AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So you’re doing okay out of the house?” she prodded.
“Managing,” I replied neutrally.
She arched a brow, then pulled out her cell. “Well, it seems you’re managing really well.” She turned her phone around to face us, but neither Bridget nor I could read it. I went around the expansive counter to take it from her. “I set an alert for Dex’s name.”
I scrolled through the latest and there I was. On social media. And a sports website. And… “I’m in Right Now magazine?”
I leafed through a copy at the hairdresser and now I was in it?
Mallory clapped her hands with glee. “It’s insane, right? I’d say Dex is In A Relationship.”
I glanced at Bridget. “Did you know about this?”
She smiled. “Only after Mallory pointed it out. But it’s all good. Cute.”
“He’s not my boyfriend!” I said, scanning one of the articles.
Mav came in with a platter of burgers, set them on the island next to a bag of rolls.
“You sure about that?” he asked.
“Dex seems to think you’re special,” Theo added.
I stared at all of them, and they were eyeing me with… expectation?
“How many times do I have to say the same thing?” I asked to no one in particular. No, to all of them, because I felt ganged up on.
“His age shouldn’t matter,” Mallory pointed out.
I waved her off. “Yeah, I’ve let that one go.” That happened when he had the endurance to fuck me three different ways before he came that first time. “But can I just narrow down my issues to say he travels for work? I can’t be in a relationship with a man who’s never around. I want kids. It’s pretty hard to get pregnant when you’re three thousand miles apart.”
“You’re trying to get pregnant with Dex? That was fast. Can I be Auntie Mallory?”
I spun around and glared at Mallory. It was the mother-deathray glare she was very familiar with. From times like when she and Bridget cut each other’s bangs in fifth grade to the time they walked home from a tenth-grade party drunk.
I hadn’t even thought about kids with Dex. My children were non-existent, amorphous blobs of my future. Seeing Dex with the hockey kids, I knew he’d be good with them. But I was sticking with what I said. Dex wasn’t in the running because he was a fling. And I didn’t have children with a fling. Especially when his dick was four thousand miles away. Sure, I could get off with one of my sex toys, but the last I heard, they didn’t inseminate you.
“What did I tell you Mallory Mornay about this when you and Bridget were fourteen.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You never want to be a Baby Mama,” she and Bridget said at the same time.
I pointed at her and kept the glare. “Exactly.”
“Babies aside, if you want to be together, you make it work,” Mav said. He gave Bridget a sweet glance.
I frowned. “He’s on a plane to Finland right now. It’s not like he can quit the Silvermines, move to Hunter Valley and coach kids’ hockey. He has a contract. And I wouldn’t want him to quit for me anyway. It’s his thing. His passion. I would never expect him to choose.”
Just like I had to give up my dream when our parents died. I’d given up the idea of being an author because it wasn’t stable. There was no guaranteed income. No health benefits or retirement plan. I had to let it go for a stable job and while I never regretted taking care of Bridget, I put my life on hold. Only now was I starting to get it back and with this latest book, with how the words were really coming and I was excited about the story, I understood what it was like to have a thing.
“You could quit,” Theo tossed out there.
“Quit my job?” I asked. “How am I going to pay my bills?”
I didn’t have a James fortune or a contract with a professional hockey team. Sure, I wanted to become successful enough with my writing to quit, but that didn’t seem like it was going to happen anytime soon, no matter how fast I typed.
Bridget gave me a soft smile and nodded. She understood, even though she was living in this big fancy house now. Mav would take care of her financially, no question. She wanted to work, to make her mark. She was still waiting to hear about the long-term sub job at the high school. She wanted to work no matter how many zeroes she’d have in her bank account once she and Mav married.
