Beautiful Potential

by J. Saman

  Might be a bit too hot for that walk though. Maybe I’ll take Kelly to the beach. That’s what I’ll do. Kelly looks amazing in a bikini and it’s the middle of the week so it won’t be all that crowded.

  I smile, thinking about Kelly in that red bikini of hers the rest of the walk home. And when I get to our building, I wave to the doorman and hit the elevator. Less than five minutes later, I’m unlocking the door to our apartment.

  It’s quiet. I don’t hear Kelly anywhere and I wonder if she’s out. I had this whole surprise-Kelly-thing going on in my mind, which is why I didn’t text her to tell her I was coming home.

  Shit.

  That’s not how this was supposed to go.

  “Kelly?” I call out. No answer.

  Sighing out, I walk into the kitchen and toss the box of scones onto the counter and go in search of a vase for the sunflowers. I’ll put them on the coffee table, that way when she gets home and walks into the main living room, she’ll see them.

  I find a crystal vase which one of my mother’s pretentious friends got us as a wedding present, and fill it with water. Unwrapping the cellophane from around the flowers, I drop them into the water, set them on the coffee table just so and then head for our bedroom.

  Maybe by the time I’m done with my shower, Kelly will be home. I haven’t showered in far too long either so that’s definitely in order. Maybe it’s better Kelly isn’t home to see me like this.

  I strip off my nasty scrub top, dropping it to the floor before I walk across our bedroom and open the bathroom door.

  And then I freeze, because Kelly is sitting on the closed toilet, with her head bowed down over her bent knees.

  “Kelly?” She looks up at me, her eyes rimmed in red. “Baby? Are you okay?”

  She’s surprised to see me standing here. Like she didn’t hear me come in the apartment or call out to her or even open the bathroom door. “Finn,” she says my name with a hitch in her voice. “Oh god, Finn. I uh…I didn’t know you were coming home now.”

  “What’s going on? Are you sick?”

  She shakes her head, a tear gliding down her cheek as she stares at me. “No, I…” And then she looks down and I do the same, and that’s when I see it.

  The stick in her hand.

  “Kelly?” I drop to my knees in front of her, staring down at that stick. “You’re taking a pregnancy test?”

  I don’t know how to feel about this. I wish she had waited for me. Peeing on a stick to find out if you’re pregnant is something that couples do together, Right? It’s how we did it the first time. It’s not something you do in the bathroom alone when you don’t think your husband is coming home. She’s crying now. A lot harder than she was when I first entered the bathroom and my heart breaks.

  Kelly is scared. Of course, she’s scared.

  We already lost Logan and I’m sure she’s terrified something like that could happen to us again.

  “I’m so sorry, Finn.”

  I shake my head, removing the stick from her fingers. She lets me take it and when I see the word PREGNANT in small cap letters in the oval, I smile so goddamn big.

  So. Goddamn. Big.

  “Kelly, we’re pregnant!” I laugh a happy bubble of excitement and then I wrap my arms around Kelly who is still crying. “Oh, baby. I know you’re scared. I am too. But this is such a blessing. Everything is going to be fine.”

  She shakes her head against my neck. Maybe she’s afraid I won’t be home and she’ll be stuck taking care of the baby alone? She has been complaining a lot about my hours and how she misses me.

  “I get it, the timing isn’t great with me being gone a lot, but I’ll do everything I can to be here more. And my internship is only a year and then my hours should stabilize a bit. We always talked about having more kids–”

  “Finn, you don’t understand,” she interrupts.

  I pull back and cup her cheeks in my hands, searching her eyes. “Tell me, then. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”

  She stares at me for the longest of moments as more tears pour from those pretty eyes of hers. “I’m sorry,” she finally manages. “I…” Kelly swallows hard and then wraps her arms around my neck, hugging me so tight. “I’m scared, Finn. I’m scared of so many things right now.”

  “I know, baby. I know. Me too. But I’m here and we’re together and everything is going to be okay.”

