Life Next Door (Love Not Included Series Book 2)

by J. D. Hollyfield

  A week after the whole burglary fiasco, I had my interview with Silvia Weathers and it went amazingly well. Her questions started off basic and built to the heartfelt story about how May and I met. I shared my personal journey from first meeting May to her private farewell letter to me. By the end, I think even the camera man was sniffling. The segment ended with Silvia and me creating desserts in the bakery. Silvia wrapped up our interview with dates of when the segment will air, of course, falling two weeks before the grand opening of the expansion.

  One question that was asked and I didn’t even have to hesitate to answer was whether or not I was planning on changing the name of the shop. My answer was no. No matter how I changed this place, it would always be May’s. Every day that I step foot in this shop, I see May. I see what she’s built, and her legacy will always live on.

  The expansion was completed six hectic weeks later, and there were no words for the turnout. Seems like the news segment and article really did create a buzz, and once we finally made it to opening day, we had a line down the block of people wanting to be first to report on what all the hype was about. Of course we had issues with the locals trying to stake claim on the out-of-towners, so my possessive boyfriend had set up a police escort monitoring the scene. Trent wouldn’t be Trent if he wasn’t possessive over his girl.

  Happiness stuck with me from the moment we opened the doors, because let’s be honest, to dream of something and see it come to life is a great feeling. I really did it! The shop, love, that light in my life—it all fell right into place for me.

  Unfortunately, that lasted for about a solid week until I realized I missed my period. I thought for sure that Trent was going to leave me once he found out I was knocked up. I had to tell him. Give him the chance to bolt so that I could crawl up in a hole and cry. What do single people do with babies? I didn’t even know if I wanted babies! I wanted babies. I was just trying to talk myself off of a ledge. I came home to Trent pacing the house like a maniac. He told me we needed to talk. He said he’d been trying to talk to me all week. His nervous jitters freaked me out, and when I sat down and he kneeled down in front of me, the second his words spilled out, I vomited out my dirty little secret at the same time. I heard Trent say, “Will you marry me?” as I overlapped his question with, “I’m pregnant.”

  “Say that again?” we asked in unison.

  “I’m pregnant” and “Will you marry me?” echoed again throughout the room.

  “Wait. What did you just ask me?”

  “What did you just say?”

  “I’m sorry, Trent. I don’t know how it happened. I think it’s because I’ve been so stressed out with the new expansion and all. I may have missed a pill…or three. I don’t know. I just kept falling asleep before doing…wait. What did you just ask me?”

  “CeCe, I asked you to marry me. But now I don’t know who is surprising who here.”

  “Wait a minute, you want to marry me?”

  “Of course, why the fuck wouldn’t I?”

  “Because you have been acting so off the past week. I thought it was because you think I’m crazy and you’re done with crazy, so you’re about to break up with me.”

  He looks at me and laughs. “Sweetcheeks, I’ve been off because I’ve been trying, for the past damn week, to ask you to marry me and every time I get the courage, you are snoring. My nerves have been so all over the place, that today I finally said, fuck it, I’m going to ask you whether you are half conscience or not. I couldn’t go one more day without asking you and making you say yes to me.”

  Love. There is no stronger emotion than the love I feel for this man. And so I do the only thing I seem to do best lately, which is burst out crying.

  “Jesus, why are you crying now?”

  “Because you love me and instead of breaking up with me you want to marry me.”

  “Babe, you were never getting rid of me. Now answer my question. Priscilla Westcott, will you marry me?”

  I wipe my wet face and look straight into the eyes of the man who I, without question, plan on spending the rest of my life loving till my ever dying breath and I say the only thing that feels right: “Yes.”

  “Thank fuck!” He grabs at my face and places his inviting lips to mine. He kisses me with passion and love and promise. Because I know deep in my soul, this is something that will be forever. He pulls away and assists in clearing my face of tears. “Now that that is out of the way, can you please repeat your news? Because I need to hear you say that again.”

  Oh no. Did I just ruin a good thing? “I’m pregnant,” I state nervously.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  “Pregnant,” I repeat

  “We’re going to have a baby?”

  “Yes, we’re going to have a baby.”

