Page 38 of Good Guy Gabe

The L word almost pops out of my mouth, but I have enough brain cell left to hold it back. I need to save it for the right moment. The big moment. But I love her. Fuck. I love her so much. She’s my other half. She’s my whole.

“I can’t,” she whimpers as another orgasm crushes my cock. “Please, Gabe, I—I—”

“I’ve got you,” I moan as the familiar tension in my balls finally reaches its cusp and I lose myself within her, pumping my seed into her, making another attempt at filling her with my baby, locking her down, ensuring she’s mine forever.

I love her too fucking much to let her go.

I collapse to my elbows when it all hits me, and Joss curls as much as she can beneath me, grabbing my biceps in her tiny hands, hugging me close.

She loves me too. I know she does.

My brain is as groggy as my body, but I finally muster what I need to dig my hand under her stomach and roll us to the dry side of the bed. I ask, “Have you done that before?” but my voice is so hoarse from excursion I’m shocked she understands me.

“Hmm? Yeah. It’s been years, but it’s happened a couple times before. Sorry.”

“Why the hell are you apologizing?”

She sighs and snuggles in more, pushing my softening cock deeper inside her, locking me in the way I like, making sure nothing leaks out. “That mess. It got everywhere, didn’t it?”

“Ma’am, I don’t know how you didn’t notice this already, but youalwaysmake a mess. We’ll just have to start putting two towels down. Because that was not the last time I’m making you squirt.”

It’s at least an hour before I get my ass in gear to actually do the necessary clean-up. Joss is passed out cold. It takes some effort moving her around without waking her, but I get us both cleaned up, toss the towel in the hamper, wiggle the quilt out from beneath her, and find another quilt to tuck her in with.

I’m awake after that. Not unusual for me. I’ve always had weird sleeping habits, and usually I push them on Joss, waking her up in the wee hours to make love again, but not tonight. I kiss the top of her head, tuck an extra pillow between her arms so she doesn’t feel so alone, and pad out to the kitchen to see if I can scare up a cup of coffee.

I’m planning on going back to sleep, but this is part of the process. Some people need a cigarette; I need coffee.

Technically, I prefer hot cocoa, but that feels like a big ask right now.

I find a standard, bargain brand single-cup coffee maker, make a mental note to replace it with something fancier because nothing in my life is single-serving, and set it to brew. While I let it do its thing, I peek out the windows.

This isn’t the north side of the house. I can’t see that trail where the mums randomly died on her. I’m curious about that and have only my thoughts to entertain me, and I know it’s way too dark to get a sense of what happened — I don’t know if even broad daylight would help, but there could be something obvious — but I need to look. And there are tons of rooms onthe north side of the apartment I could look out. Plenty close to where I stand.

But she was weird about that storage room. Something about it hit me strangely, just like those mums, and now it’s in my brain.

She’s keeping secrets from me. That’s nothing unusual. Not knowing things about her, like whatever the hell her former husband did, assuages the guilt I have over knowing I’ll be lying to her about one critical thing for the rest of our lives. It’s no way to start a relationship. I know this. But because of that, this little voice in my head says I should go into that storage room and learn her secret. I’ll keep it to myself, but I’ll hold it as a reminder that this is normal. Even good people keep secrets.

I half expect an alarm to go off when I turn the knob and push the door open. It doesn’t even squeak. I swear it’s the only thing in the apartment that doesn’t need a WD-40 bath. I peek over my shoulder to make sure Joss isn’t behind me, but her place is so quiet that I can hear her breathing from across the hall. I take a big breath and push the door open.

There’s a moment of confusion. The room is too dark to see much with just the kitchen light from down the hall, but Iwasexpecting it to be some form of storage, either a hoarding nightmare or a fabric stash to rival the shop itself or shelves of doomsday prep. My imagination went wild on what might have been stored here when she stumbled over her words and quickly pivoted to her bedroom.

Nothing’s stored here. Or, that’s certainly not the primary function of the room. It’s a bedroom. A dresser, a stocked bookshelf, a table with a lamp on it.

A crib.

It’s a nursery.

Her friend is pregnant. Tilly. Joss is worried about her. What I know of the woman, I get it. I’ve only met her the one time in person because she works in the film industry. If what she does requires her to be there, if her skill set doesn’t translate to something she can do here, that could be a big problem.

When I met her, I didn’t suspect she was pregnant. She was wearing a snug tank and leggings, and nothing about her shape made me think about it. That was a month ago, so I doubt she’s far along, but now I’m wondering if Joss is adopting the baby. Or taking some sort of guardianship so when Tilly is traveling, the baby can stay here?

It wouldn’t surprise me. I can see why she wouldn’t want to tell me or show me this room. But thinking about how far off it is, this looks like a lot of work has already gone into it.

I close the door behind me and turn the light on.

Tilly’s expecting a boy, that much is obvious. Everything’s blue and masculine, pushing a vehicular theme. I like cars and trucks and bulldozers. I’ve been to a Monster Truck rally and spent more money than I should have on a truck bigger than I need. But this is surprising to me, too. Watching Joss’s streams has given me unique insights about her. She doesn’t usually push the hard gender stuff. When viewers ask for suggestions for baby quilts, she goes for more neutral themes. When they ask for recommendations on specifically pink or blue fabrics, she offers soft patterns over anything princess or sports themed. She likes animals.

There’s nothing animal here.

---