  Kelly nods her head against me and when she finally manages to pull herself together, we kiss and we smile and I show her the flowers and the scones. “Thank you,” she grins. “Blueberry is my favorite.”

  I smile. I haven’t stopped smiling. “That’s why I got them for you.”

  She nods. Takes a bite. Swallows it and says, “I’m sorry for hiding the test from you. I was scared and I didn’t know how to face this. I think I’ve suspected it for a while. Things have just been so different. So…out of sorts.”

  “And now?” I ask.

  “Now I have a lot to think about. But maybe I’m a little less scared. Maybe I can find my way through this and figure everything out,” she says, but she can't quite meet my eyes.

  Kelly and I kiss and I tell her I love her. She tells me she loves me too, even if she still won’t meet my eyes.

  Everything is perfect.

  We’re perfect.

  Chapter 26

  Gia

  “Will this night ever end,” I whine, sitting behind the nurses' station with my feet propped up. I’ve been chatting with a few of the nurses for the last hour. They’ve been telling me about their husbands and kids, because there isn’t a single pregnant lady in need of delivering a baby.

  It’s freaking unheard of and if it continues likes this, it’s going to be the longest night ever.

  I could probably go and sack out in the on-call room for a bit. Especially since Finn and I have the football game tomorrow. But I don’t like to do that. If I fall asleep, I’m usually groggy when woken and that’s just not safe for patients.

  Not that we have any.

  “You could catch up on your charting?” one of the nurses offers.

  “Done,” I say.

  “You could read a journal? Catch up on your CMEs?”

  “Done and done.”

  “Then you can go thank the gorgeous doctor who delivered this to you.”

  I glance up to see Rachel, one of the OBs, who is smiling from ear to ear as she reaches out her hand holding a very large to-go cup of coffee.

  I can’t stop the bubble of laughter as it climbs up my chest and out my mouth. I get up out of my seat and take the warm cardboard cup from her. “Is he waiting on me?”

  “I don’t think so. He just asked me to deliver this to you and then walked away as fast as he could like the floor was on fire.”

  I thank Rachel and move quickly to the door which leads out of the L&D floor, smiling as I hear Hannah, one of the nurses, laugh about how afraid men are of laboring women and babies.

  Just as I reach the elevator, I spy Finn stepping on. “Hey,” I call out. “Wait up.” Finn sticks his arm into the closing doors and then they open for me with a loud angry ding. “Why the delivery and ditch?”

  He smiles, but his eyes glance beyond me at the sign which says Labor and Delivery. “Not my department.”

  I roll my eyes at that and step on next to him. “But you brought me…what?” I look down at the cup in my hand.

  “Hot chocolate.”

  I laugh. “Of course, but you do realize I’m in the middle of a nightshift and actually require caffeine.”

  He grins down at me, shifting ever so slightly to face me better. “That’s why I had them add a double shot of espresso.”

  “And whipped cream?”

  “You can’t have hot chocolate without whipped cream.”

  “You’re amazing,” I say, taking a sip of my espresso-filled hot chocolate. “Yum. Where did you get this?” No way this came from the hospital ca
feteria and the coffee shop off the lobby is closed at this hour.

  “The coffee shop where I met your boyfriend last week.” I peer up at him, trying to gauge his expression, but he’s not giving me anything to work with.

  “And how is it that you have time to walk over and get coffee?”

  Finn takes a sip of his own large coffee with a smile. “It’s Q in the ED.”

  “Ah,” I say with a nod of understanding. “Us too.”

  In hospitals, it is against the superstitious laws to ever say the word quiet. It’s considered bad luck. A jinx. Like saying good luck to a dancer before they go on stage instead of break a leg. It’s simply not done.

  “Then you have a minute to ride down the elevator and share your espresso-chocolate drink with me.”

  “Isn’t that what I’m already doing?” I tease but then the doors open on the ground floor and we step out into the back end of the ED.

