Page 15 of Unexpectingly Happily Ever After

″One time with you!”

″So you haven’t thought about it?”

I push away the feeling of holding Carson in my arms. ”No! Why the holy heck would I? Do I have a death wish?”

″Do you want to maybe think about it?”

Mynois about to snap off the tip of my tongue when I catch sight of the hopeful expression on his face. “What’s going on? Where’s this coming from?”

″That’s not a no,” he says with a smile, ignoring my question. He reaches a tentative hand out to me.

″That’s ayou should stay away from my boobs tonight.” I tighten my arms across my chest.

″Oh. Really?” His hand hangs limply in the air until he pulls it back.

″Boobs or baby, big guy.”

J.B. gives a nervous laugh. “Kind of can’t have one without the other.”

″Oh,funny.”

″C’mon, Casey.”

It takes a few more minutes of wistful cajoling before I finally allow myself to be pulled back into bed. “I guess it was bad timing for this conversation,” J.B. says ruefully.

″Youthink?″

″Kind of like that morning way back when, after we had the sex, and then you started spouting off to Cooper and Emma about how you wanted to have a baby?”

I laugh. For years, I’d been consumed with the desire to have a baby to the dismay of my friends. They had no issues about me becoming a mother, but their concerns were how I had planned to go about it. No waiting for happily ever after for me. No, I had been impatientenough to have gone through ill-thought-out plans to conceive which involved a random dude I met on the subway, the best ex-boyfriend ever, and a turkey baster as a last resort.

It had been ironic that I’d never given that night with J.B. a second thought until the three positive pregnancy tests had stared me in the face.

Ironic, or a good example of how obsessed I’d been about becoming a mother.

″You were so freaked out,” I reminisce. “I bet you still think I poked a hole in that condom.”

″You can’t prove that you didn’t.”

I laugh again, forgetting my ire and snuggling against him. “Using an expired condom was the best thing I ever did.”

″I agree.” He kisses me and I let him, even relaxing enough to allow his hand to begin to wander again.

″So have you thought about it?” he whispers into my neck.

″You need to stop talking.”

″Momma?”

″I said you need to stop talking,” I hiss.

J.B.’s hand stops. “That wasn’t me.”

Both of us look to the end of the bed where a small figure in Wonder Woman pajamas is rubbing her eyes. “What’s wrong, Lucy?”

″I can’t sleep.”

″Seemed to be doing okay when I checked on you earlier,” J.B. says under his breath as he eases away from me.

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