlike the man who’d tucked me into bed a few nights before, telling me that the baby and I would be safe.

  “I tell you, I mean, don’t mention this to Remy—” Wesley said to Eric, his voice growing lower. “But I was out on Highway 1 and I got the itch in me, right? I just tore down the state on my bike, knowing I had to get back for rehearsal. Knowing she would fucking kill me if I missed it. But it’s like I can’t… do anything right now. Or go anywhere. Or live. It’s like being on my bike is all I have left, you know?”

  “Man, you really think you can raise a baby like this?” Eric asked, scoffing slightly.