  “What time am I picking you up tomorrow?”

  Finn spins around on me, taking my arm and leading me down a vacant hallway. I feel like I shouldn’t be here with him. That’s it’s too intimate of a setting. But then again, we’re going to be alone all afternoon tomorrow.

  “The game is at four-fifteen so how about two? Or is that too early? Will you need more sleep than that?”

  Finn smiles down on me, edging the border of my personal space. “Two is a perfect.” I take a sip of my drink and do my best to appear like he’s not invading me. Like I’m completely unaffected by him. I figure this is just how it is with us and there isn’t anything I can do about it. That it’s just going to be my thing with him.

  Finn is the emotional equivalent of an old tattoo. A permanent fixture, even if it’s not the most prominent anymore. Even if it’s slightly faded or maybe even partially covered by another one. A brighter one. It’s still there. Forever a part of your skin.

  That’s Finn.

  I tried getting rid of him, but found it was impossible. So now I live with it. Accept it for what it is. We fall silent and do that staring thing with each other which we’ve managed to perfect. The one that makes my heart beat just a bit faster. The one that makes my stomach swoosh.

  “What did you tell Mason about tomorrow?” he asks, leaning into me just a touch more, those bright-blue eyes drifting all around my face.

  “I told him I was going to see the Patriot’s play the Jets.”

  He grins. “And who did you tell him you were going with?”

  “You,” I say.

  That grin turns into a full-fledged smile. “And what did Mason have to say about that?”

  I shrug because Mason wasn’t happy about it. I never mentioned how I got the tickets. Or that they were even technically mine. I played the whole thing off like it wasn’t a big deal and he didn’t fight me on it, though I think he wanted to.

  To be honest, I don’t know why I asked Finn to come with me. Yes, he sort of asked himself along, but I could have said no. I should have said that I have a boyfriend. It was a moment of weakness, I think. It was the first time Finn and I had seen each other in a few weeks, since that ill-fated night in my apartment. And I was swept up in the idea that he and I could actually be friends.

  It was idiotic.

  Even now, standing here with him in the middle of the night, in a vacant part of the hospital, I know what I’m doing with him is wrong.

  I can’t make myself stop either.

  Every little inch he gives me, I just want to take more, knowing full well it will never lead anywhere. It’s a tease. A peepshow. But if you run your hand quickly enough through a flame, you don’t get burned. That’s what I’m banking on.

  “He didn’t like it, did he? You taking me to the game instead of him? Or didn’t you tell him that’s how this is happening?”

  “Does the idea of Mason being unhappy about us going together make you happy?”

  “I don’t believe happy is the word I would use.”

  I want to ask him which word he would use, but I know Finn well enough to know he won’t tell me. And really, what am I hoping his word would be?

  “Mason knows nothing will ever happen with us,” I say and instantly regret it. I don’t know why I’m being petty with him. That’s a lie. I know exactly why I’m behaving like this.

  Finn steps into me, crowding me until my back hits the wall. He sets his coffee on the floor and then brackets me in with his arms. His face dips down so close to mine that his blazing eyes take up nearly my entire field of vision. His warm sweet coffee-scented breath fans against my lips.

  “Is that what you told him?”

  I nod. It’s the truth, but I find myself daring him to contradict me.

  “And what did he say to that?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “He didn’t say anything.”

  “Does this feel like nothing, Gia?”

  No. It feels like butterflies. It feels like heart palpitations. It feels like warm delicious tingles zapping each of my nerve endings in a synchronized dance. It feels exactly how it felt that night in my apartment and for that very reason, I need him to stop.

  “Does it matter, Finn?”

  He grins big and wide, his nose brushing against mine. Once. Twice.

  “No,” he whispers, his lips a half an inch from mine.

  His answer is a relief and a punishment. But I refuse to let him control me any longer. Pushing against his chest so that I can breathe without tasting him, I duck under his arm, freeing myself. Finn steps back, his hands going to his hips as his eyes close, his face pinching up in regret.

