by Eden Finley
He narrowed his eyes. Yup, he didn’t believe the bullshit coming out of my mouth either.
“We ready to go?” Reece reappeared. Her hair was tied back, and she was wearing a pale pink maternity dress.
“Whoa, your belly looks huge in that.” Oops. Probably not the best thing I could’ve said.
“Did you seriously just say that to a pregnant lady?”
“I, uh, umm. I mean, you look great, but it’s like you’ve suddenly popped.”
“I know,” she whined. “None of my clothes fit anymore. Had to dredge this thing up from a box I had in the bottom of my closet.”
“Maybe we can go shopping this afternoon, and you can pick up a few things.”
She pursed her lips. “Nah, that’s okay. I’ll just go to the storage unit and find some of my really old clothes I kept over the years. I’ve always yo-yoed in size, so I have one of everything.”
“Is it a money thing? Because—”
“Cody, can you go get ready, please? You’re the one who wanted to go to the park.”
Cody quickly finished off his cereal and left the room.
“I can buy you maternity clothes, Reece.”
“No. Our money stays separate.”
One of her rules. I gritted my teeth and told myself to let it go. For now.
When we arrived at the skate park, Cody went straight to the ramps on his scooter, and Reece and I headed for the ice cream van.
“So, is this like a craving?” I asked.
“Nah. I just felt like ice cream.”
“Isn’t that the definition of a craving?” I laughed.
“Shut up.”
We strolled the path that looped around the park and a large pond. We didn’t get far before Reece wanted to turn around so we didn’t lose sight of Cody.
The breeze picked up, and the cool wind off the lake made me shiver.
“Hmm, dunno if spring is ice cream weather. I’m cold.” I took another bite anyway.
“Really? I’m finding it nice. Your furnace of a son is making me sweat. Profusely.”
“Mm, I love it when you talk dirty,” I joked before turning serious. “So, listen—”
“Please don’t bring up the money thing again. I told you I want to do this on my own. Since I started working, I’ve been able to save some money, but I don’t want to waste it on clothes. I can wear my old things. I’ll need my savings to buy all the baby stuff we need. Like a crib, and a stroller, and bottles, and—oh God, I forgot how much crap babies come with.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk about. This is my son too, right? Shouldn’t I be paying for that? You should keep your savings.”
“I’ll welcome a fifty-fifty split, but that’s the best I can do.”
We walked past a trash can, and I threw the rest of my ice cream out. I no longer had an appetite, and it was too cold.
“Let me pay for it all,” I said. “I earn way more money than you. I can afford it. This isn’t giving you a handout. It’s buying stuff for my son. And that includes maternity clothes. Can’t have his mother walking around naked. I may have to kill people who stare, and then you’d have to bring the baby to visit me in prison. That seems extreme when the simple solution is to let me pay for the things our kid needs.”
She sighed as she shoved more ice cream in her mouth.
“I’d be offering this to you even if we weren’t together.”
A nod was the best I could pull out of her, but I took it as a win.
***
I thought I was a patient man. Turned out, I was anything but. I’d waited fifteen years for my chance with Reece, knowing it most likely wasn’t going to happen. Now that I had it, I was determined to lock it in and make it real.
She may’ve been giving me a shot, but her rules and conditions meant she still had one foot out the door.
Over the last few weeks, we’d had sex on nearly every possible surface of the house, including the kitchen table as I promised. We even christened the nursery floor. We were meant to be picking out paint colours for the wall, and after about an hour of disagreeing—I wanted blue, she wanted beige—we gave up arguing and fucked instead.
Good times.
But she still refused to touch me whenever Cody was home.
Though everything was easy between us, Reece remained adamant no one could know. Especially our group of friends and the people from work. I didn’t completely understand why.
“Reece, I need to see you in my office,” I said to her as soon as she arrived for her Friday-night shift.
She smiled sweetly, probably remembering her visit to my office last week where I pushed her against the door and kissed her until her lips were swollen.
“What’s up?” she asked, closing the door behind her. She stalked towards me and propped her hip against the desk.
“Did Cole message you?” I pulled my chair away from her so I could control the urge to take her right now. We’d had sex this morning before I left for work, but on days we didn’t have Cody, we were going at it like bunnies. It was difficult to restrain myself.
“About going to pub night?” she asked.
“Hunter’s brother is up from Sydney and wants to catch up with everyone.”
“I already told Cole I couldn’t go. Even if I wasn’t working, we’d have no one to watch Cody, so he can’t go either.”
“You’re going,” I ordered. “I called Fletch in to cover your shift, and I’m paying Hailey to watch Cody.”
“Your niece is sixteen.”
“She’s responsible, and Cody basically looks after himself. She just has to make sure he doesn’t burn the house down or do something stupid like try to fly off the roof.”
She bit her lip. “I dunno …”
“Well, as your boss, I’m telling you you’re not needed for your shift. As your secret boyfriend, I’m begging you to come out with me tonight. We’ve never gone on an actual date because you work so late, and we only have nights together when Cody isn’t home. And maybe …”
“Maybe what?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
“You’re thinking that maybe if the others see us as a couple, that I’ll want to tell everyone?” she asked.
