“Who is it?”
“Um, Carolina? Hey, it’s Garrett. May I come in?”
“Garrett?! Weird, I wasn’t expecting you. Was there a problem with the drop off?”
“No, no Carolina. Um, may I come in? Sorry for not calling, but, um… well, I am standing out in the hall. Would it be possible for us to talk inside?”
I think I’ve made the “surprise” element convincing enough, so I unchain the lock and open the door.
“Uh, hi. Come on in. Would you like some tea? Sorry, I don’t have much. I wasn’t expecting company.”
“No. God, no. That’s fine. Look I won’t stay long. May I sit down?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. Sorry. Sit. Sit, please.”
He smiles and looks around. He seems to be looking at framed pictures on my mantle. If he is looking for evidence of a man, the sperm donor, he isn’t going to find it in any pictures on my wall.
“So, how have you been?” he asks me. “You look great.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“No, really. You look beautiful.”
“Garrett, I think we should cut to the chase. It’s obvious you know I’m pregnant. Is that why you’re here?”
“Yes.”
“Look—”
“Carolina—”
“No, you go first.”
“No, I’m sorry I cut you off. You were saying.”
“Look, Garrett. It was a mistake. I never intended for this to happen, and I don’t expect anything.”
Garrett nods fervently, unaware of where this is going, it seems. At least it looks that way from the agreeable stance he is taking. It was like he thinks I am talking about someone else’s baby.
“I mean, you don’t have to provide financially or care for the child or even give me any emotional support…”
“Wait, what? Back it up. Why are we talking about me? Wait. How far along are you?”
“Six months.”
Garrett’s faced drops.
“There has been no one else, Garrett. It’s yours.”
A heavy silence fills the room. I had never experienced a silence like this. It isn’t the kind where two people are so comfortable with each other that no words are necessary. It isn’t the dreaded thump of silence that happens when one party is blindsided by unexpected or devastating news.
It involves an inexplicable, automatic love. The kind that is personal. The kind that envelopes most of us when we find out we are about to be parents. But having delayed the news for him, I find it so strange. He isn’t finding out with me, and he isn’t at all reacting like I thought he would.
I stare into his eyes, which hadn’t found a focal point yet. I remain entirely still, not wanting to impress upon what he wants to say. I want it to be organic. I want whatever he says next to be important and from the heart, whether it is bad or good.
I wait.
Suddenly, he inhales one short, shallow breath and slumps in exhale. He finds his focal point. It is on my stomach. Then, just as he does, I notice his eyes are welling up with tears. I allow a small smile and then he speaks.
“Mine. I had hoped. I had so hoped. I had my speech prepared to wish you well on your new life with whomever and his child… but I had hoped.”
“You hoped?”
“I did, Carolina. May I?”
And he gestures to my stomach. He comes over to where I’m sitting, and kneels to talk to the baby. First, he looks up and asks, “Do you know—”
“It’s a girl.”
He bursts into tears.
“Hi, princess. This is your dad. You have probably been waiting for this voice, huh? You probably wondered where I was, I bet, huh? Well I’m here, baby. I can’t wait to meet you. I already love you so much.”
He can’t finish; his voice is cracking. Then he stands up. I can barely keep it together, and it finally happens. The question I have been dreading. It was all going so well, and then he gets down to serious business.
“Carolina. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We weren’t together. I don’t know. I was afraid. I just didn’t want you to react negatively. How could I do that to this baby? I wanted her to be happy and excited to be coming into the world, not already attached to resentment… I don’t know.”
“Okay, I’m so sorry you felt the need to do this alone. I am so sorry you thought so little of me—”
“No. No, it’s not that I thought little—”
“Look. I’m not some cad. The reputation is there, but it’s not as well deserved as one would think. I understand you felt I wouldn’t be happy but—”
“No, it’s not that I—”
“But I am. I am happy. Are you? Are you—”
“Am I what?”
He is looking at the floor, as if he doesn’t even want to ask the question.
“Are you in another committed relationship? I guess I shouldn’t have assumed you were doing this alone. Simply because—”
“No. No, I’m not in any other relationship.” I can’t believe he even thought that. “You were right. I’ve been doing it alone, and look, I never thought you were some terrible—”
“It’s okay.”
Garrett walks over to me and looks at me in a way that, again, I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced. Suddenly, he’s embracing me. I collapse into his arms. I have been holding myself up for six months when no one was there, when no one was holding me or touching me or making me feel loved.
It’s like a feeling of coming home. I just release all my anxiety right there. He holds me for what feels like a beautiful eternity and then finally he pulls away to face me, still holding me in his arms.
“Do you know how many times I have dreamed about this moment?”
“What? Holding the woman you knocked up?”
Leave it to me to ruin an otherwise precious memory with a bit of sarcasm, but I can’t resist. He lets out a small laugh, and before we know it we are both laughing hysterically.
“Oh, my gosh. Hah. Sorry, I just snorted. I just totally snorted. I can’t stop laughing.”
Suddenly, just as quickly as we had begun laughing, he stops, looks at me and kisses me. His lips are so soft. He is only gently pressing them against mine, and I can smell the scent of him— the scent of the man that I missed so much.