  He’s shaking his head, chastising himself for…well, probably for everything.

  I let him wallow in it. Succumb to it. He deserves it, and I think he knows that.

  I turn away from him and walk back down the hall to the elevator, pressing the button and taking a sip of my now very cold drink. “Thanks for the espresso-chocolate. It was delicious,” I tell him as I drop it into the trash bin. “I’ll see you tomorrow at two.”

  The elevator doors open just as I say two, as if they knew I’d need to make an exit at that precise moment. Stepping on, I hit the button for my floor and close my eyes.

  I can’t look to see if he’s there watching me.

  Chapter 27

  Finn

  “What are you doing here, Gia?” I ask, opening my front door and rubbing away the sleep from my eyes. I’m exhausted. In fact, I can barely open my eyes.

  That is until I see her. She’s leaning against my doorframe, her blue-green eyes are big and bright and lined in kohl. Her black hair is piled up on top of her head. Her lips are red. Motherfucking fuck-me red. And that dress. Jesus Christ, is she trying to kill me right now? She’s wearing that red dress she wore at that party back in October. That strapless red dress which is beyond short with that amazing V down the center of her cleavage.

  She entices the sleeping devil inside me, urging him to come out and play. She’s a siren. A goddess. And so I’m so far past screwed at this point.

  “What are you talking about?” she asks me. “You sent me a text, asking me to come over.”

  “Huh?” I tilt my head at her and she winks.

  Gia steps inside and runs her fingers up my bare abs and chest. Slowly. She watches herself touch me with a wicked smirk on her lips and then when she reaches my neck, her eyes flutter up to mine. “I’m done with the games, Finn. I’m done with wanting you as much as I do and not being able to have you. I need you. Please give me what I need.”

  I kiss her.

  My lips crash down on hers and I capture her face in my hands. The hot chocolate I bought her, wavers, threatening to topple over, so I take it and set it down on my coffee table. Because suddenly, we’re at my couch. I don’t care how we got here, I just know I need more of her mouth.

  She moans against me, caressing my skin with her warmth. “Yes,” she breathes.

  And then I get serious. Positioning mysel
f so that I’m hovering over her body, I meld my tongue against hers, groaning at the flavor.

  Her hands grasp onto the muscles of my shoulders, pushing me away and pulling me closer in equal measure. I get her conflict. Understand her struggle. I am an asshole. I’ve been nothing less to her. She’s right to question me. To push me away and demand answers.

  But her will isn’t strong enough to do any of those things.

  Gia Bianchi wants me just as much as I want her and holy hell that makes me insane with a need that matches hers.

  Sitting back on my couch, I pull her on top of me, her thighs straddling mine. Her dress riding up higher until her fantastic heat presses just where I need it to.

  She moans into my mouth as she grinds against my achingly hard cock. Cries out as I rip the pins from her hair, making it tumble down her back in thick black waves. Groans as I yank down the front of her dress and cover her pink nipples with my mouth. Her tits are large and full and more than fill up my hands as I squeeze them.

  The remains of her dress are bunched up around her waist, her sweet pussy rocking into me in the most sublime of rhythms.

  “Gia,” I growl, not even sure what I’m asking for when I say her name. It can’t be for her to stop, even if it’s madness for her to continue.

  “Finn,” she purrs my name. “Oh god, Finn.”

  And that’s it. That’s all it takes. Her swearing my name in combination with God’s.

  Flipping her body so that she’s on her back again, I wrench her dress up, getting off on the sound of it tearing and then I lower my head into her panties. Also red, but they don’t last long. They come off and then my mouth is exactly where I want it. Exactly where she wants it. I lick and suck her with just the right amount of pressure and she whimpers, her back arching off the couch. Her sounds instantly become the best sounds I’ve ever heard and the way she claws at my back and scalp, only spur me on.