Christmas With My Best Friend's Dad

by Amy Brent

  “I think it’s time.”

  I nodded, my nerves spiking up again. I felt the faint urge to vomit, but it faded quickly, thank goodness.

  “From what I understand, you want to keep this baby, but you’re worried about the logistics of it. That’s the only thing that you’re hesitating about.”

  I nodded again, my throat too thick for words.

  “Like I said on the phone, you don’t have to worry about that. I’ll take care of it.”

  He really was so kind. I loved how he assumed responsibility immediately. “I know, and I appreciate that so much. But I don’t think child support is-”

  “No, let me finish,” he said firmly. I closed my mouth and looked to him with wide eyes. “When I say I’ll be there for you, I mean for everything.” He paused to let that point sink in before continuing.

  “I know that you’ve never experienced any of that, so I’m going to try to be as clear as possible. I’m offering you a full relationship, if you want it. Official. Declared to the world. No more hiding, no more skulking around.”

  My heart swelled so hard that it forced tears up into my eyes, but Anthony kept going.

  “But that’s just the first part. No matter what your answer is to that, I would like to provide for you and the child. And by that, I mean I would support you in every sense of the word. Your bills? I’d cover them. In fact, I would like it if you left your job so you could focus on your last two years of school.

  “If we need a nanny, I’ll hire one. I’ll put you and our child under my insurance. I’d also cover your tuition for the last two years you have of school so you can save up a nice nest egg.”

  I felt like I couldn’t breathe, my mind boggled at everything that he was saying.

  “I know that it might be like I’m speaking a foreign language to you, but I’m telling you that I want you to never have to worry about anything as long as I can help it. And if you’d let me, I’d be more than happy to call myself your partner.”

  I stared at him, fractions of words coming out but mostly just sputtering sounds.

  How could he say that?

  All my life I’d been told what a burden I was. And a waste of space. An inconvenience. But here he was, talking to me like I was the most valuable person that he had ever seen.

  It was uncanny, and I couldn’t understand why he would want to do so much for me.

  His hands slid up from my own, reaching my face and wiping my tears away once again.

  “Does that sound nice, lovely? I’ll take care of you, like you should have been this whole time.”

  I nodded, hiccups starting to rise up, and he bent to press a kiss to my wet lips. “How about we go home, huh? Have a lie down and you can tell me how you feel tomorrow?”

  Yet again, I nodded, and he slid out of the booth, leaving a hundred on the table and escorting me out. Goodness, the waitress was going to be happy to see that.

  I was able to compose myself a bit during the ride home, but the entire drive something began to build inside of me. It was a complex sort of mix of gratitude, amazement, and burning attraction.

  And the intense feeling for him wasn’t just because he was throwing money at me and I was a gold digger. It was that he cared. That he put all those cards on the table whether I was with him or not. The only other person who had ever treated me like that was Rachelle, and I now I understood where she got it from.

  It took all of my willpower to wait until we were inside through the garage, but as soon as both of our feet was on the kitchen tiles, I found myself on him.

  My arms wrapped around his shoulders and my lips pressed to his, fervently seeking, fervently trying to show him just how much he meant to me. I pressed my body to his, as if I was trying to merge the two of us into one. God, he felt so good against me. Hard and strong and full of heat.

  His hands were all over me as well, squeezing at my waist, sliding over my back and shoulders. They never stayed in one place long enough to be boring, always eliciting a new feeling from me.

  It didn’t take long for him to turn us both around, then he hoisted me on top of the island where we normally sat to eat breakfast. I let out a surprised sound, but he quickly covered my mouth with a deliciously powerful kiss.

  How was he still able to steal my breath so easily? I had no idea, but I grew giddy in response. I loved the way he made me feel. I loved everything about this.

  His thumbs hooked into my leggings and he roughly jerked them down, peeling them down to my ankles then prying them the rest of the way off along with my shoes. It was such a dominant, masculine sort of act I couldn’t help but let out a little gasp, and he just smiled up at me.

  “You’ve been such a good girl, you know that?” he murmured, beginning to kneel. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “Are you?” I whispered, my heart up in my throat. Between his words and his actions, I felt like a raw nerve, entirely too open and sensitive to all sensation.

  He nodded, and then pulled my thighs apart, revealing my center to him. I felt myself blush again from toe to scalp, but he just seemed mesmerized. I barely had time to take in a breath before his lips gently pressed to me, his tongue sliding out to glide along the outside of my folds.

  Holy shit!

  My head tipped back, and I had to hold onto the edge of the kitchen island again not to fall off. He just seemed to take that as encouragement, but his hands did come up to grip her thighs, squeezing just how she liked.

  His pressure increased every time I got used to what he was doing, starting with gentle kisses and just gliding licks, but then his tongue would press harder, trading between delving into me and circling around my apex.

  It was teasing, it was coaxing, and it was oh so masterful. My thighs were shaking and sweat was beginning to appear on my brow by the time his tongue finally but direct pressure on that button of pleasure and I outright screamed.

