“I-I just wanted to tell you I think your family is great.” As I’m an only child, my parents laid the pressure on thick when I was young and didn’t relent as I grew older. I can’t recall loud family meals or laughter around a dinner table. Even with Shelton, there were nights of only scraping forks against china and the soft swallow of wine. Perhaps that’s what happened to us. Where I thought we had quiet companionship, we only had simple silence.
“Yeah, they loved you.” I blush at the thought as they don’t really know me, and they don’t have all the information about Bull and my situation, but I want them to like me.
I’m still holding the sides of the door jamb, half my body inside my room, half of it out, but I don’t miss Bull’s eyes lowering to my breast, covered by my tight-fitting tank top. My boobs ache from both the changes in my body and the desire I see in his eyes. He wants to touch me, and I want his touch. My nails dig deeper into the wood framing the door.
“Oh, and I have another doctor’s appointment coming up soon,” I say. My voice catches on the words, raspy and rough as my own eyes focus on his chest, lowering for the dark trail leading into the towel. I’ve just made a mundane visit sound sexy in the tone of my voice, and I lick my lips before glancing back up at Bull’s face. His hand has flattened on the wall. His body stills while I worship it. “Want to come with me?”
The corner of his mouth slowly lifts, and I realize what I’ve said has two meanings.
“I mean, attend the doctor’s visit with me,” I clarify, still gripping the door.
“I know what you meant, and I’d love to come with you . . . to the doctor appointment, that is.” We stare at one another, breaths shallow. My heart races.
“Need anything else tonight?”
The list of my wants is rather short. I only want him, but I promised myself I’d roundup my libido. I don’t want to give him false hope of us, although he’s made it clear he doesn’t want us. You said Red wasn’t yours. He only wants his share in fatherhood, if he’s the father.
With the sour potential he’s not my baby’s daddy, I slap a hand lightly on the door jamb.
“We could talk to the doctor about a paternity test,” I state, nearly bursting the bubble of sexual tension between us.
“We could,” he agrees half-heartedly answering me. With nothing else said, I tap the doorframe again.
“Well, good night then.”
Bull nods, pushes off the wall, and spins to give me his retreating back. My forehead lowers for the trim, rolling back and forth against the wood. His back might be as incredible as his front with dips and cliffs of muscles. Suddenly, Bull turns on his bare feet, facing me once more and taking a few extra steps toward my door.
“Just putting it out there, that today’s a day ending in day, and if you needed me for something, I’m here for you.” His hand lightly pats his chest before coasting downward, forcing the coarse hairs to spring a little and then his abs flinch as he lowers his palm to the edge of that dangling towel.
“I’m good,” I lie, raising a hand as a little wave of good night. Stepping sideways, I knock my knee on the wood casing, bite my cheek to hold back a curse, and reach for the doorknob. Once inside the room, I collapse against the closed door, cursing from more than the ache at my knee, but the one in my heart.
Rita comes to the Busy Bean near the end of my shift the next day. Wishing I could enjoy an afternoon coffee, I sit with her instead as she sips a cold brew. The doctor has already warned me I need to cut back on caffeine products and I’ve already had my one cup this morning. Another irony of working at a coffee shop is how I must resist the temptation, just like I must resist Bull.
A full-body shiver occurs with the images in my head of Bull crowding me near the coffeepot in his kitchen or walking down the hallway in only that towel of his.
Rita and I have been discussing whether I should be looking for a new job or not.
“I’d just like to do something with more purpose.” My reference did not imply working at the coffee café was less than admirable. I simply meant any employment in general, I wanted to have purpose behind it in the future.
“It’s okay not to know what you want,” Rita tells me as we slouch on the comfy couch Rita claims as hers.
“I’m forty-two. Shouldn’t I have life all pulled together by now?”
“Your life was pulled together. It was wound tighter than a knitter’s knot. It’s okay to loosen the loops a little. You’re never too old, or too young, to start over,” Rita encourages.
“But I don’t want to start over.” I sound like a petulant child, but the truth is, I actually do want a fresh start. My hand coasts over the tiny bulge of nine weeks, or is it only eight, of pregnancy. I have an appointment this week to listen to Sprout’s heartbeat. It’s still a bit surreal that some tiny creature is growing inside me, let alone unbelievable at my advanced age, as the doctor lovingly called it during my first visit. When the doctor also told me this pregnancy was considered a geriatric pregnancy, I almost fell off the table. I wasn’t that old. It’s not improbable or even uncommon for a woman over forty to be pregnant, but it also comes with loads of potential risks. My own research on the topic taught me that while the average age of a pregnant woman is twenty-six, there is an increasing proportion of women who are in their thirties. And while that number has actually dipped in the last decade, pregnancies among women over forty is actually on the rise. It’s up only a few percentage points, but it’s still noteworthy.
The issues rest in the risks—heart concerns, skull abnormalities, developmental delays—and those were just concerns for the baby. Personally, I could develop high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, or pre-eclampsia. Even worse, though, is the possibility I could miscarry. I could lose the baby and all the trouble I’d been to Bull would be for nothing.
He’s been so good to me. Every night, we have dinner together like a real couple. No late-night dashes off to a local bar for a quick bite. No takeout ordered in for one while my other half works long hours. Bull and I sit at a table together, with a home-cooked meal before us, from either Carly or Bull himself. He’s an amazing cook, and I’ve felt guilty that I don’t offer more home engineering. I’m terrible at domestic deeds as I proved the other evening when I tried to make Bull chicken in a skillet and burned the outside while the inside was still raw.
He’s also been more than generous with his home. We’ve continued to dance around close calls in the hallway and finding too much comfort on his couch. I’m sleepier than I’ve ever been, and Bull is like a giant heating pad. Too often, I’ve found myself slumped over against his shoulder, snoozing in the early evenings when he physically works twice as hard as I do.
“I totally understand the desire for purpose,” Rita says, looking at me over her cup. She’s been struggling herself lately, as she’s been saying for years she plans to retire from her law practice in Montpelier. She hasn’t found that thing either—that passion—to push her forward on a new path, though. “But have you considered that where life leads, you can shift your priorities and motherhood might be the next great adventure for you? Maybe motherhood is your next great purpose.”