Page 159 of Small Town Firsts
Or I had been, until I had decided I should become part of it. For babymaking purposes only, of course.
Mutual orgasms would just be a bonus.
“I know today is a rough day for you.” I relaxed my grip on the edge of the sink. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Yeah, it’s been rough. A lot of days have been lately.” She let out a breath and I wished like hell that there wasn’t a phone between us so I could hold her.
Not to make a baby. Not to soften her up for my wild plan. Simply because she was my closest friend, and her pain was palpable.
“Wanna come over?” I asked softly.
Any other time, I wouldn’t have had to voice the question. She would’ve just shown up, and we wouldn’t have talked about the meaning of the day other than to maybe hipcheck each other or sling an arm around each other’s shoulders before she left for the night.
We weren’t touchy-feely. She was basically like my best guy friend, except she was even better—and she also had one hell of a body, which thankfully was only a recent obsession of mine.Veryrecent.
If I’d allowed myself to notice her curves before, we couldn’t have remained platonic friends for so long. I’d have banged her and probably driven her out of my life years ago.
There was a reason I didn’t try to have relationships anymore, and it wasn’t just because I didn’t trust easily. I wasn’t built to be a married guy.
Or maybe that was just what I told myself.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” she replied, just as softly.
“Why the hell not? You’ve spent part of every Mother’s Day here since Laurie’s birth. Hell, even when Marj was pregnant, you were the one here on Mother’s Day making a fuss over her. More of a fuss than I made.”
By then, things had been so strained between Marj and me that I’d had trouble tamping down on my feelings long enough to do my husbandly and fatherly duty. But I’d made breakfast and gotten her flowers and tried to pretend we were a real family.
And I’d ignored my bitchy wife when she crabbed about Ally “always hanging around” instead of appreciating her kindness.
“Being a mom is special,” Ally said, and I felt like an asshole all over again. “So is being a dad.”
“Yeah, it is.” I grabbed a sponge and wiped halfheartedly at the sink. “Look, I’m not asking you to come over here so we can discuss things. I mean, unless you want to.”
“Why would I want to? I’ve spent the last few days hoping you had developed amnesia and had forgotten the whole asinine idea.”
I tried to rein in my temper. I’d told her we didn’t have to discuss this right now, and today was a difficult day for her. Of course she wouldn’t be in the best frame of mind.
“Judging from your silence, you haven’t. So I’m not really sure what else we have to say to each other, since you’ve lost your goddamn mind. Telling me you wanted to—” She broke off and hissed out a breath. “Lunatic.”
“Is telling you I want to have sex with you that startling that you think I must’ve developed a mental condition?”
“When you say it like that… Yeah, maybe. It certainly came out of left field. Though I get that it’s just the means to an end to you.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it fucking isn’t. Okay, maybe it started that way, and maybe I never noticed you had tits before, but?—”
She huffed out a laugh. “See? And they’ve been here all along.”
“I just never saw you that way. Intentionally. Not because you aren’t hot. You’re just?—”
“Not your type. Yeah, yeah, Hamilton, I know it and I’m cool with it. We stay in our lanes. You’re the one who’s suddenly swerving all over the place. Maybe this is just the male versionof a ticking hormonal clock. I didn’t know it happened to dudes, but possibly something went off inside you and you panicked. It’s no big deal. We can just move on from here and forget we ever brought up the subject.”
“Wrong answer. It is big, and if you ever stopped freaking out at the mere idea I could want to fuck you, you’d find that out for yourself.”
“You want to fuck me to make a baby with me. A baby you can then raise as a storied Hamilton child without my involvement to taint him or her.”
