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I settled down on my hands and knees, still connected to her. We were both slightly damp with sweat and outright panting, but I didn’t think that she had ever looked more beautiful.
“Well that was something…” she breathed, her face still red.
I rolled off of her, already missing her as I pulled out from her body. “A good something, I hope.”
“Definitely, yes. Yes, a hundred times.” She sighed and slowly sat up, smiling hazily at me. “But I should go to the bathroom. You know, adult stuff.”
“Yeah. First door to the right out of here,” I said, pointing.
She shuffled out of bed and I watched her as she went, appreciating her rounded cheeks as they swayed back and forth in her exit.
While she was gone, and I was left alone with my own thoughts, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had made a terrible choice. I had slept with a woman I hardly knew, who pawned a ring that she had technically stolen from me after we both got drunk-married in Vegas and was apparently pregnant with my child -which we hadn’t medically confirmed yet.
Sighing, I listened for what she was doing in the bathroom. When I heard the water start to run, I went over to my pants and pulled my phone from my pocket.
Once I had it out, I hit my lawyer’s number. Surprisingly, he picked up, even though it was at least nine at night and I knew he had to be out of his office.
“What’s going on? I heard you jetted out of the office this morning. And I mean that quite literally.”
“You’re hilarious,” I retorted. “But hey, I need you to do me a favor.”
“It’s not really a favor if you pay me.”
“You have a point there. But I need you to hook me up with a friend of yours or a partner or whatever in St. Louis that knows how to make a good child custody agreement that can be handled outside of court.”
“Wait, child custody agreement? What? What happened since you left?”
“It’s a long story, and I’m sure your new friend that you hook me up with can tell you all about it.”
“Alright then. I’ll see what I can do. I haven’t been that far south in quite a while.”
“It’s literally the middle of the country. That’s why it’s called the mid-west. Hell, it’s even called the gateway to the west. Not the south.”
“You do realize I’m charging you my full, after-hours rate for this phone call?”
I barked a laugh at that. “Fair. I’ll hopefully talk to you on Monday.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll shoot out some emails and see what I can do.”
We said goodbye and I hung up, just in time too as a minute or so later Nicole was coming out.
“There you are,” I said with a soft grin. “You have a good night now. I’m going to clean myself up and make my bed on the couch.
“Are you sure that will be comfortable enough?”
I nodded. “I spotted extra blankets and pillows in the closet the last time I was here, and I’m willing to bet that’s standard. I’ll be plenty fine for tonight, and hopefully we’ll have you in your own place come Monday.”
“That’s very optimistic of you.”
“It’s not very often that I’m accused of that, so thank you.”
She let out the tiniest of laughs then slid into the bed past me. I gave her one last look, asking myself why I didn’t just get into bed with her and cuddle her all night long like I wanted to, but I quickly shoved that thought out of my mind and headed to the shower.
Hopefully, the hot water would be enough to wash all the foolishness from me, because my mind was certainly taking off in a direction that I could have never expected.
Chapter Fifteen
~Nicole~
I pushed my lunch around my plate, far too anxious to chow down like I wanted to. I didn’t know it was my pregnancy or just my nerves that had me feeling like I needed to vomit, but either way it wasn’t pleasant.
“Do you want to take that to go?” James asked after the third time I picked up my fork only to set it back down again.
“Yes,” I said in relief. I guess my mother had been so stringent about her clean-your-plate policy that I had subconsciously been worried that we would think I was ungrateful for the lovely lunch he was providing me. And the last thing I wanted to look like was ungrateful.
Don’t get me wrong, while I was surviving before, and I knew that eventually I would be back on my feet just fine, it was nice to have this little reprieve. I was a fighter, yeah, and I never just rolled over and gave up, but it was still nice to have a break in the dark clouds.
