“Beer,” I said to the bartender.
“Don’t worry. Maggie can hold her own with her grandma. Aileen is a force to be reckoned with.”
“Sir-”
“Call me Conor.”
“Conor, I want you to know that I love Maggie very much.”
“I know you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be out here right now. Maggie has never talked to us about a man she was seeing, let alone brought one home.”
“Really?” I asked incredulously.
“That girl, after her parents died, it was like she was on a mission to find the truth, but I’m not really sure what truth she was looking for. Honestly, I don’t think she knew either. She’s just always been on the run, chasing down stories and trying to find something.”
“Maggie told me about how her parents died. Her father was your son, right?”
He nodded and took a drink of his beer. “Sad thing, but that’s a part of life. I don’t think Maggie ever really understood that. She didn’t want to hear anything after they died. All she wanted was to get into college and get into journalism. It was an obsession with her. She just kept going on about how she could make a difference for other people.”
“I’ve seen her at work. She’s very good, very tenacious.”
“She is and always has been, but she never really understood that sometimes things happen in life that can’t be helped or explained. If she ever really got that, I think she would stop running.”
“I don’t want to hold her back. Her drive is one of the things I love most about her. I just wish she could harness it in every once in a while. She’s so determined that she won’t even let anyone help.”
“Stick with her. She’ll come around if Aileen has anything to say about it.”
We sat in silence for a minute as I considered what he said. I really did want to stick it out with Maggie, more now than ever. There was so much at stake and if we couldn’t make it now with so much on the line, chances are we never would.
“What’s on your mind, son?”
“You know, before we found out about the baby, we broke up. This baby made us face some of our issues and confront them, but I wonder if it’s enough to get us back to where we need to be. I can’t make Maggie want to make our relationship work.”
“Son, let me tell you something, you’re a dumb shit.”
“Umm..okay?”
“Maggie’s told me a lot about you and from what I know, you’re not a man that takes shit lying down. You fight for what you want and you don’t take no for an answer, so why the hell are you waiting for her to make up her mind?”
“I was giving her space to come back to me. How will this work if she’s not the one to make the decision?”
“Son, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m guessing one of the things she loves about you is that you take charge. No one else would do for my Maggie. She doesn’t want to be walked all over.”
“She also doesn’t like being told what to do,” I muttered.
“You’ve been telling her all the wrong things. You can’t control a woman like Maggie, so don’t try. But you can tell her exactly what is going to happen between the two of you. Deep down, she wants to know that you’ll fight for her, not against her.”
“I haven’t-”
I stopped and thought back over the past year. We’d been fighting a lot, but it was mostly about her running off and not listening. I hadn’t committed to her or told her my plans for the future, just like she’d said. I hadn’t fought for us, I’d fought for her to listen to me about stuff that wasn’t important. At least, it wasn’t what she really needed to hear.
“God, I’m such a dumbass.”
“Don’t worry. We’ve all been sitting on that stool, wondering how the hell we didn’t see that we were screwing it up. Now that you’ve figured it out, you can take her home and make an honest woman out of her.” His gaze turned hard as he stared me down. “Because believe me, my girl deserves the world and that includes marrying the man she loves before she has his baby. When I say that you don’t want to be on Aileen’s bad side, this is one of the things I’m talking about.”
✯✯✯✯✯
We made it back to the house in record time. I had finally had my eyes opened and I wasn’t about to waste any more time letting Maggie think things through. We came all the way out here for her to get answers, but it was me that got all the answers I needed. I stormed into the house and saw Maggie sitting at the table with her grandma, looking like she’d just had a revelation of her own.
“We need to talk.”
She stood and nodded. Aileen got up from the table and headed out of the room.
“I think Conor and I will go run some errands. We’ll give you two some time to talk.”
I stared at Maggie until I heard the door close. Maggie looked at me with tears in her eyes. “Sebastian, I’m-”
“No.” I said forcefully. “You’re not speaking right now. I’ve been an asshole.” She stepped back in shock, not expecting me to say anything like that. Of course, then it occurred to me that talking to her like that was also being an asshole, but whatever. “I’ve been so concerned about making sure that you did things my way, that I didn’t ever do the one thing I should have done.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“I should have told you every damn day that I loved you and that I wanted to spend my life with you. I should have made sure that you knew you were my woman and I was going to marry you. I was so concerned about you running out the door, but I hadn’t even given you a reason to stay. That ends now. Freckles, I don’t care if you still want to be a reporter or if motherhood isn’t exactly what you want. I know you’re an ambitious woman and you have so much passion for what you do. We’ll make it work. But there is one thing that will happen, you will come home with me and marry me. We’re going to make this work because we love each other and we fit. All that other stuff is bullshit. As long as I have you by my side, I don’t need to worry about anything else.”
“Not even me running away?”
