Lieutenant Commander Stud

by Chance Carter

He chuckled. “You’re right. That means a lot and I’m sure Julian will be excited. We’ll drop him off around seven.”

  “No problem.”

  I hung up the phone and continued on my way home. The hot dog was gone before I’d even made it halfway. Back in my office, I scrolled through my inbox and tried to decide what to do next. Now that I’d cleared most of the important stuff up, my mind was a little more free to wander.

  Wander it did.

  I started thinking about Aurora, wondering what she wore to work today. Was it the tight pencil skirt that framed her ass like a priceless piece of art? Was it the high-waisted slacks that I’d been skeptical of at first but had soon grown to love? That girl looked good in everything she wore.

  Before I could go any further, I disconnected my mind and flung myself back into work mode. I stayed home today so I wouldn’t have to see her, wouldn’t have to think about her.

  If only it were that simple.

  The microwave droned on and on, each second ticking down with incredible slowness. I stared at the glowing rectangle, bored, while Jude channel surfed in the living room.

  “You’ve got to pick something at some point, bud,” I called over to him without turning around. “The popcorn’s going to be finished soon.”

  “I don’t know what to pick,” he whined. “There are so many good shows on.”

  The microwave beeped and I took out the scalding hot bag of popcorn, shaking it with gusto as I rooted for a bowl in the cupboard. It smelled a little burnt. Whoops.

  “Don’t forget the extra butter!” Julian piped.

  I sighed, even as my amusement grew. “Of course, sir.”

  Julian didn’t get the joke. He was just a little too young to realize how much of a pain in the ass he could be. I couldn’t tell whether the demanding side of him came more from his mother or his father. Though they were polar opposites in many ways, that was one personality trait Avery and Morgana had in common.

  When I moved back over to the sofa, arms laden with a big bowl of buttery popcorn and two glasses of water, Julian was settled into the furthest corner of the couch with his knees up to his chin. His eyes were the size of saucers and I followed his gaze to the TV, where sharks and tropical fish slowly waved their way through an endless sea of turquoise.

  “What’d you pick?” I smacked his legs until he lowered them and then handed him his cup of water.

  He scooted closer to me and the popcorn, grabbing his first handful. “Something on sharks.”

  I could tell I’d lost his attention now. He didn’t look at me when he spoke and he shoved the popcorn into his mouth without so much as glancing down at his hand. Little kernels toppled into his lap.

  I was glad he’d picked a nature program instead of some kid’s show, but I found the topic to be a bit hard to get into. There was something about the underwater environment that didn’t jive with me, and the naturally slow pace of the show had my eyes feeling heavier by the second.

  My thoughts drifted to Aurora. What was she doing now? It was Friday night, but that didn’t mean anything. She was pregnant, so it wasn’t like she’d be going out and getting wasted at the bar. Also, she was Aurora, and that was an unlikely scenario in the first place.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about her and it was driving me mad. I knew that if Julian wasn’t there the temptation to call her might override my better judgement. I was still too emotional about what had happened between us, and I didn’t trust myself to behave properly. When I am like this, it is easy for me to make mistakes. I’d already made so many in life.

  “Uncle Brendon?” Jude’s small voice piped up during one of the commercial breaks.

  “Mmm?” I had to force both my eyes open and look down at him. Sometime during the show he’d wedged himself up against my side, with the bowl resting on my knees.

  “Where’s Auntie Aurora? Isn’t she coming tonight?”

  I should have expected him to ask but it still sent a crash of pain through my heart. I was suddenly alert, and I sat up a little in my seat to address him.

  “Auntie Aurora and I are just taking some time apart right now,” I said softly.

  “How much time? A week?”

  I laughed and ruffled his head. “That’s just an expression adults use, kid. There’s no definite amount of time until we see each other again.”

  He screwed up his mouth, but whatever thought had caused him to do so apparently wasn’t worth voicing. Jude turned his face back toward the TV and let out the tiniest of sighs.