  “That’s my girl,” he breathed into me. “Tell me how much you like it.”

  Like it? That was the understatement of the year. My hands left the island to grip his head, holding onto his locs for dear life. My whole world was just his beautiful, ebony skin and his heady scent. Just him, and me, and everything that he could do to me.

  It didn’t take long before I tumbled over the edge, my thighs clamping around his head and my entire body shaking. He kept working through all of it, making it last impossibly long, his tongue working me over and over until I felt like a frayed wire.

  It wasn’t until my breathless sobs and keels of pleasure faded that he finally stood and pressed a heated kiss to my mouth. I could taste myself on his tongue and it started to get me riled up all over again.

  “Are you ready for me, love?” he whispered, voice strained from his obvious need.

  And for the last time that night, I nodded. He slid into me, my body giving way without a single shred of resistance, and we were one once again.

  I moaned, my body awakening again, and even Anthony let out a stream of praises.

  “Fuck, you’re so tight, baby,” he breathed into me, making me preen with pride. Yes, me. I was the one who drove him wild. I was the one for him.

  The thought was intoxicating, and I rutted into him with everything I had, the cold counter against my butt growing heated quickly.

  Neither of us lasted very long, and when he did finally spill into me, he was whispering compliments like I was some sort of deity made flesh. He stood there for a moment, breathing hard with me draped over his form, before pulling away enough to kiss my forehead.

  “I really do want a life with you,” he whispered, his eyes gazing over me reverently.

  “I do too,” I whispered before burying my face in his neck. While I was with him, I was safe, and I was happy.

  No one could take that away.

  Anthony

  I bounced my leg as the doctor moved the ultrasound wand around Stella’s middle, my eyes zeroed in on the fuzzy screen in front of us as if I was capable of discerni
ng anything about the grainy mess.

  It had been a few months since Stella and I had become and official and summer had already started. Just like I had offered, Stella had quit her job, allowing me to take care of everything she needed. I sensed that occasionally she felt guilty, or burdensome, but I did everything in my power to make sure she knew that doing these things made me happy.

  I needed to protect her. I needed to provide. Seeing someone I loved struggle was far too painful to allow. So really, she was doing me a favor.

  Thankfully, she was taking summer classes to make up for the medical leave she was going to have to go on -and the fact that my house was four hours away from campus- and those largely helped to occupy her free time, so she didn’t overthink everything.

  Because she had a lot to overthink. Even though it had been months, Rachelle still hadn’t talked to either of us. I’d contacted my ex a couple of times just to make sure she was alright, and for once Karen was incredibly level with me. Rachelle was fine, doing great in her classes and now having a fun summer, but she wanted nothing to do with either of us.

  I wished she could change her mind. Although Stella tried not to let me know, I knew that she had tried to contact my daughter many times and had come up empty. Sometimes I caught her staring forlornly at her phone, hoping for a text that was never going to come.

  I just wished my daughter would let go of her anger for one moment to understand that none of it was Stella’s fault. And that I was so head over heels with the woman that being separated from her felt like death.

  Maybe in time.

  I just hoped that she came around by the time the baby arrived. We were looking at a due date in early January. It would be something to have a New Years baby, but I honestly didn’t care what the date was as long as they are healthy.

  “Ah! There we go!” the doctor said, drawing me out of my thoughts. We had debated for quite a while on whether we wanted to surprise ourselves with our baby’s biological sex or not, but in the end we decided we wanted to know. “It looks like you’ll be having a healthy baby boy! Congratulations, you made it out of the first trimester!”

  It felt like my heart straight left my body, hurled into space by a rocket. “He’s healthy?” I repeated, surprised by the strength of the emotions hitting me. “No abnormal growth? No sitting cross-legged? No detachment from the uterine wall?”

  The doctor looked at me with sympathy, no doubt guessing exactly why I knew all of those bad signs. “Healthy as can be, and honestly a tiny bit big. You’re going to be in for a haul, that’s for sure.”

  I looked to Stella and realized that she was crying gently.

  “We’re going to have a baby boy,” she whispered. “Our very own junior.”

  “Junior?” I repeated, my heart clear on leaving the solar system. “You think we should name him after me?”

  “Of course. I can’t imagine anything else that would fit.”

  I leaned over to press a kiss to her and we both melting into a mess of gentle giggling and tears.

  “Alright, I’ll give the two of you a moment while I print this out. I can do a couple copies, if you need.”

  Stella’s face fell ever so slightly. “No, we really only need the one.”

  I knew what she meant. She had no one to give them to, no one to show off the little bundle to. It was just her and me right now. Maybe once all of this was said and done and we had a schedule, we would try to find her some groups where she could make some new friends. I didn’t want her to be isolated and only dependent on me. That certainly wasn’t healthy.

  “Okay. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  The doctor headed out, letting us just hold each other for a while, treasuring the moment. Eventually, however, Stella shifted and untangled herself from me.

  “I gotta pee, sorry.”