I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. “As long as you run back to me, that’s all I care about.”
Maggie
Why did it take us coming all the way out here to figure this out? I didn’t understand why two people that loved each other so much couldn’t work it all out on our own.
“I’m not running anymore. I see now that I was chasing something I’ll never have. I’m done.”
It was like a Hallmark movie where the music crescendos and the two lovers look at each other, finally realizing how stupid they both were, except Sebastian ruined it the next minute and the music came to a screech in my head.
He stepped back and looked at me funny. “That’s it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I thought I was going to have to go all caveman on you and drag you home kicking and screaming. I was actually kind of looking forward to it.”
I grinned up at him and pulled him closer by his jacket. “You can go all caveman on me any time you want.”
“I love you, Maggie. I know I was putting this all on you and I’m sorry. I should have told you all along where my head was.”
“I’m sorry I was always running away. There’s nothing I want more than to be with you. I can’t guarantee that I won’t run off and irritate the hell out of you, but I do swear that I’ll always come back to you and I’ll try to let you know what I need.”
“I think this is the part where you tell me that I’m the most handsome, sexy man you’ve ever seen and you can’t believe that you almost let me slip away.”
“And I think this is the part where you say that you have to fuck the obstinance out of me.”
“Is that what you need?”
“It’s worth a shot,” I smiled.
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” he growled, ripping my shirt open and sending buttons flying. My nipples grew hard as he latched on to one with his mouth. The heat of his
mouth through my bra had me bucking my hips against him.
“Maybe..maybe we should do this somewhere my grandparents won’t walk in on us.”
He released my nipple and crushed his lips to mine, his hand palming my breast and thumbing my nipple. I groaned into his mouth as he pressed himself against me.
“You’d better decide where really quick or I’m going to fuck you against the table.”
“Upstairs. Second door on the right.”
He kissed me harder as he lifted me and carried me upstairs to my bedroom. I don’t know how he managed to get me up there without running into anything, but a minute later, he was lying down on top of me on my childhood bed.
“Is this weird?” I asked breathlessly.
“What?”
“Having sex in the room I used as a teenager.”
He looked around the room to see the faces of my favorite boy bands on posters. He stood and ripped them from the walls, ripping them into pieces and crumpling them into little balls.
“There, now no one else will see you naked.”
I grinned at him. “You do realize they can’t see anything, right?”
“I think you’re forgetting how jealous I can be. I don’t want anyone seeing any part of you but me. Including prepubescent boys that you crushed on as a teenager. Now, do you want to keep talking or do you want to start fucking?”
“Ummm,” I teased.
He ripped my jeans down my legs and yanked them off. “I guess I have to do a better job convincing you.” His mouth was on me and his tongue was lapping at my folds, flicking at my clit. I was so sensitive now that I was pregnant and it didn’t take me long to reach my peak.
“Sebastian! Stop, you have to stop!” It was too much and I pressed my legs together as much as I could, but he held me open and until I came a second time on his tongue. He pulled back and flipped me over to my stomach.
“Get on your knees.” I followed his command even though my legs felt like jelly. I felt him wedged between my cheeks, sliding in and out of the wetness. “From now on, you will listen to what I say and follow my goddamn orders. You are going to be my wife and there’s not a damn thing I won’t do to protect you. Do you understand me?” I nodded, but that wasn’t good enough for him. “I want to hear you say it.”
“I swear, Cap. From now on, I’ll listen.”
He leaned forward and kissed a trail down my spine. “We both know that’s not going to happen, but thank you for saying it.”
He slammed inside me and fucked me hard, each thrust a promise and a threat of how he would handle me if I didn’t listen to him.
“We will never break up again.” His thrusts got slow and deep. “You are mine and I won’t ever let you go again.” I needed more and pushed back against him. It was symbolic of our whole relationship. For every time he pushed me, I pushed back harder until we were fucking each other so hard that the only thing that could be heard was our skin slapping against each other. “I will always chase you.” He gripped my hair in his hand and pulled me back so my back was flush with his front. “I will always find you.” He licked my neck and nipped at the skin, leaving little love bites down my neck and across my shoulder. “And I will always make sure you know who you belong to.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sebastian
“UGH, MY BACK is killing me, Cap.”
Maggie walked into the kitchen with one hand on her back and the other on her very large belly. One thing Maggie didn’t take well to was the fact that she was no longer a kickass woman that was ready to throw grenades at cars that were shooting at us. Deep down, she really wanted to be, but she was huge now. Like, so big that you would think she was carrying triplets. Still, she chased after her stories and pretended like she wasn’t just days away from pushing a watermelon out of her vagina.
