Mel choked on the piece of prawn dumpling she was chewing, eyes bugging out, and streaming. She really looked to be struggling. I patted her hard between the shoulder blades a couple of times, fully preparing to give her the Heimlich maneuver. Luckily, after a few more stressful moments, she came good without medical intervention. She blinked at me, astonished.
“Are you out of your fucking mind? We’re not telling him tomorrow!”
“Why not? You think it’s going to be any less of a blow if we drag it out? No matter which way you cut it, he’s in for a shock. The sooner we tell him, the sooner he can ask all his questions, just like I have, and we can move on from there. It also means less lying. Once it’s all out in the open, there will be no need to pretend to be something we’re not.”
She nibbled her lip pensively. It was the hottest thing I’d ever seen, but she was completely oblivious. My dick certainly wasn’t, though. Standing to attention again underneath the towel around my waist. I tried to focus on the pressing matter at hand, rather than my pulsing cock, and fired up libido. It was a tough gig.
She looked up from her plate, catching me staring, and smiled shyly. I thought it was sweet that she could still be coy with me despite our history, and marveled at the fact that I could still raise a smile to her lips, even in the midst of her anger.
More than that though, I was struck by how natural the situation felt. This was her first time at the apartment, yet sitting here with her chatting, or more accurately, arguing, and eating, felt like something we had done thousands of times before, and were planning to do thousands of times in the future. I loved it.
The look in her eyes made my heart lurch, as though taking a corner too fast on a NASCAR circuit.
“Look, there’s nothing you can say that will convince me to agree to doing something as major as this tomorrow, but I will agree to give it some more thought, and come back to you with a plan tomorrow. How does that sound?”
Like classic delaying tactics.
I kept that sparkling gem to myself, having enough sense to see that pissing her off further probably wasn’t the best negotiating tactic. What I did do was move behind her at the kitchen bench, and gently pull her down from her stool. Standing behind her, I dropped my towel to the floor and began rubbing my erection against the top of her butt.
“Beck! What are you doing?”
I started planting small, firm kisses behind her ear, and down to her neck, simultaneously raking my hands through her hair, curling it gently around my fingers and using it to pull her harder against my body.
“I believe I’m about to make love to my woman.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes you are. You always have been, always will be.”
Beck
Two days later I walked into BR&ND, and made my way straight to Raine’s office for Confession. It was the first time I’d seen my partners since the chemistry retreat, though I had spoken to each of them individually on the phone, so they were well aware of my situation.
They were supportive of my unplanned, and unprofessional departure with Mel, and assured me that the rest of the retreat had carried on as planned after Mel and I had left. Apparently Martin hadn’t been phased by the turn of events, and once everyone had returned to this city yesterday afternoon, as scheduled, we were back to business as usual. Hopefully the whole episode won’t have jeopardized our chances in the pitch.
“Here he comes. It’s our resident baby daddy. Should I crack open a good bottle of scotch and we can whet the baby’s head?” I flipped Raine the bird benignly, more out of habit than any kind of malice. I wasn’t even slightly offended by what he’d said.
“Don’t use me as an excuse to facilitate your alcoholism, in an attempt to legitimize morning drinking, man. If you want a drink go right on ahead and have one, but it’s got nothing to do with Sam. He’s eleven years old, and almost as tall as his mother. Ain’t no whetting that ‘baby.’” I air quoted for emphasis.
“Man, this is wild. I never for one minute thought you’d be the first one to have a baby. I mean, what’s he like?” Nate was serious, and genuinely interested.
“He’s fucking good-looking as shit. What do you expect?” I was only half joking.
“Nah, seriously man, he looks so much like me at that age, it was actually freaky meeting him for the first time. I swear to God, I nearly fucking shat myself. I mean, he looks like his mother too, so way better looking than me, but you could very easily pick us out as father and son in a roomful of people. He has more of his mother’s coloring, though, but with my freckles, so he’s like my little olive-skinned mini me.” I couldn’t have held back the grin that spread across my face if I tried. I didn’t.
“And, in point of fact, I was actually a father before you even met me. I mean, Sam’s birthday is in February, so when we met at the start of the semester Mel would have been around four or so months pregnant. If we had been together, I would already have been in dad mode.”
“So does he know that you’re his father?” Not for the first time lately, Dillon looked and sounded like he actually gave a shit about my response. Wonders would never cease.
“Not officially, but I could tell he was trying his damnedest to figure that shit out. Which is why I’ve been urging Mel for the two of us to tell him sooner rather than later. I mean, we’ve waited eleven fucking years for this, and if he’s anything like me, not knowing will be killing him.”
“Wow. This is all so epic.” Dillon squeezed the back of his neck, as he did when he was nervous or stressed.
“How are you dealing man? Oh, and Raine, do I have to ask you every time, to join us over here? You’re not the fucking king. You’re not the boss. You’re not even responsible for running this meeting. Come and sit down with us.”
I agreed with Nate’s sentiment. The conversation was getting old real fast, yet we seemed to have it every day, or every few days, at the very least. Raine sighed melodramatically, heaving himself from his chair as though he weighed three hundred pounds. As he emerged from behind his desk, I was reminded of the fact that we should be careful what we wished for.
“What the actual fuck is that?” I nodded toward the enormous boner as Raine attempted to adjust it to sit more comfortably in his pants.
“Come on, which one of us is making you hard? Nate was right about you, wasn’t he? It’s me who does it for you, with my chiseled good looks, right?” I erupted into raucous laughter, quickly joined by Dillon and Nate.
“Man, have you seen the new Account Director? She’s hot as living hell.”
Nate sat up abruptly, his laughter dying in his throat as instantly as it had started. Jeez, he was uptight.
“Oh no. Oh very hell no. You know the fucking rule Raine. Jesus, it was put in place specifically to stop you from ruining this business and getting us all sued. You’re like a dog in a room full of bitches in heat. Who else in the known universe can’t be trusted with a female secretary, even with a ‘don’t shit where you eat’ clause in their contract? What’s your deal? How come the rest of us can easily manage to keep it in our pants where you struggle so hard?”