Vote Then Read: Volume I

by Carly Phillips

  “Go,” I insisted. “I’m sure I’ve already made you late. I’m fine, really.”

  With a tight nod, he murmured goodnight and left the room and, a few seconds later, the house altogether.

  Falling back onto the bed, it was only when I heard his truck climb the gravel drive that I let silent hot tears begin to fall.

  I shouldn’t want him. I couldn’t want him. It would only make what I had to do that much harder.

  Because wanting him would require climbing over a mountain of obstacles I hadn’t come prepared for.

  And after a full day ending with that familiar less than feeling, my tears quickly drew my out onto a deep sea of sleep.

  So deep, I missed the messages Ash sent to check on me that made it through the black hole of cell service.

  So deep, I only vaguely recalled him returning, peeking in through the bedroom door to make sure I was okay.

  So deep, I didn’t notice he’d come back less than an hour after he’d left.

  And that was for the best.

  Otherwise, that mountain of obstacles would’ve gotten ever so slightly smaller – and ever so slightly within my reach.

  10

  Taylor

  Two weeks later

  I stared at my phone, clearing my second alarm so I wouldn’t miss my doctor’s appointment this morning. I’d never needed alarms, though I always set them. And I definitely never needed two. Until a few days ago when Ash told me to take his truck and meet him and the Madison brothers for lunch in town – and I’d slept right through it.

  I didn’t know who was more freaked out – Ash, rushing home, freaking out that he thought I’d fallen off a cliff. Or me – panicked that I’d never slept through—never missed anything in my entire life.

  It had taken some time for me to do my research to find the OBGYN I wanted to see out here. But after listing all the options, reading all the reviews, looking up every past job and office she’d worked at, I’d decided Dr. Lee was the one. I’d become a borderline doctor stalker, but I was willing to accept the title if it meant I felt a smidge more comfortable heading into this appointment.

  Blake had gone with me, back home in Nashville; she’d come with me to every doctor’s appointment after the first - after I went and confirmed the news the pregnancy test had broken.

  But now I was alone.

  I thought about telling Ash – asking if he could take me. But I worried it was asking too much without giving him the truth. And I still wasn’t ready to do that. He said all the right things. He did all the right things. He didn’t push me. He cared for me… protected me… if not a little too much… But he hid something. And sometimes, a lot of good somethings hide a really bad something. Each day that passed left no doubt that he held onto a secret just like I did, and I needed to know just how good or bad it was.

  After that first night, every meal was curated around what I wanted, what I craved, and what I was allowed. He claimed it was good for him, after spending so much time out working on the restaurant, to have a reason to come home and cook and keep his skills fresh.

  After that first morning, he didn’t make breakfast plans again. I knew because he was always waiting with seltzer water in hand, followed by some sort of egg concoction with a healthy dose of hot sauce.

  I insisted again on finding a hotel room, seeing the toll his lumpy couch was taking on him. Or an apartment. Something so that he could have his bed back. The problem was, every time I tried to suggest something that he didn’t like, he got close to me; he got in my face. And it made my hormones - pregnancy and otherwise - run faster than Secretariat winning the Triple Crown.

  But my heart wasn’t extra-large. My heart couldn’t handle the impossible pace without faltering. My heart couldn’t handle being in a race it couldn’t win.

  I couldn’t want him.

  Even though I was having his baby.

  I tried to help… to make up for my imposition in other ways but he always refused.

  So, I began to spend a majority of my afternoons helping out at Roasters. Except those Tuesdays. Tuesdays were still a part of the mystery I hadn’t been able to solve. But what I did realize was that he was seeing Danny less and less.

  He’d gone out with her one time – that he’d told me about – since that night. And every time he stepped outside to take her call, all I heard was how he made excuses about not being able to see her with so much going on.

  Most of the time, he said it was because of the restaurant – which wasn’t a lie. He was out there from dawn until dusk almost every day. But it was also hard to completely believe when he treated me as though I was his only concern.

  I was pregnant and far from home. I knew that. But it always felt as though it was just a little more than that.

  I knew I should’ve been torn up with guilt – an emotion I should have a Ph.D. in by now. Instead, my heart jumped when he fought to keep me living with him. My heart jumped at the lingering looks and brief touches, as though our bodies were passing secret notes behind our backs. Soon, I’d have to see how high the darn thing had gone so I knew just how far I should expect it to fall.

  Because it was going to have to fall.

  Hearts don’t have wings.

  I jumped as the screen door shut.

  “Ash, hey,” I stammered, shying back behind the kitchen counter. “I-I didn’t expect you…”

  He looked at me strangely because I was being strange. “You didn’t expect me… in my own home?”

  Yup, I was being stupid and strange.

  “I mean. That’s not what I meant. I just… you said you were working out at the restaurant all morning. I was just about to come out and ask if I could borrow your truck this afternoon.”

  “Oh yeah? I told you, you don’t need to ask to borrow it.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to take it if you need to run for something for the building. I just… it’s just better if I ask first.” That’s how I was raised. There were certain rules that I, clearly, could be tempted to break - asking before taking wasn’t one of them. “I won’t be long. I should be back before one.”