At our last doctor appointment, the baby was measuring at just over seven pounds. So, I wasn’t sure where the rest of the weight was coming from, but I have it on good authority from all my guy friends that it is not cool to comment on her size. Drew pointed out one day that his wife had carried twins and she was smaller than Maggie at this point. Not only had Maggie gotten up and chewed his ass out, but he slept on the couch for a week when Sarah found out that he had compared the two of them. Apparently, even saying that someone else is bigger than your wife could still be considered an insult in a woman’s mind.
I walked up behind Maggie and wrapped my arms around her chest. I’d given up on wrapping them around her belly a long time ago. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll pour you some coffee?”
“Thanks. Ugh, I can barely fit in this chair anymore. My ass is the size of a whale.”
“There’s just more of you to love, Freckles.” I set the cup in front of her and saw her scowling at me. “What?”
“You should have said, ‘Baby, you’re not big. It’s all your imagination’. Or, ‘Freckles, it just feels that way because you hurt so much’. Or even better, “Maggie, you look hot and I’ll fuck you right here on this table.”
I snorted at that one because Maggie hadn’t wanted sex in over a month. She’d gotten too big and the baby was pushing down on her vagina so much that it sometimes hurt to walk.
“Freckles, why don’t you write down a list of all the things that I should say or you want me to say and put it on the fridge. You could even break it up into categories like: what to say when I feel fat, or what to say when I first wake up in the morning.”
“Those are all interchangeable, Sebastian. For example, if I say, I feel so fat today, you could tell me that I look absolutely beautiful. If I wake up and look like a zombie, you could also say, ‘there’s my beautiful girlfriend’.”
“About that, when are you finally going to set a date? You know that your grandpa is going to come kick my ass. He made me promise to marry you before the baby was born.”
“I can’t help it. I don’t know what I want and then I ran out of time before I got too fat to plan the wedding.”
When I didn’t say anything, she waved her hand at me in a ‘come on’ gesture. “Oh, sorry.” I cleared my throat. “Freckles, you’re not fat. You’ve never looked more beautiful than you do right now. You have this glow about you that-”
She cut me off by holding up her hand. “Stop right there. See, now I know you’re just bullshiting me. That glow is the sheen of sweat from my hormones going out of control. Also, if I have to tell you to say it, then it doesn’t make me feel all ooey gooey inside.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and looked up to the ceiling. I couldn’t wait until she had this baby and we could get back to normal. “Then why did you wave your hand at me to get me to say something?”
“Because you’re a man. I have to point these things out to you or you’ll never learn.”
“Look, men are pretty basic. You tell me what you need and I’ll give it to you. If you want me to give you a compliment, write a list. If you want me to help you with something, tell me exactly what you need help with. I wish that we were smarter and caught on to this stuff, but men are not as advanced emotionally as women. We don’t take hints and, yes, sometimes you do have to draw us a map.”
“Wow, it’s like you were listening in on my conversation the last time I got together with the girls. I swear, we talked about those exact things.”
“What can I say? Sometimes a guy does get it right.”
Not really. The girls thought they were being quiet, talking about all the things they wished us guys would just clue into, but some of them were drinking and quite loud. The others just didn’t realize that the screen door was open and we could hear everything they were saying.
“So, I don’t know if you remember, but it’s been a year,” I said reluctantly.
“Since?”
“Since Cassie died.” Her somewhat happy face fell and I felt like shit that she had this reminder so close to having the baby. “I don’t know if you want to go, but Logan said that Ryan was going to take James out to
the cemetery today. They’re planning on having drinks at the house afterwards. I don’t know that any of us will be invited back, but we want to at least be at the cemetery for him.”
“I’ll go,” she whispered. I could see the tears leaking from her eyes, though she tried to hide it. Maggie hadn’t known Cassie very long. None of the girls had, but they had all loved her and I knew she missed her.
“We’re all going to meet in a few hours, so why don’t I make you breakfast so you can get ready?”
She nodded and shuffled upstairs. I wasn’t too thrilled about her doing this when she was so close to her due date, but one thing I had learned over the past six months was that I had to let Maggie do things her own way. If I tried to stop her, she pushed back harder.
Two hours later, we pulled up to the cemetery and walked over to where James and his grandparents were standing. Everyone else was already there and standing stoically, watching Ryan as he stood in front of the headstone. James didn’t look quite as sad anymore when I saw him and even today, he looked happy.
“How are you, James?” I asked as we got closer.
“I’m good,” he said with a smile. “Mom wouldn’t want me to be sad today.”
“No, Cassie girl would have wanted us to celebrate today,” Cal said. Cal was Cassie’s father and was devastated when she died. He had been strong for James and his wife, Jane, because he knew Ryan was taking it hard.
“How’s Ryan doing?” I leaned over and whispered to Cal.
“We don’t know. We don’t see much of him anymore. He’s too caught up in his grief. We try to stop by and help, but that’s about all we can do at this point. I think it’s too hard for James to be away from him on the weekends.”
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