Just Good Friends (Cheap Thrills Series Book 5)

by Mary B. Moore

  He shrugged and apologized, but I don’t think he meant it. Well, at least until he leaned forward and held out a ring in his hand. “It was your great-grandmother’s engagement ring. She married an Earl who died after three years, but they were lucky to have your grandad before he did. He had a title, but he wasn’t a rich man, so she worked hard to support her son after losing her husband. My dad was at war when her house was bombed during World War II, and when he came home, this was what he found in the rubble.”

  I knew the story, and looking at the ring, I knew it was perfect for Tamsin. Small diamonds made a spiral at the top of it with about a half-carat of diamond in the middle, nestled on a gold band—unique, with history, and perfect.

  Will whistled when he saw it. “Man, that is beautiful. When I asked Lea to marry me, all I could afford was a diamond the size of a mouse fart.”

  “My grandad bartered pretty much half of what he had to get it for her, but he knew my grandmother would love it.”

  Wrapping it up in my fist, I almost jumped up to give it to her then and there, but I knew I had to do it properly.

  What I didn’t expect was to not get the chance until after I’d been wrangled onto a boat to re-enact Jaws and had spent a day at sea puking over the edge with only one arm to balance myself when waves hit us because of my shoulder.

  In the end, I did it by sticking my hand through the model of a huge shark’s jaws, which was hanging in the bar we ended up in, begging her to take it and marry me. Granted, I’d drunk a lot of whisky to recover from the boat trip, which had a lot to do with it, but the videos and photos that went viral on the internet made it unforgettable.

  According to the Townsend women, that’s what every bride wanted, an unforgettable proposal and wedding. I just wished it hadn’t been like that. I was never getting away from it for the rest of my life. There were even memes made out of it.

  And four years later, she’d graduated from college, was now a guidance counselor at the high school, and loved every second of it.

  Until she got pregnant six months into it. My bad!

  We were days away from welcoming our kid into the world, and neither of us knew what we were having, except that he or she was a great white shark sized baby. She’d gone for a scan last week to check on the little guy, and even the technicians and doctor had winced when they’d seen him or her. I felt for my poor wife’s vagina.

  Because she was due any day, she was now off work so that she didn’t scare a high school full of impressionable teenagers by giving birth in front of them. That meant that I got to cuddle into her and enjoy these last days with just the two of us.

  So, rolling over, I threw my arm around her waist and buried my face in the back of her neck. It used to be that I could get my arm all the way around her, but now I was lucky if my fingers touched the mattress thanks to her bump. And I loved every inch of her.

  Except she really needed to wash her hair.

  Even after she’d had the cast taken off I loved washing it for her, so it was no chore if she said yes. “Pretty girl, do you want me to wash your hair for you?”

  There was a low growl from her, which made me smile.

  This time when I nuzzled my nose into her, her hair felt weird. Short, prickly, and not at all like the long raven strands I knew so well.

  That’s when it all made sense—I was spooning my fucking dog. Again!

  Clyde had a habit of jumping up on the bed when there was just one of us in it, and I was trying to break him out of it. It was like with the baby on the way, he was worried about being left out of things and forgotten. Like we could. He’d saved our lives, plus he was an integral part of our family.

  Still.

  “Clyde, if you don’t get your ass off this bed in the next two seconds, I’m gonna—”

  “Don’t you dare threaten my baby again,” Tamsin clipped, appearing behind me. “I’ve got to go into work for an hour to talk to one of the seniors. Get some sleep and apologize to him when you get up.” Then, flashing me a sweet smile, she gave me a quick kiss, not minding my morning breath at all. “Love you!”

  And then she was gone. That was life with Tamsin Evans, though. It was an adventure with highs and lows, but the lows were absorbed into the highs, and you never doubted how much she loved you.

  It didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do as I was told, though…

  Two hours later…

  I hadn’t set the alarm, but the fucking thing kept going off. I was just leaning up to throw my phone across the room when I saw Tamsin’s name on the screen.

  “’Lo?”

  I could hear her panting slightly, and it woke me up immediately. Even though Gjorka wasn’t a part of this world anymore—thanks to someone who had an issue with him in the prison he’d eventually been sent to after a lengthy trial—going through that had stuck with me, so it was instinct to panic whenever there was something wrong.

  “Honey, I’ve got a problem.”

  The sleep fog dropped instantly, and I was on my feet the second she stopped talking. “What is it, baby?”

  Putting the phone on speaker, I grabbed a pair of dark grey sweats out of my drawer and a t-shirt and yanked them on, thanking all that was holy that I’d had a shower when I got in this morning. I never went to bed with the dirt from work on me.

  “Um, you see, I stopped in to congratulate one of the classes on getting good grades in their exams—they went from all getting C’s to B’s, Garrett. Isn’t that great?”