  The look in his eyes melts my soul. “God, and just when I thought you couldn’t make me any happier, you prove me wrong.” He still has his hands placed on each side of my face. He starts placing soft kisses everywhere. My eyes, my nose, my cheeks. “Pricilla Westcott, I am going to spend the rest of our lives loving you like you deserve to be loved. And till our dying breath, I will still never be able to show you just how deeply that love runs for me. Thank you for making me so happy.” He kisses my forehead. “Thank you for giving me life. Yours, the one you have growing inside you, our future. There will never be a day that I will feel like I am done showing you all the ways I love you.” He finishes his heart-melting speech and finally places his lips where I need them to be—touching mine.

  I wrap my arms around his neck, most likely strangling him and show him just how much I love him. He wastes no time in picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder in his signature sack of potatoes move, and walks us back toward the bedroom.

  “Where are you going?” I ask like I don’t know what’s about to go down.

  “I’m taking you to bed and showing you how much I love you. I’ll start by thanking you for saying yes to being my wife. Then I’m gonna thank you for giving me the second best news of my life. Then I’ll show you just how lucky of a girl you are by making you scream my name in languages you didn’t even know you could speak.”

  Well, I’ll be... My retort was cut short by my body being thrown onto the bed and the rest is history. Trent, if he’s one thing, is true to his word, and by the end of the night I was screaming out a lot of new interesting words.

  …

  Trent and I were married three months after he proposed. We wanted to make sure our little girl, which we of course found out, had Trent’s last name. Katie asked me if she could do the honors and make my wedding cake, and of course I said yes. I also cried. Which is a natural routine for me lately. I swear I was making up for lost time. I never cried when my Cabbage Patch Doll got left on top of the car and my dad drove away losing it in the mix of Sunday traffic when I was five, so it makes sense that I am getting it all out now. The wedding was small but beautiful. We danced our wedding song to “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis. It was only appropriate.

  I missed wine. I had to admit there had been some breakdowns throughout my pregnancy since I wasn’t able to drink any wine. The farther into the pregnancy I got, the better Trent had to be at catching the wine club packages and hiding them before I saw them. He proved his love every single day by still looking at my crazy ass with those beautiful ‘you’re crazy and I love you’ eyes.

  Once I hit nine months, the doctor put me on bed-rest, which was one of the hardest things ever. You know how fun not having to do anything but lay in bed and watch TV all day lasts for? Forty-eight hours. The first two days were nice. Trent waited on me hand and foot. Jake and I watch forty-two hours of “Real Housewives of Atlanta” reruns and I think I ate three whole tubs of solid icing.

  When the forty-fifth hour hit, I was over it. Lying around all day is way over rated when you are allowed to do it. For every time I had a full schedule and wished that I could just sit at home and lay in bed all day, I take it back. All back. Beca
use that shit was boring. I was literally going out of my mind. Or whatever mind I had left. I tried to just bake in my kitchen but the first time Trent came home and caught me in the kitchen, he showed me a bit of his crazy. I mean I didn’t see the big deal, but apparently daddy-to-be, aka ‘I read too much Internet nonsense about pregnant women and the bed-rest,’ thought the world was going to end because I was on my feet. He didn’t even let me finish icing my cake and carried me back to bed, swearing if I tried to leave again, I would regret it. So when a day passed and I tried sneaking into the kitchen while Trent was at work to just make a little tart, I came to the shocker that he had put a lock on the kitchen pantry! Of course I saw red. A red gauntlet. So I did what any unstable pregnant person would do.

  I took a hammer to the lock.

  By the time Trent got home and saw the broken lock and two batches of cupcakes, the guilt of my actions were worse than the feeling of accomplishment of beating him at his own game. He didn’t yell at me which made me feel horrible. Nor did he lecture me. He went even lower; he carried me to the bedroom and laid me down. He then took off his clothes and laid in bed with me, resting his head on my belly. This was his thing. He did it to hear the heartbeat and feel the baby move. And I know, he was doing it do give himself some peace of mind. All my childish outbursts and he was just looking out for us. His little child. And alls I was doing was being selfish by not staying in bed. I didn’t say anything but vowed to myself I would be a better patient and do as I was told and stay in bed.

  That lasted a full week. Congratulations to me. The fight began because Katie called asking about a recipe she was working on. I asked if she needed help then asked Trent if he could take me to the shop. His automatic answer was “no way”, which is not what a nine month pregnant person wanted to hear. I just wanted to bake. It was in my blood to bake, and I was being so restricted. I was huge and sore and bored and I wanted to goddamn bake!