  “I hope you don’t take too much time,” he said. “I miss her.”

  “I miss her too, bud.” I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed.

  My heart clenched—for everything we had, everything we could have had, and everything we might never have. I had no idea how to move forward. How much time was I going to need? Would it ever be enough to fix the ache in my chest? She lied to me. I wanted to trust her more than I ever wanted to trust anyone, but now thoughts of her were tainted with mistrust.

  Worst of all? Here, with Jude, watching nature documentaries and eating slightly burnt popcorn, I realized that if this was going to be my life, I could think of no better person to spend it with than Aurora. I could think of no better mother for my child.

  Chapter 26

  Aurora

  I stared at the clock on the mantle, watching the hands slowly creep around one second at a time. I was lying over the back of the couch, upside down with the blood rushing to my head. I’d gotten sick of staring at the clock from a normal position and, rather than switching up my activity to something less weird and depressing, I just went at it from a different angle.

  It was the most boring Saturday I’d ever spent on this earth. I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, and the only person I wanted to spend any time with hated my guts. For a good reason, too.

  Amy suggested going out shopping for baby things to keep me occupied, but I wasn’t in the mood. The baby wasn’t going anywhere, and I had months ahead of me to shop. Besides, I wanted to be alone if I couldn’t be with Brendon. My best friend had been doing an amazing job of keeping me together these past few days, but even she could hold the sadness at bay for only so long. When Brendon didn’t come into work on Friday I knew it was over, and since then I’d been holed up in my apartment with no plans to come out until Monday morning. I had all the food and entertainment I needed right here. Though apparently nothing on Netflix was more interesting than the passage of time on the clock.

  I was lost, adrift in a little dinghy in the middle of a stormy sea. I even considered calling Nolan just so I could have a little of that familiar brand of comfort I’d known for so many years, the thought of him put a bad taste in my mouth. What I really wanted was Brendon’s arms around me and for everything to be okay again.

  Maybe it would be better if I went home. To Bridgefield. What was left here for me? A boss who now hated me, a job that would be awkward even if Brendon did work from home for the rest of his life, and a crappy apartment with paper thin walls. I’d already heard the couple next door yelling at each other a few times since I moved in, and it was bad enough to wake a baby. Would continuing to live here end up making me miserable? Was this the great adventure I’d signed myself up for? If it was, it kinda sucked. It was great at first, but now the only things I had going for me were the fact that I loved living in the city and that I adored my best friend. What else was keeping me here?

  Like she had a sixth sense for emotional breakdowns, my mother’s faced popped up on my phone screen and the phone began to ring insistently. Considering that the last time I talked to her ended with her passing along my private information to my asshole ex-boyfriend, I wasn’t too jazzed to pick up. I considered not answering, but then I figured that at least it would give me something to do and something else to think about. And I was in the right spot to miss my mom.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello sweetie! How are you? Getting plenty of vitamins?” she
chirped.

  I sighed. “So I guess you heard.”

  “Of course I heard! Frankly I’m a little peeved that you didn’t tell me yourself, but I suppose it was hard for you to swallow that piece of humble pie.”

  I frowned. What the hell was she talking about?

  “Did Nolan tell you?” I figured he had but I wanted to be sure in any case.

  “Yes. He’s such a good boy, isn’t he? I just knew sending him over there would bring you to your senses. Sometimes you just need a little space. I certainly had those times with your father, and you know I regret not spending as much time as I possibly could with him now.”

  Her tone was clear. I should forgive everything wrong with Nolan just because he could die young. Great advice, Mom. It irked me that she was even comparing Nolan to Dad in the first place. Dad was a good man. Nolan was…Nolan.

  “I wouldn’t start telling people I’ve seen the light yet, Mom,” I said. “Nolan and I aren’t getting back together.”

  This did nothing to dissuade her sunny mood. “Not yet! But who can say what the future will bring, hmm? I think once you’re back where you belong it’ll just click how much you two belong together, don’t you think?”