  “Yeah, baby, that’s great,” I murmured, quickly brushing my teeth and then grabbing my keys on the way to the door. “Now, what’s the problem?”

  “Well, I walked into the room and jumped when they started calling my name and clapping…” she trailed off, leaving me staring at the wheel of my new Expedition.

  “And then?”

  “I just wasn’t expecting it. I’ve spent a lot of time with them, I know, but they were so excited.”

  Fuck it. I’d start driving to the school while she got to the point.

  “And then?”

  “I jumped, and it felt like the baby bounced inside me, but I know they’re okay.”

  “Uh-huh, so you bounced, and the baby did it as well. And then?” Christ, I felt like the woman out of Dude, Where’s My Car?

  Huffing out a breath, she sniffed, “Well, either I peed my pants in front of the class, or my water broke.”

  Ah, shit.

  Seeing as how she needed me to stay calm according to the classes we’d gone to, I cracked my neck and kept my voice as level as I could. “I’ll be with you in ten minutes. Do you think you can hold on that long?”

  “Tabby’s with me, and I’m not feeling any pain, so I think I’ll be okay.” I could hear whispering from Tabby, and then Tamsin came back on the line. “So, how was your day? Did you manage to watch Downton Abbey like I told you to? It suits my ring, doesn’t it?”

  I was spared from answering the question by her breath hitching and Tabby yelling, “Okay, that’s the first one. Tell me when it ends so I can set the timer on my phone.”

  Seventeen Hours Later…

  Cole Townsend had told me that he’d informed his wife that he wanted another baby the second his son was born. Witnessing what I was, I was even more convinced that the man was out of his fucking mind. My penis had crawled inside me and was never coming out again.

  “Okay, Tamsin, you’re almost there,” the doctor reassured her as she did that panting shit.

  Then the next contraction hit, and it was like she started speaking Swahili with the noises that came out of her. For half of it, I was convinced she was possessed.

  “And there we go, baby’s here, Momma,” the doctor called, holding up what looked like something out of a horror movie.

  “What the hell’s that all over it?” I cried, taking a step away as they brought it closer to me.

  I was never eating jelly, miracle whip, or cream cheese again. That shit was out.

  “It’s
just what nature does to protect the baby,” the nurse chuckled, wiping it with a towel. “See, it comes off.”

  “It’s… I-Is that even sanitary?”

  Grabbing the leg of my sweats, Tamsin pulled me to the side of the bed. “You will cut the umbilical cord, hold our baby, and stop being a pussy. Do I make myself clear?”

  Moving over to where the guy was holding out a pair of scissors, I checked with the nurse, “Are you going to wipe more of the gunk off it?”

  I had a new car, and if it was covered in gunk, I was going to need to put protective sheeting down when we took it home.

  “Yes, we’ll clean baby for you, then you can give him a bath when his momma’s ready for it.”

  Turning back to the crime scene in front of me, I did my best not to look at where the cord was still attached, but it was fucking hard. I’d had a mental image of me being this strong, alpha man when Tamsin gave birth, the guy who saved the day by getting her through it better than any other father in history. Instead, I was looking at the car crash that used to be my poor, beautiful wife’s vagina, with a bungee cord that attached it to my kid who was covered in crap, trying not to lose my mind.

  With a shaky hand, I opened the scissors and moved them to where the doctor was pointing. “Just cut between the two clips here.”

  “What happens to the part that’s attached to Tamsin? Does it spring back inside her?”

  The doctor chuckled and waved at me to do what I was delaying. “No, the placenta will come out of her with the cord attached, don’t worry.”

  Easy for him to say. My wife had a bungee dick, and I was cutting it.

  Squeezing down on the scissors, I felt the resistance of whatever the cord was made of. “Holy shit, do they melt down tires to make this?”

  It felt like I was using the scissors to saw through it, and then when I was halfway through, my kid started screaming its head off, making me drop them. I swear this was worse than what she’d just been through. Women had no clue what it was like watching it all and then cutting this shit.

  Finally, I got all the way through, then bent over, and dry heaved. I’d done so well, but it was happening again. I could face crime scenes and gore, but apparently, for everything else, my stomach was weak.

  “You did good, Daddy. Now let’s go and take the baby over there, and you can tell Momma what you’ve got.”

  Rubbing my face with both hands, I moved over to where two nurses were smiling and waiting for me. Slowly, they both peeled back the corners of the blanket, and I felt like the biggest freak in the world, focusing on my baby’s crotch and not its face.

  The kid had a penis, and fuck me angry looking balls.

  “What happened to his nuts? Why do they look so mad?”

  “That’s just how they are, Garrett. It’ll settle down, don’t worry.”