  So again, I defied my man and when I told him I was going outside to get the mail. I instead got into my car and went to the shop. Showing up, telling Katie I was able to be outside for a little bit and to lets hurry and start getting some stuff in the blender. This lasted about seventeen minutes when Trent stormed into the shop. I knew Katie sold me out because I heard her on the phone in the bathroom. On the eighteenth minute I was being carried back to the car by a very angry and very silent Trent.

  That of course brings us to today. When I got wind from Mrs. Humphries that Mrs. Bellows was disappointed I would not be able to make her daughters communion cake due to my condition, I couldn’t get passed it. I decided that while Trent was in the shower, I would just take a quick trip to the shop and give Katie a head start on the design. Katie told me that the cake was made; it just needed to be iced and decorated. My favorite part. I would be in and out. By the time Trent was out and in search of me I would already be at the shop, and by the time he found his keys—which I attached to Jake’s collar—I had a solid head-start with the cake.

  I guess I can only be thankful for my very over protective husband because the second I walked into the shop and turned on the lights, my water broke. I had stood there in complete horror because I heard nothing but Trent’s voice, saying, “I told you so.” I’d read enough blogs to know that I had some time before I had to go to the hospital so in my own crazy mind thought to possibly still do just a little bit of icing. I mean, I just wanted to goddamn ice something!

  Thankfully Jake sold me out sooner than I planned and Trent showed up at the bakery in time. I may not ever get the image of Trent’s facial expression out of my head when he realized my water broke and I was just standing at my metal table mixing blue icing. I guess it will make for a good laugh at a later time… Like, much later.

  So that brings us to now. I’m about to rip off Trent’s hand because giving birth hurts and I have a feeling that if Trent goes any paler, I might be doing this solo.

  Two hours of horrendous pushing later and a lot of yelling at Trent that if he passes out on me I’m going to rip his heads—plural—off, Penelope May Walker was born.

  Thank God—for once I was not the only one because the moment the doctor laid her into her daddy’s arms, the tears began to flow down his beautiful face. Life is a beautiful thing and in that moment I watched two of the most important people in my life meet one another.

  I knew exactly what Trent meant when he said he would never be able to tell or show me how much love he has for me. I knew I would never be able to show how much love I felt for these two people.

  Trent walks our daughter to me and lays her in my arms. I look into the eyes of our little child, a perfect mix of us both, and I know that life, as messed-up as it can get, has its own way of turning out pretty sweet. #happilyeverafter

  The End

  Acknowledgements

  It’s only right to thank my husband first. It is not easy juggling life, work, and family, while trying to make your passion your main focus. My loving husband knows that look in my eyes and knows when it’s time to let me do my thing for hours, days, whatever I need. If you have that kind of support in your life than you are doing something right. Thank you to the behind the scenes people who get to hold my hand through this crazy ride. I might write the stuff, but there is a huge team of Editors and PR folks that get to spread the love. Nicole at Indiesage PR, Rachel at Mark my Words, Vanessa at PREMA, and Michelle Josette. So thank you. I am only one person and with your help, I get to shine.

  Special Thank you to Nicole Blanchard at Indiesage for her hard work on providing me with a cover that I instantly fell involve with.

  Lastly, thank you to the fans, readers, bloggers and authors who support each other day after day. It takes a hard helmet to get out there and to know there is such a great little world of supporters out there makes it worth everything.

  A smut hug to all xoxo

  Want to stay in the loop on what I am working on? Follow me on social media!

  About the Author

  J.D. Hollyfield is a creative designer and author of Life in a Rut, Love not Included. When she’s not cooking, event planning, or playing around with her husband, son and three doxies, she’s relaxing with her nose in a book. With her love for romance and her head full of book boyfriends, she has been inspired to test her creative abilities and bring her own stories to life. Hollyfield lives in the Midwest and is currently at work on her third novel.

  You can learn more about J.D. Hollyfield on her website, authorjdhollyfield.com.

  Follow me on Social Media!

  www.facebook.com/authorjdhollyfield

  https://twitter.com/jdhollyfield

  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8127239.J_D_Hollyfield