  “Shit,” he swore under his breath. “Forgot what day it was. I actually need it this afternoon. It’s Tuesday,” he told me like that was explanation enough. “Let me see if Mick can just drop me off.”

  Tuesdays at one.

  At first, I thought this sacred time was for the dates he’d managed to squeeze in with Danny. Of course, I’d asked, but he just brushed it off as some community meeting. But why wouldn’t he be able to tell me about a community meeting?

  I had a feeling this was the bad something - the thing that held me back every time I wanted to blurt out that I was carrying our baby.

  Whatever he’d been doing out there had him in a sweat. His shirt clung to every lean rise and fall of his chest. If he just moved his arm, I’d be able to see the outline of his nipple and—

  “What are you heading in for?”

  I froze and my eyes widened as he looked at me. Remembering what day it was made him recall that I didn’t work at Roasters on Tuesdays for exactly this reason.

  “Taylor?”

  Fire blazed into my cheeks. Maybe the wanting him had gotten worse recently. The staring at him when he wasn’t looking. The only pretending to sleep so that I could catch a glimpse of his chest and the sharp V that led below his towel when he came out of the shower at night.

  Goodness, Taylor. Keep it together. Keep it in your pants.

  “S-sorry. Pregnancy brain fart.” I still felt guilty for blaming everything on my - our - poor child. “Just errands… you know…”

  I shuffled around him, my hands just making the keys jingle when strong male fingers wrapped around my wrist.

  “Taylor.”

  Oh no.

  I felt the oxygen begin to respectfully depart from the room as he stepped closer to me.

  “Why are you going into town?” he demanded.

  With the way he was dresse
d - and the way I was already fantasizing - I confessed the truth before I did something even worse, like kiss him.

  “I have a doctor’s appointment. For the baby.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you want to tell me?”

  I wetted my lips. “I didn’t want you to feel like you had to—”

  “I’m coming with you,” he interrupted me, plucking the keys from my hand and stalking toward the bedroom.

  “No!” I blurted out like I was afraid that the nurse would take one look at the ultrasound and announce to Ash that he was the father. “Ash, this was exactly why I didn’t tell you!”

  His sense of loyalty and duty was beyond compare.

  “Just gonna rinse off and then we’ll leave.”

  “Ash, wait. Please,” I begged, startled and almost crashing into him when he spun and actually listened to me.

  “Taylor,” he said with that gravelly voice that melted everything below my baby bump. “I understand that this is your baby. I respect that. I respect you. But I also respect that you came to me, you asked me to help you, to help… you get through this. And here, that doesn’t mean you just crash on my couch and I try to live my life as close to what it was before you. Here… with me… when you ask for help, you get my commitment to see this through. You get my promise that I’m going to be there every fucking minute whether you need to lean on me or not, I’ll be there.”

  Panties. Heart. Resolve. They were all dropping like flies.

  It was a wonder that Secretariat managed to live with his giant heart because mine felt like it was about to tear at the seams any second; it was already leaking tears down from my eyes. Tears that he carefully, because his hands were dirty, wiped away one after another as my shoulders silently shook.

  “I know I don’t have a right to be there. But the only way I’m not going is if you can stand here right now and tell me it’s because you don’t want me there. Not because you feel bad or guilty or embarrassed. But because you don’t want me,” he uttered, holding the keys out to me.

  I looked to the keys, tempted to take them. Tempted to run from a scenario that should be happening. He did have a right to be there. And I did want him there. That was the problem - it was too close to everything I wanted. And too close is always too far.

  Dragging my gaze back to his, I whispered thickly, “I… I think I’d like it if y-you came.”

  “Well, Miss Hastings, your baby is perfectly healthy and the size of a bell pepper,” Dr. Lee said as the wand slid around in the cool gel on my stomach.

  Dr. Lee was a petite Philippino woman with short black hair that flared out at her shoulders as though it caught the wave of the nineties and never looked back. She had kind, wheat-colored eyes, a stout frame, and enjoyed talking about her four cats as though they were real children.

  I hadn’t realized how anxious I’d been until I heard Dr. Lee’s words. I’d worried about the flight… the travel… I don’t know what I thought, but I’d worried about the worry.

  “Thank you so much.” I sighed with relief.

  “And it’s okay that she got really sick two weeks ago?” Ash blurted out from his post the corner of the room.

  My gaze swung slowly over to him. He’d been standing there, entranced since the first image appeared on the screen. The black and white moving blob moving as the ultrasound tracked the life inside me.

  I didn’t know how to describe the look on his face, though I knew it was one I’d never forget. Part awe. Part fascination. And a little bit of something that made my heart beat harder and my body heat up.

  It had been awkward; there was no doubt. We got here and I assumed he would wait in the waiting room. I even thought about mentioning it to confirm. But I didn’t. Selfishly, the unfamiliar environment made me desperate for his warm, familiar presence by my side, even though I wouldn’t ask it of him. Selfishly, I wanted the father of my baby with me whether he knew it or not.

  Spoiler alert: he followed me.