  Tamsin had been talking to the doctor about something, so she hadn’t heard the news.

  “Pretty girl, we’ve got a boy with really pissed off balls.”

  The smile that appeared on her face could only be described as pure bliss, and everything we’d gone through over the last seventeen hours faded away. I’m not saying that my own dick had come back out of its hidey-hole, but it was definitely one of the most beautiful moments of my life.

  I even managed to carry him over to her without dropping him and then pass him over like I knew what the fuck I was doing.

  That was until the top of the blanket covering him dropped down, and I saw some of the cream cheese and jelly shit on it. That’s when my stomach rebelled violently, just as our family came in to meet him, seeing as how his momma’s vagina was back under a sheet now, and she no longer had a rope hanging out of her.

  It turns out that Hudson Evans weighed nine pounds and ten ounces. He might have been big, but every inch of him was perfection and stole my heart. A couple of hours later, when I changed my first diaper, I lifted the front flap and checked to see if his nuts had calmed down yet as I got ready to pull it out from under him. This I could do no problem now, seeing as how I’d changed Raoul’s twins often enough, but my kid just had to be different.

  See, as soon as I bent down over him to tell him it was going to be okay as he screamed, all of the pee that he had stored up since the last time he went came spraying out of him, right in my face. Yeah, his mom caught it on video, so that started making the rounds online, too.

  Instead of freaking out, though, I leaned over him and gave him my heart. “You know, your mommy and me have an issue with babies and animals pooping around us, but if they hadn’t done it, we might not have fallen in love—”

  “Yeah, we would have,” Tamsin rasped from her bed, watching me sleepily.

  With Hudson’s feet in my hands and my eyes on his mom, I murmured, “Yeah, we would have. She’s my heart, and she’s given me my world—you.”

  About the Author

  I’m a British author who grew up all over the world. My parents were diplomats, so we were posted to all of the corners of the earth and it was a blast. Some wouldn’t seem so awesome if you heard about them, but my parents always made it a fun experience and it molded my brother and I into who we are today.

  I live in Wiltshire in the west country of the UK. At random times of the day, I’ll hear a moo from the fields around me, or get a whiff of that…uhhh…’country air’, and I love it! I might not have grown up in the UK, but I’m a British girl to the bone (regardless of the suspicious whiffs coming in from the fields).

  I’m a single mother with a son who is nearing his teenage phase. Maybe he’s reached it early? Who knows. But he’s awesome and has a personality and sense of humor that I can only attribute to my family. We’re slightly bonkers, we have a wicked sense of humor and we find the positives in every situation. I’m so proud to be his mum and to watch him grow and mature.

  Writing was something that I’d always done. I had a teacher in the third grade who always set us the task of writing a story and making it into a book every weekend. After I left school, I kept this up and wrote as often as I could or just plotted out books. This evolved into me taking the plunge and publishing my first book in 2016 and I’ve been typing ever since.

  I’m proud to be an Indie Author, and I absolutely love writing out my crazy Providence characters and the more complex ones in my other series’. It doesn’t matter if it’s romantic comedy or something with more suspense – so log as it has a HEA I’ll do it!

  I’ve got so many more planned.

  Want to hear more about upcoming releases and hear from characters from the Providence and Providence Gold Series? Sign up to my newsletter:

  https://view.flodesk.com/pages/5f76283ae3a4a1ac190b037f

  Wanna join in on the crazy unicorn loving tainted romance shenanigans? Come and join my group on Facebook, 50 Shades of Neigh!

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/144042859588361/

  Also by Mary B. Moore

  More books by this author

  Providence Series

  Forever Mine – Ren & Maya

  More Than Forever – Luka & Isla

  Until Forever – Cole & Ebru

  My Forever – Cole & Ebru pt 2

  Choosing Forever – Brett & Sabine

  Until Tom, Finding Forever – Tom & Sonya

  Forever Ducked – All of the crazies

  Bound to Me Forever – Adam & Scarlett

  Providence Gold

  Until Fools Find Gold – Noah & Luna

  Mad Gold – Madix & Dahlia

  Tainted Gold- Tate & Lilith

  Going For Gold – Levi & Charlotte

  Forbidden Gold – Parker & Ariana

  Family Ties

  Great Sass—Elijah & Sadie

  Cheap Thrills Series

  Fireball – DB & Tabby

  Living On A Dare – Ellis & Jose

  Classy AF – Raul & Rose

  Talk Flirty To Me – Jarrod & Katy

  Covent Garden Series

  Quids In

 
Valiant

  Compass

  Doughty

  Force Projection

  Quick Snap Novella

  Out Of Bounds

  Available on all Amazons.

  US: www.amazon.com/Mary-B-Moore/e/B01DR11PPM

  UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mary-B-Moore/e/B01DR11PPM