It isn’t sexual at first, and of course I did not anticipate that. Slowly, he began to kiss me like he is enraptured. I stop.
“I’m pregnant, you know.”
He laughs.
“I know. So, at least we won’t panic if the condom breaks.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. He unbuttons my blouse, and this time, I can feel the love. All the passion is there, the primal sexual urge to overtake me, but it is combined with love.
I wonder how I could handle this much passion. I had nearly flown off the planet when we first got together. How is love going to affect this? Because like it or not, I am in. I am all in.
Garrett lays me back gently on the bed and undresses me slowly. He looks at every part of me. He cups my breasts and kisses his way down to my stomach.
He is so gentle. I was writhing already, moaning with desire. Slowly working his way down, he licks and stops. I bend my knee up, clearly in heat. I wait as he takes his time with me. Then, feeling like I can’t take much more, I sit up and undress him, ripping his belt off, his pants.
He is so hard. I lick coyly again, kind of like a bad girl, just to let him know that Carolina is still here. He lifts me up and presses me up against him while he puts his fingers in me. My whole body is pulsating. I need him.
I push him down onto the bed and put his very erect cock inside of me. It feels just how I’d remembered. I exhale. I had waited for this for so long. He breathes heavily and never takes his eyes off me while I ride him and writhe, putting my hands on my pillow by his ears on either side so I can position my body to climax.
He thrusts hard, and is hitting my G-Spot. My eyes flutter as I think, I will never come back from this
orgasm. I gasp and groan, holding my breasts while I come. I had no idea sex while pregnant could feel so good. I supposed all the blood is rushing to my nerve endings. He is grunting, deep into his own climax.
Finally, I roll off and kiss him like I have never kissed another man. He pulls my hair back, now drenched in desperation. He wipes my brow and we just look at each other.
“I love you, Carolina. I love you.”
“I love you too, Garrett.”
“Marry me. Please, marry me. Not just because you’re having my child, but because I love you and want to be with you forever.”
“Yes. Of course. There’s nothing I want more, except for us and our baby to be a family.”
EPILOGUE
Garrett
Who would have thought that having a serious relationship— and a child— would make me an even better lawyer? Now that I’m a co-managing senior partner, I am now thriving at the practice and have helped grow the place into an even more reputable firm than it had started out; we’ve since added twelve associates. It turns out that when I don’t have the distractions of being a player to slow me down, I make quite the lawyer.
My brother is happy for me. My mom couldn't care less, but what else is new? I had found an assisted living home willing to take her— which is quite the feat considering her temperament and resistance— and Bob had made peace with the decision.
She was getting too hard for even a saint such as him to handle, and he had confided in me that he trusted Carolina's opinion. So, if she thought that putting Mom into the home was the kind and loving thing to do, then that had to be true.
I guess that's another thing I should thank Carolina for. Not only was she not like my mother, which had always been my biggest fear about relationships, but she also knew how to help Bob manage his own guilt and obligations when it came to her.
And Bob apologized to me for initially being reluctant about Carolina. He was just trying to help me avoid problems, which I appreciated.
Even Asher, Ron and Damien apologized to me, telling me they should have known to trust my instincts about where I could find not only sexual but also emotional fulfillment— just as they had, at work. I know they had just been looking out for the good of the firm, but it sure felt good to hear those fuckers apologize to me. And now we could go on being friends as well as co-workers.
Once I finally figured out what was going on with Carolina, I had no choice but to confess my love for her. I had loved her since the day I saw her. I just never thought I'd be brave enough to tell her, but our baby changed that.
Our baby made Carolina and me possible. Sure, we'd already had a sexual relationship, which had created her, but she paved the way for us to have an emotional relationship as well.
That doesn't mean our sexual relationship went away, luckily. At first, I worried that with Carolina being in such a delicate way, sex would be impossible. But it turned out that Carolina was even hornier the more pregnant she got. She said that the pregnancy hormones gave her an amazing rush of blood flow to her clit that increased sexual sensations.
So, I play with that pussy every chance that I get. I lick it, bite it, rub it, tickle it. I can't even count how many times I’ve made Carolina come since we’ve gotten back together.
We had as much sex as we could while she was pregnant, until toward the end when she was so big it was uncomfortable. I always loved her baby bump and how big her breasts became with the pregnancy. I loved to give her a massage and then let my hands travel up and down over her large breasts, massaging them and then playing with her nipples.
I'd rub lotion on her belly and then down onto her clit, playing with her until she came. And then I'd put my cock in her and fuck her, naked and raw, since we no longer had to worry about condoms.
I loved how my cock filled up her perfect pussy without any barrier between us. I loved shooting my load of cum into her willing pussy hole and then putting it in her ass and fucking here there too.
I'm making it sound like it’s all about sex. Obviously, it isn’t, or I'd have moved onto the next girl by now, like the old Garrett. I have no interest in that anymore. I just want Carolina and our little family.