  “It had begun,” I said with mock gravity, causing her to giggle.

  “Stop it! If I laugh, I pee.”

  “That sounds like a you problem, not a me problem.” I teased.

  “It’ll be your problem when I pee in your nice, leather, automatically heated seats.”

  “You may have a point there.”

  She got up to leave, pulling her shirt down over her goopy belly, then ambled out. She wasn’t quite to the pregnancy wobble, but I could see it just starting to set in and I was strangely excited for it.

  I waited until she was gone from the room before pulling my phone out and taking a cell phone picture of the image frozen on the screen. I hesitated for a slight moment, before typing out a message and sending it to Rachelle.

  * * *

  I don’t know if you want to be updated, but you’re going to have a little brother.

  * * *

  I set my phone down, fairly certain she wouldn’t answer, but I still wanted her to know. Settling into one of the chairs against the wall, I waited for Stella to return. I knew it would be a bit. Girl did not have the fastest bladdered, especially compared to some of the guys at my shop who could be to the bathroom and back in under three minutes.

  To my surprise, my phone buzzed. I picked it up, expecting something from work, but instead I saw that Rachelle had replied.

  * * *

  Is he healthy?

  * * *

  I smiled ever so slightly. Although Rachelle had missed the worst of her mother’s miscarriages, there had been two after her where she was just old enough to know that she was supposed to get a younger sibling then suddenly didn’t and her mom was sad a lot.

  * * *

  Yeah, he’s hitting all the markers right on track.

  * * *

  I sent that off and I expected that would be that, but my phone buzzed one more time before I could put it down.

  * * *

  Thanks.

  * * *

  I thought for a brief moment about pressing the Stella issue, but I figured I shouldn’t punish her for actually having a conversation with me. I still had hope she would come around, and maybe this little boy would be the doorway for her to walk back into our lives.

  Nodding to myself, I slid my phone back into my pocket just as Stella came in. It seemed she had cleaned off her stomach and was looking at me with that expression she got whenever she was feeling particularly swept up in us.

  I loved that expression.

  Opening my arms to her, she crossed to me and sat in my lap. Holding each other like that, it was easy to forget that there was anything wrong in the world.

  Stella

  “And do you have form AC-96?”

  “I do,” I answered calmly, handing over another piece of paper. “It was in my original file that I turned in, but here’s a copy.”

  “Thank you.”

  She took it from me, but I wasn’t worried. I had two more copies in my binder. After all the rigamarole they’d already put me through, I wasn’t taking any chances.

  Christmas was coming up and I was heavily pregnant. The months had passed so quickly, leaving me exhausted, achy and irritable. Even walking made my feet and back hurt, which didn’t exactly put me in the best of moods.

  I was about to go onto medical leave for the semester and I’d actually been trying since the start of my second trimester so that way I wouldn’t have to stress, but the administration had been fighting me every step of the way.

  First, I didn’t have the right papers, even though I lifted the exact forms I needed from their website. Then they said I needed everything notarized. Then, after I did that, they told me they lost the folder and had no record that I had ever turned it in.

  It was bullshit. All bullshit.

  But Anthony had been there for me, helping me on the way and getting things done before our baby arrived. The previous night he had made sure I had every form and several copies of them as well, so I was anxious to get everything done and just go home.

  Also, I didn’t want to run into Rachelle. She still hadn’t talked to me but I refused to give up hope on us.

  However
, I knew that pressing her before she was ready would chase her away. I needed to give her the respect she needed and wait.

  Even if it was really hard.

  “And form 86c, d and f?”

  “That’s right here too,” I said, shoving more towards her.

  I had far too much to do to waste what little energy I had on this stupid red tape. Although I had quit my job as Anthony had asked, I had been making pocket money as a tutor to save up for supplies of holiday gifts. I knew that he was so rich that I couldn’t really buy him anything that felt significant to me, but I wanted to make both him and Rachelle something. Something special. Unique. Something money couldn’t buy. Even if Rachelle didn’t want to talk to me by Christmas, I would just save it until she was ready.

  The woman in front of me continued to hem and haw, going over my papers several times until finally she printed off a confirmation form and filed my folder away.

  “There you are! Looks like you’re all set to go.”

  “Thanks,” I said flatly, although I actually was incredibly relieved. Finally, I could head home and focus on both holidays and the baby.

  …but first, maybe I should go pee.

  I asked for directions from the woman in front of me and she vaguely pointed. Rolling my eyes, I headed out into the hall and found it for myself.

  I hated using the handicapped stall when I wasn’t disabled in anyways, but my belly had grown so round that I couldn’t fit in the normal ones.

  Anthony texted me, checking in that I was okay, and that brought a smile to my face. He really wanted to come with me, but I had insisted that he get to work. Apparently, his shady manager had finally been caught doing something definitely against the rules on camera and there was a whole lot that had to be done before he could be thoroughly fired.

  I’m fine. I finally got everything all through. Ya girl is a free woman now!