  Ah, so she assumed I was coming home. I wondered if Nolan told her about our deal or if she just came to that conclusion on her own. Either way, she was about to get a rude awakening.

  “I”m not coming home mom,” I said. “Or at least, I don’t have any plans to right now. If Nolan turns out to be the father…”

  “Of course he’s the father! How could you even question that?” Her voice rose at least a few octaves, and I had to pull the phone away from my face so the sound didn’t pierce my eardrums.

  “Anyway, darling, let’s talk about something a little more pleasant. I’ve had such a wonderful day and I wouldn’t want to spoil it by getting into an argument with the daughter I never see. I hope you’re home in time for the Harvest Festival. This year the Graysons have outdone themselves decorating the town square, and the whole place looks like it’s straight out of a movie. The streamers, the lanterns… Oh, how they’re going to glow at night! And the weather has just been fantastic, I must say. I’ve spent every night this week sipping sweet tea out on the back porch as the buzz of tractors and bugs fill the air. It’s a little taste of the South. Simply wonderful.”

  Much as I loathed to admit it, all of that did sound pretty wonderful. I’d forgotten how dreamy the first few weeks of fall in Bridgefield could be. The smell of hay bales and the crackling of dry grass underfoot. No sirens at all hours of the day and night, just tractors and bugs like Mom said.

  “You know, Aly and Dave Brighton are putting their house on the market soon. I know how much you love that place and I bet they’d work out a deal for you if you put in an offer.”

  The Brightons lived down the street from my mom in a cute rancher with a white picket fence and a dreamy backyard oasis. Growing up, I always told my mom that someday I’d live there.

  “I don’t have any money to be putting down a deposit,” I reminded her.

  “Nolan told me he has a chunk saved up, and don’t think your old mother doesn’t have a penny or two put away. If you have enough credit for a mortgage, I’m sure it would be doable.”

  For a moment, I allowed myself to be drawn away on a cloud of fanciful notion. Mom was wrong to think I’d ever live with Nolan again, but being back in Bridgefield wouldn’t be so bad, would it? I could take my little boy or girl apple picking in the fall, and we’d curl up in front of the fire in the winter and watch the snow drift past outside. If the kid was Brendon’s, Bridgefield wasn’t so far away that he couldn’t visit.

  I rose from the couch with a sigh and started heading toward the kitchen for a glass of water. Meanwhile, my mom was still expounding the values of small town life.

  “You should see all the kids getting excited for Halloween already,” she said. “We used to have so much fun on Halloween, didn’t we? It’s such a quiet, safe community and you don’t have to worry about what some stranger is going to put in your child’s candy. Where would you even go trick or treating in New York?”

  I paused with my hand on the handle of the fridge, but not because I was listening all that intently to my mother’s ridiculous reasoning. The availability of Halloween trick or treating was not a factor I intended to base something as important as my future home on, though she had a fair few points.

  All these points fell by the wayside as I took in the photo tacked to my fridge. It was of Jude, Brendon and I on our first day in Disneyland. Brendon was carrying Jude on his shoulders, and I was tucked against Brendon’s side like I belonged there. The sun was bright in our eyes, but our smiles were brighter.

  “Aurora, are you listening?”

  Startled, I wondered how long I’d been zoning out.

  “Uh, no,” I replied. I grabbed the photo from the fridge and held it to my heart, closing my eyes and letting a tiny smile draw up the corners of my mouth. “I’m sorry mom, but it doesn’t matter what you say. I’m staying here.”

  “What?”

  How could I explain to her everything going through my head and my heart right now? I wanted Brendon so badly it hurt, and the idea of having a child with him was the single most amazing future I could think of. Maybe things were complicated right now, and maybe they’d never resolve themselves, but I wasn’t going to abandon ship and crawl back home to Bridgefield just because of one little rough patch. I was going to weather this storm—for better or for worse.

  “I’m not coming home. New York is my home now, and I’m committed to seeing this through.”