“More like show you that even though we’re a couple, nothing will be different with our friends.”
“I’m not ready.”
“Will you ever be? I don’t understand why you’re adamant this has to be a secret.”
She slinked off the desk and approached, lowering herself onto my lap. Her bump got in our way and made it difficult for her to keep her balance when each knee hit the side of my hips as she straddled me.
“He’s getting a bit too big for this,” she complained, “but I wanted to prove my point that I’m in. I’m all in. I’m just not ready for the world to know yet.”
“Why?”
“What if it doesn’t work out?”
“What if it does? Am I going to have to wait until I put a ring on your finger to let everyone know we’re together?”
Her eyes widened, and she tried to pull off me, but I gripped her hips and pulled her back down.
“I’m not proposing or thinking of proposing or anywhere close to thinking about marriage, so you can stop freaking out. I don’t care if we never get married. I just want to be with you and give us a proper shot, but you’re not even willing to do that. Right now, I feel like your fuck-buddy rather than your live-in boyfriend whose baby you’re having.”
It was way too soon to be having this conversation. We hadn’t been officially together long, but for me it’d been fifteen years to get to this point.
“I get that,” she whispered. “But I have to take everything else into account. Something’s going on with Cody, and it’s not a good time. He’s talking back, he’s become irritable, and he’s got this attitude that he never had before. And it’s only with me, because I asked Cole about it, and he says he’s been his usual self.”
“I noticed he had a bit of
an attitude, but isn’t that what boys do? You said yourself they go through phases.”
She shook her head. “It’s something else this time. I don’t know if it’s a problem at school or what. All I know is he seems to come home from Cole’s each weekend in a shitty mood. I contemplated that Paige was trying to turn my son against me—”
“I don’t know Paige well, but I doubt she’d do that. Cole wouldn’t put up with it either.”
“I know. I know I’m wrong. It’s stupid of me to hold hope his attitude has nothing to do with me, but I think it does, so I’m looking for excuses. I think I’ve confused him with all these changes, and to add another …”
Even though I thought she was using excuses, I understood putting Cody before us. I’d do the same for the baby growing inside her. “Okay, I get it. We need time.”
She leaned in and kissed me briefly. “I am looking forward to our non-date-slash-secret-date though. We haven’t been out as a couple before.”
“You’re forgetting we’ll only be friends when we’re out tonight.”
“Maybe we can sneak off at some point and recreate the night we first got together.” She waggled her eyebrows.
I laughed. “As awesome as that sounds, I’m not so sure it’d be easy to fuck against a wall with a baby in the way.” I rubbed over her stomach, and my son gave me a kick in response. It still made me smile. He started doing it not long after Reece and I started sleeping together, and my new favourite thing to do after making her come was rest my head on her stomach and feel my son wriggling and kicking.
The first time it happened, it weirded me out. I said it was like some fucked-up threesome. Reece laughed at me and assured me the baby had no idea what I was doing to his mother. I hoped to God that was true, because the therapy bills would be astronomical.
“When the baby’s here, we’ll get a babysitter and then recreate it,” I said, “but you know, with working birth control.”
“Definitely with working birth control,” she agreed.
“I wish I had time to fuck you right now, but we need to go pick up Cody and head home to wait for Hailey. Then, the pub.”
Having Cody at ours tonight meant I wouldn’t get inside her again until Wednesday at the earliest. The next five days were going to drive me crazy. Maybe we’d have to start fucking in the office. I could definitely get on board with that.
***
When we arrived at the pub, Cole and Paige were the only ones there.
“Awkward,” I singsonged in Reece’s ear.
“It’ll be fine. Paige and I made a deal to be civil to one another.” Was she trying to convince me or herself of that?
“Guess I’m not allowed to hold your hand?”
At her glare, I backed off. I was pushing it, but that didn’t stop me from putting my hand on the small of her back as we made our way to the booth.
Cole and Paige hadn’t noticed us yet and were laughing about something, but it abruptly stopped when Cole spotted us.
“Hey, guys, thanks for taking Cody for the night.”
So far so good.
Reece’s smile was tight. “No problem. Well, maybe a problem. We’ll see how Hailey goes babysitting him.”
“Who’s Hailey?” Cole asked.
“My niece,” I said.
Cole turned to Reece. “I thought you were going to get your parents to watch him. How old is Hailey?”
I scoffed, not only at his overprotectiveness but also at the fact he didn’t know Reece was no longer in contact with her parents. “No wonder you two were married. Hailey’s sixteen, Reece has already grilled her with a million questions, and I’ve pulled the uncle card. If she so much as invites her boyfriend over, I’ll bury him in my backyard. I secretly think my sister would love him to turn up. She’s not a fan.”
“You’re calling to check regularly, right?” Cole asked Reece.
I groaned and threw myself in the booth opposite him and Paige. “God, you’re still the same as when he was younger. I remember you used to trade off every half hour to call Cole’s mother when she had him.”
“We are not that bad,” Reece said, sliding in next to me. She had to bend at a weird angle because of her baby bump.