  He didn’t correct them when they called him Mr. Hastings - which made me giggle at how ridiculous that was. And he didn’t even have to step out of the room because I hadn’t needed to undress. Though, I felt like nothing short of a stripper when the nurse asked me to lift my sweater over my stomach.

  “You were sick?” Dr. Lee asked, looking to me with concerned eyes like I’d forgotten to discuss this with her.

  “Just some morning sickness,” I insisted. Not a big deal.

  “But you said that you hadn’t been sick for a few weeks,” Ash again interjected with a huff. “Sorry, Dr. Lee. I don’t know much about this process, except from what I’ve read.”

  I gaped at him. Read? What did he mean ‘read?’

  “All I know is she woke up looking like death, vomiting worse than a frat brother after homecoming, and said that she hadn’t been sick like that in weeks.”

  Busted.

  Glaring at him, I explained, “I also flew across the country the day before and had little to eat and even less sleep.”

  Dr. Lee seemed to relax at that. “It’s not uncommon to have a few latent spurts of morning sickness even after the first trimester. It may continue for the rest of your pregnancy or it may subside altogether.” She pulled the wand off my stomach. “But everything looks healthy on the ultrasound, and we’ll have your bloodwork back in a few days to confirm.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Of course,” she said with a calm smile. “And… Mr. Hastings?”

  “Just Ash. Please.”

  “Ash.” She nodded as she cleaned off my stomach. “It never hurts to ask. I’m glad Taylor has someone like you here for her. It’s unfortunate how increasingly rare that is becoming.”

  My heart squeezed. I was lucky. Ash didn’t even know he was the father and he was still here, making sure everything was okay, looking out for me… looking after me.

  His hair was still damp, the blonde strands slightly darker in some spots as he walked up to the bed. Instinctively, my hand went to my stomach, worried that he could see right through the skin to the baby holding the ‘I’m yours’ sign up in my womb.

  When I looked up, Dr. Lee was gone.

  “Just making sure you’re okay, Pixie,” he rasped unapologetically, brushing that one strand of hair that always seemed to fall right in front of my face like it was waiting for his caress.

  “I know, I’m sorry,” I said like it was enough. It wasn’t. “Thank you for coming. You didn’t have to, and you didn’t have to come back with me.”

  “I did,” came his firm reply.

  My gaze dropped to his other hand that hung right next to him. I wanted him to know I was grateful; I was more than grateful. And this was the only way I knew how to show him.

  Grabbing his wrist, I met his look of surprise and clung to it as I pulled his hand up, praying I wasn’t pushing this a step too far.

  He saw my intent and didn’t pull away. His eyes darkened to deep-sea blue as I placed his palm on my stomach.

  Instantly, his attention snapped to the firm softness underneath his fingers. While he stared at his hand, which seemed to dwarf the expanse of my stomach, I couldn’t stop staring at him.

  The gradual tightening along his hard jawline, the way his eyes flooded with an almost animalistic possessiveness laced with need the second the tips of his fingers touched onto my bare skin.

  “Thank you,” I uttered with a breath just as strangled as my heart was.

  It was all I could do to not burst out into tears and admit right then that it was okay for him to check and worry, that he wasn’t an outsider, that he belonged here if he wanted it…

  And in equal measure, it was all I could do to not push his hand lower down to where my thighs squeezed together.

  I swallowed a moan as his fingers either rubbed or twitched against me, setting off trails of fireworks all along my nerve endings. I hated how I was both desperate for his gentle care and possessiveness but also starving for more of him… his body… hi
s desire.

  “Ash…”

  I’d forgotten what it was like to be touched. I’d forgotten what it was like to be touched by him.

  That’s how things that are too much for us to process work - like childbirth, or so I’d read; at some point, the body forgets the stress and pain it endured to protect itself.

  That was me.

  I’d forgotten what it was like to have his hands on me because I knew it could never happen again, and living with knowing what did happen could never happen again was more than my body felt prudent for me to suffer.

  “I should get you home,” he said, each syllable clogged with honor and protectiveness, along with a thousand other things that couldn’t be said. “I’ll be outside.”

  The heavy moment between us ended. Even though the brand from those fingertips still lingered on my bump. And without another word, he turned and left the room.

  I’d been raised to have a very long fuse when it came to desire - one that was only set to go off once there was a ring on my finger. But around Ash… and especially in my current condition… it felt like that fuse was barely perceptible, and the bomb it was attached to was the size of California.

  And there was a good chance that when it went off, it would send the state sinking into the ocean.

  11

  Taylor

  “What did you mean when you said you’d read?” I asked once we were back in the truck.

  I caught the faintest trace of a blush rising to his cheeks.

  “I read stuff.” He shrugged.

  “What stuff?”

  He huffed. “I borrowed a book from the library, alright?” he confessed. “After the whole morning sickness incident, I freaked out. I don’t know shit about pregnancy, so—”

  “You borrowed a book?” I gasped. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “Yeah.” He tried to brush it off like it was no big deal. “I borrowed that What to Expect When You’re Expecting book. Apparently, it’s like the baby bible or some shit like that.”