Wrong

by Aston, Jana

  I had no reason to go back the next week. Or the week after that. Weeks of detours for no reason other than a glance at a barista named Sophie. I had to finish the coffee in my damn car every day since I wasn’t about to walk into a student clinic holding a cup stamped Grind Me.

  I never intended to start up anything with her. I knew she was young. I assumed she was a grad student at the very least, but that was still too young for me. It was nothing more than a harmless ego boost at first - watching her pupils dilate when I spoke, her cheeks flush when she handed me coffee. Seeing her eyes follow me in the reflection of the glass every morning as I strode out of the cafe.

  Slowly I began to question, Why not her? I could take her out to dinner. Fuck her. Get her out of my system. But hell, she looked like the kind of girl who’d need to be called the next day. She looked like the kind of girl who had baby names picked out and would practice writing Mrs. Miller on scraps of paper. She looked terrifying.

  But I didn’t have any idea what terrifying actually felt like until I realized that I was the one who wanted all those things, and I wasn’t sure she did. That maybe the past was repeating itself. That maybe Sophie might be more interested in a career than a husband and children, with no faith that she could have both.

  I glance at her, sleeping next to me. She’s stirring with the morning sun filtering in. We don’t have long before the girls will be awake and the day begins. I reach over and trace kisses down her jaw to her chest.

  "Mmm, good morning to you too, Dr. Miller. Tell me you locked the door?" she pleads.

  I release a nipple from my teeth before replying. "Locked, and they’re both still asleep." I part her legs and move between them as I kiss her stomach. "Based on the time we should have at least twenty minutes."

  She laughs. "Remember when we had all day?"

  "I do." I grin at her.

  "I miss the marathons, but I do enjoy seeing how creative you can be on a deadline."

  "Do you?" I ask and drop her ankles over my shoulders.

  "Uh-huh."

  "I enjoy it when you visit me at work after dropping the girls off at the hospital daycare."

  "Do you think we're bad parents? Are the other parents using daycare to slip in a middle-of-the-day fuck?"

  "If they're not, they should be."

  "It was one thing when they couldn't walk, but they're little terrors now."

  I pause and raise my head. "You don't want another one?"

  "We have two!" she exclaims. "Under five! I just got Christine off to pre-school and I finally have Alessandra out of diapers."

  "Well, maybe you'll change your mind?" I raise an eyebrow at her.

  "Wait a minute." She sits up and scoots away from me. "Wait, wait, wait." She eyes me, scowling. "Do you think I'm pregnant now?"

  "You're three days late."

  "You're three days annoying."

  "I love the way your insults don't even make sense when you're flustered." I reach for her calf to pull her back to me, but she dodges me and grabs her phone from the nightstand.

  I wait patiently while she thumbs through looking for her period-tracker app.

  “How do you do that?” She scowls. “You don’t even have the app!”

  "Pregnancy tests under the sink," I call out as she stomps off to the bathroom. "I can get a blood draw this week when you stop in for office sex."

  "Thanks, babe, that's convenient," she replies sarcastically, and I just laugh.

  I hear the stick hit the trash can before she appears from the bathroom with a sigh she doesn’t mean. I smile and crook my finger, beckoning her back to bed to finish what we started.

  Something thumps against the bedroom door and the handle shakes back and forth. "Mommy?"

  She sags. "There goes morning sex. For the next decade."

  "Just a minute," I call out to whichever kid is in the hallway. "You," I say to her, "get back in bed. Give me five minutes, I'll set them up with a snack and a Disney movie and be right back."

  She bites back a smirk. "You're going to distract our children with a movie so we can have sex? You’re so wrong."

  Acknowledgments

  Julie Huss,

  Thank you for refusing to write the gynecologist erotica I kept asking for and telling me to go write it myself. Fine! I will! Um… okay. How do I use scrivener? How much is editing? Can you make me a cover? A pink one. XXOO,heart, heart, flower.

  Kristi Carol,

  Thank you for reading this from the very beginning in little bits & pieces, which is the worst way to read a book. Yet you kept reading it & kept asking for more, which means more to me than you’ll ever know.

  Beverly Tubb,

  Thank you for reading the first draft and loving it at a time I was ready to shelve the entire thing. Your repeated insistence that it was good and that you loved it may have very well been the difference between hitting the publish button versus the trash button.

  Michelle New,

  First, thank you for being you. Steady and drama free, always. Second, your graphics blow me away. Seeing my book through your graphic eyes? Just, wow. Thank you.

  Is anyone still reading this? Holy shit. THANK YOU. I never set out to write a book. Like, ever. I don’t have a notebook filled with short stories from my childhood. I didn’t take a class. I just decided to do it one day. I’m not saying it was easy, or that I didn’t work really hard on it. Because it wasn’t & I did. I’d estimate that 90% of this book was written by hand, a sentence squeezed in a moment here and a minute there throughout days, then months. I spent weekends typing it then eventually sent it off for professional editing. Then a second round of professional editing. So while I didn’t have much of a game plan going in, I did my best to create a satisfying story that was free of grammatical errors and typos. If you enjoyed it, thank you. I know your time is valuable & I appreciate that you spent some it reading Wrong.

  If you read this because you know me as Jana Aston, Julie Huss’ assistant, thanks for giving me a chance. Our styles & stories could not be more different. If you’re hoping my life plan is to become an author & leave my assistant days behind me, sorry you’re WRONG. You’ll have to crowbar me out of that role. I have a front row seat to the genius that is JA Huss. I get to talk with her about upcoming books. Months before a title’s even been announced, I get to hear about it. And she lets me argue with her about shit like hating the names she’s picked out (Did you know Rory Shrike’s name was going to be Sugar? Sugar Shrike? Assistant fit was thrown.) Or the mental state of her characters, (Apparently James is crazy, according to her. Uh, no. James is perfect, amiright?) The point is, if you were hoping that position was about to open up, sorrynotsorry.

  If you think you spotted your name inside the book, you probably did. Ali Hymer, Alessandra Torre, Amber Jacobsen, Amber Gladson, Ashley Blackwell, Beverly Tubb, Bella Love, Brandee Price, Chelsea Holguin, Christy Baldwin, Christine Reiss, Heidi Tieman, Holly Brama, Jennifer Mirabelli, Jean Siska, Jessica Frider, Julie Huss, June Luu, Kaylee Marie, Katie Terranova, Kara Hummel, Krista Lohss Davis, Kristi Kallam, Laura Moore Helseth, Leah Davis, Lindsey Miller, Marie Jocke, Michelle New, Misty Crook McElroy, Nicole Alexander, Meredith Dixon, Michelle Tan, Nicole Tetrev, Paige Nero Gast, Reanell Tisdale, Sandra Stroh, Sarah Gieger, Sarah Piechuta, Stacy Bono, Tami Estes, Tiffany Halliday, Tiffany Hollett, Tiffany Saylor, Trisha Hudson, Veronica LaRoche. Thank you for touching my life during the writing of this book.

  Is this the part where I’m supposed to tell you about my future plans? I…. don’t know. Everly has a story. I’d like to think I will tell it to you, but this book releasing thing is exhausting. I’d really like to tell it to you though, because Everly’s story is not quite what you think.

  About the Author

  Jana Aston is an emerging author of political romance. This is Jana’s third book.

  OMG, hahaha. That was the default sentence for “About the Author” on the program I’m using to format. I’m told I have to have an author b
io and I’ve been dragging my feet making one. I really, really like the one above. But it’s not true. I wrote one book. This is it. And it’s about as far from a political romance as you can get. It’s politically incorrect, sure. And offensive to doctor’s. And probably virgins.

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