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F O R T Y E I G H T
- Finn -
I hadn’t slept in days, not a wink since the night Maeve fell asleep on my chest while we were playing naked pancakes. I didn’t dare move, nor was I willing to fall asleep and miss a second of being so close to her. The way she smelled, the way she breathed. She was so beautiful, so…everything a man could ever want.
At one point, she joked that the lingerie I got her would look funny when she was pregnant, but as far as I was concerned, there was nothing funny about the thought of her naked. Pregnant or otherwise. And there was definitely nothing funny about the thought of another man being the cause of her swollen belly. Except the more I paced the hardwood floors of my apartment, the less it seemed to matter whose baby she was having. I just wanted to be there for her.
I hated the idea of her suffering from morning sickness or being uncomfortable. My brother’s wife had all sorts of maladies during her first pregnancy from swollen feet to heartburn to insomnia. She was miserable, and she made sure everyone else was, too. But at least she wasn’t alone. At least someone was there for her when she needed to be sick or vent or cry or moan. The mere thought of Maeve not feeling like she could rely on me was almost enough to give me all the same symptoms Janie had. Apart from the swollen feet, of course.
“You look like shit,” Brian said when I entered our back office after knocking once. Not that I needed to knock. No one else was ever here this time of day, and he was expecting me. Said he wanted to discuss something about our Coors supplier. Or was it something about stocking a new product from the local brewery? I couldn’t remember. I hadn’t been able to hold a thought in my head for days.
“Thanks,” I said. “I feel like shit.”
“Your dog die or something?”
“No, and fuck you. What kind of asshole says that to a dog owner?”
“It’s an expression.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be. I didn’t come here to think about my dog dying.”
“Whoa,” he said, raising his palms from the spreadsheets laid out in front of him. “Relax, will you? Have a seat. Take a deep breath.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” I shouldn’t have come. I was in no mood to talk business. I sat down, and when I looked up, he was staring at me.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
“You asked me to come in so here I am.”
“That’s it?”
I clenched my teeth. “That’s it.”
“So Otis is fine?”
I glared at him.
“Did something happen with Maeve?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” Fuck. I didn’t even know how to answer that question. “Sort of.”
He blinked at me.
“Something’s about to happen.”
His dirty-blond brows lifted.
I didn’t want to talk about it, but I was exhausted, and restraint required so much energy.
“Did her dog die?”
“Nobody’s dog died, okay.”
“So what’s about to happen?” he asked, turning an ear towards me.
“She’s getting artificially inseminated today. With some fluffy Bostonian’s sperm.”
His neck jerked forward. “What?!”