As a man of few words, I'm better at talking about the sex stuff and leaving Carolina to talk about the other aspects of our relationship. She's always liked talking more than I have. But I have a couple memories of her pregnancy, once I knew about it, that have nothing to do with sex, believe it or not.
One time, we were at a county fair outside the city limits— Carolina liked to do things like that to relive her country roots— and it started raining. We headed for the car, but we didn't have an umbrella, so we stopped for shelter under a big tin roof that housed some hogs. They were getting nice and comfy in their piles of hay, so we decided to do the same while waiting out the storm.
I threw my jacket over her and pulled her close to me. I hugged and kissed her while running my hands over her belly. Just then, our baby started kicking fast and furiously.
"Do you think she's scared?" Carolina asked, looking fearful herself.
"She's fine," I told her, my hands traveling the expanse of her stomach, telling my baby, "It's okay, little girl. Calm down. Your mommy and daddy are here."
"I think she wants you to sing to her," Carolina said with a smile.
Singing to a baby, or at all, isn't something I'd ever done. But I was doing a lot of things with Carolina, and now our baby, that I hadn't ever done before. So why not that?
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star," I started singing to the baby. "How I wonder what you are."
As I continued, Carolina lay her head on my chest and looked down as I rubbed her belly and sang to our baby. The baby stopped kicking, and I went back to kissing Carolina.
When we got home, she'd remembered what I'd done to help quiet our baby during the storm. If the baby ever started kicking a lot again and seemed distressed, she'd let me know and I'd start signing to her, no matter where I had been or what else I had been doing.
If I was at the office or we were otherwise apart, Carolina would put the phone up to her stomach, and I would sign to the baby that way. Otherwise, we'd go into the nursery and dance a little to the tune of the mobile. Our bodies would sway back and forth as the mobile turned, and I'd sing lullabies to both my girls, letting them know that everything would be okay.
I bet no one expected an asshole player like me to settle down to the point where I would be singing like that. I wouldn't have believed it myself, had someone told me previously. But, as Carolina says, life has a funny way of changing plans on you right when you least expect it.
I can't say I mind this change in plans one bit. It wasn't expected, but I wouldn't trade any of it for the world. Not my sweet, sexy Carolina. Not our beautiful little girl. But I'll let Carolina tell you about her, because Carolina is the happiest, proudest mother I've ever seen.
Carolina
A few months later, Garrett and I brought Calliope Grace Mack into the world. She weighed in at a tiny six pounds, four ounces, and she was perfect. She even had Garrett’s little dimple on her chin. Once she was old enough to travel, Garrett and I married at the church in the town where it had all started for me.
Martha Grecco catered it, and Erin was my maid of honor.
“I told you you were in for new beginnings,” Martha said, nipping Calliope’s cheeks as she kissed my own. “I’m so happy and excited for you, Cari.”
“Thank you for everything you’ve always done for me, Martha,” I told her, hugging her second in the receiving line, after only my own parents.
Madilyn, Katie and Ruby were my bridesmaids. (Claude stood up on Garrett’s side as a groomsman, along with my friends’ husbands.) Madilyn’s and Ruby’s children, who served along with Calliope as our pint sized ring bearers and flower girl, were pulled in a tiny wheelbarrow by Garrett’s cousin’s ten-year-old child. It was the cutest sight you’d ever seen.
Garrett's brother Bob came from Albuquerque t
o be his best man, and even though his mom didn't come— both of them said it was better off if she didn't— I think I've slowly helped them mend fences, to heal some of the hurt that was keeping Garrett back from being the best person he can be.
She did send a card from her new assisted living home, which Garrett smiled about before tossing into the trash. Hey, it's a start, and everything should start somewhere.
I’m glad that the law firm is going well and glad I don’t have to worry about him being a player anymore. It’s clear as day for everyone including me to see that he is more than a little smitten with only two women now— me and our daughter.
I’ve decided to go to law school. Ensconced in studying for the LSAT exams, it is all happening for me, even while nursing little Calliope. And I love it. I wouldn't trade any of it for the world, even though I hadn't planned for things to turn out this way.
As a young girl, I had always envisioned my life with Jake, our perfect town, and our perfect two kids. It didn’t turn out that way, however. A divorce, a move from my beloved home town to the big city… Nothing had turned out the way I’d planned, not even the perfect job or the perfectly harmless office romance.
Truly, I didn’t even have my child the way I’d planned. She was born via emergency C-section. I wasn't proposed to like I’d always dreamed. Nothing, nothing had gone exactly as planned. Life didn’t turn out as I had always visualized. Life happened on my terms, however, and I’d have it no other way.
I’m glad Jake and I didn’t work out, or else I’d never have Calliope— or Garrett. I never even would have gotten the job I enjoy. (I’m back working with Garrett again, and I love working with my friends at the firm. But I still help Karen out in a pinch, and I’m grateful for all she did for me).
I would have stayed an insecure shell of a person instead of branching out— with Garrett’s help, and Erin’s too, although she would laugh at me for telling her that— to become the woman I am today.
They say never mix business with pleasure. I was always warned by those women who had come before me, “When it comes to romance at the office, stay clear of it. It can only turn out badly.”
Tackled by the Team Page 91