Paige grimaced at the word we. I could see how it’d be hard for a twenty-one-year-old to deal with the fact her boyfriend was always going to be a we with someone else. Even I felt like I was the intruder. I’d always known them as together in one way or another.
“You don’t even leave Cody home with me to run to the store to get milk,” I pointed out. And yeah, that pissed me off. She didn’t trust me with her son. That morning we spent flipping pancakes was the only time I’d been left alone with him, and that was because she was asleep. That didn’t count.
“I haven’t?” she asked. “I didn’t realise. I leave him with Pip or Gage sometimes and other kids’ parents, so I can’t be that bad and overprotective, right?”
“I leave him with Hunter,” Cole argued.
I shrugged it off, but then the awkward silence I was expecting between the four of us finally fell.
Paige broke it, which wasn’t weird, but her words were. “You look good, Reece. You’ve got that whole pregnant glow thing going on.”
Reece pursed her lips but didn’t say anything and then winced when Cole glared at her and I heard a thump.
“Did you just kick her under the table?” I asked.
“I’m reminding her to play nice,” Cole said.
“I’m sorry,” Reece said to Paige, “I didn’t know if you were being sarcastic, and I didn’t know how to respond.”
“I’m not like you. I don’t make a habit of lying to people’s faces,” Paige bit back.
Yeah, this was a great idea.
“I deserved that,” Reece said, her tone sad and defeated. “Excuse me, I need to pee.” She left the table in a hurry. Well, as fast as she could; her bump got in the way again. It’d definitely popped in the last week or two. She went from a tiny bump to holy crap, she still has three months of growing this thing?
“Shortcake,” Cole said, using his weird-ass nickname for her, “you promised.”
I didn’t have a nickname for Reece. Apart from Reecie, but that was more to piss her off.
“It’s hard, okay?” Paige whined. “I tried and she thought I was making fun of her.”
“You have to admit, it was a little over the top,” I said. “Being civil is one thing. Being nice is weird.”
“Why?” Paige asked.
“You’re the daughter of her ex-fiancé, who she cheated on with me. Oh, and you’re also dating her ex-husband. Of course, it’s going to be weird around you. She feels insanely guilty over what she did to your dad and to you guys. Trust me when I say she hates herself for it more than you or Paul ever could.” I didn’t know the full story of how Reece broke Cole and Paige up, but it was when her life was spiralling so far out of control she didn’t know what to do anymore. I didn’t need the details. She made a mistake, she apologised, and we all needed to move on.
“Well, she should feel guilty,” Paige snapped but then slumped in resignation. “Although, if I’m completely honest, Dad’s dating someone, and he seems happier than he was with Reece. It’s more … real? I guess real is the right word. And it wouldn’t have happened if that big scene at the wedding didn’t go down.”
“How so?” I asked.
“He consulted a co-worker about the possibility of annulment after the commotion. They chased down the celebrant together to stop the license from being filed, and well, she said he deserved better, he smiled, and then, you know, the rest was history, as they say.”
“So you’re telling me your dad started dating someone the same day his wedding fell to pieces? And you’re pissed at Reece for breaking his heart, how?”
“They didn’t start dating until Reece moved out, but okay, you have a point. It doesn’t make what you guys did right, though.”
“I never said it did. We know what we did
was wrong, but maybe it was what was needed for both Reece and your dad to realise they weren’t right for each other.”
Cole narrowed his eyes. “Are you trying to tell me fate made you fuck my ex-wife?”
“Yeah, because look how great that’s working out for me,” I said sarcastically.
Paige sighed. “I’ll go apologise for coming across as rude even though I was trying to be polite. She really is glowing. Don’t pregnant women like to hear that?” She climbed out of the booth and made her way to the bathrooms.
“Question,” Cole said and took a sip of his Coke.
“Should I be scared?”
“Are you fucking Reece?”
“Wow, straight to it then, I guess.”
“Are you?”
“Would you have a problem if I was?”
“Ah,” he said and slinked back in his seat. “You want to.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, man.” God, I sucked at lying.
“Are you supporting her? Financially?”
“Nope. Not at all. She works for CTD and pays me rent. She’s not my girlfriend, so why would I give her any money for anything but the baby?”
“I just … I figured you would be, is all.”
“What, you think Reece is after my money? I don’t even have that much.”
“You think none of us know you’re a millionaire?”
“W-what?” I stammered.
“Didn’t your company make some list for one of the highest-grossing local businesses of last year?”
“Local business. That’s where the catch is. I made a decent profit, but I earned hardly anything compared to other software companies. Where did you hear that anyway?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. I think Hunter sent me a link to an article about it. All I remember was thinking it needed to be your shout at the pub. Then I realised I was sober now, and that sucked, so I didn’t bring it up.”
“Does Reece know?” My voice was quiet.
“How rich you are? You’d have to ask her. I have no idea what she does and doesn’t know anymore. You’re the one living with her. And you just said she’s working for you. Surely, she’d suspect.”
“I think she’s under the impression I only manage the place. I don’t think she realises I own it outright.”