  Mom’s voice grew into a near shriek. “You’re just going to throw your life away because of this Sex in the City fantasy of yours? Don’t you care about anyone other than yourself?”

  She didn’t know me at all if she thought this had anything to do with some fanciful New York lifestyle that I was hoping to achieve. It was about more than that. It was about independence. Freedom. Carving my own way in the world with my sweat and my toil.

  Instead of telling her that, because I doubted she would listen, I simply said, “I do care about someone other than myself. More than you could possibly know.”

  She was still yowling when I hung up the phone. Mom hated when people hung up on her, and called back immediately afterward. I ignored it. If she didn’t want to get hung up on, she should know better than to start screaming at me.

  And if she wanted to continue our relationship, she should know better than to doubt my ability to find my own way.

  Chapter 27

  Aurora

  Sunday evening, I was filled with anxiety about the day to come. I had a whole week in the office ahead of me, and I thought it highly unlikely that Brendon would occupy himself outside of the office the whole time just to avoid me. I hoped he wouldn’t, anyway. I was desperate to see him, if only in passing. If he didn’t want to talk to me, that was fine. Well, it wasn’t fine, but I would forgive him for being a bit of a jerk.

  After all, it’s not every day your girlfriend announces she’s pregnant with maybe-your-baby.

  I was curled up on my sofa, a steaming mug of caffeine-free green tea in one hand and my phone in the other as I attempted to select a program on Netflix. Pregnancy was providing me with a host of strange cravings, and they didn’t stop at pickles and ice cream. I was on the hunt for the perfect museum documentary to fulfill my desire for a quiet, calm ambience, but so far wasn’t having much luck. Pregnancy had also made me indecisive. At least, that’s what I was blaming it on.

  Someone knocked on the front door and it startled me. I nearly spilled my tea, but managed to catch myself in the nick of time. I set the mug down on the side table and hiked the woolen blanket over my shoulders, staring over at the door like I thought I might be able to see through it.

  Best case scenario, it was Brendon. That thought sent a cascade of happy shivers down my spine, and I nearly vaulted off the couch to
let him in.

  Worst case scenario though, it was Nolan. That thought was enough to stick my butt to this couch until the end of time. I figured he was also the more likely option, given my recent rabble-rousing chat with my mother and all. It would be like her to send her lap dog to do her bidding and put me in my place, and I wasn’t much in the mood to be put in my place by anyone. I just wanted a nice relaxing evening where I didn’t have to listen to anybody else’s wants or demands.

  Was that too much to ask?

  I sighed and dropped my phone to the couch but kept the blanket around my shoulders as I stood to get the door. If it was Nolan, I had every intention of slamming it back in his face. Though I had told him I would go back with him if he was the baby’s father, my most recent chat with my mother had more or less brought me to the decision that I was staying in New York. Bridgefield wasn’t my home anymore and it never would be. Call me disingenuous, but I didn’t feel bad for shirking our deal. As far as I was concerned, the scales were still heavily weighted in my favor when it came to being the better person in the relationship.

  I steeled myself to deal with Nolan, and cautiously hoped to see Brendon, but I opened the door to mysterious option C.

  “Uh, hello,” I said, taking in the handsome stranger in my doorway.

  He was tall, though not quite as tall as Brendon. He had sandy hair that fell to the tops of his cheekbones, and it was styled to look like messy bedhead. His eyes were a steel gray, and they almost appeared lit from the inside. His full mouth was set above a pronounced dimpled chin, lips turned into a cocky smirk that I immediately wanted to smack off him—which was a strange urge considering I’d never met him before in my life. Based on his expensive looking suit and air of confidence, I surmised that if this person knew me, the connection was through Brendon.

  “You’re Aurora, correct?” he asked in a smooth, rich voice.

  I frowned and pulled the blanket tighter. “It depends who’s asking.”

  The stranger laughed, creasing the lines beside his eyes. Then he gave a short, courteous bow. “I’m Peter Vasiliev,” he said. “I don’t know if Brendon’s mentioned me…”