by Mignon Mykel
Before I could think up something to say, Mia turned and headed toward the building. I, having called this meeting, followed behind. I left enough room between us so I could check out the sway of her hips. One of the things I immediately noticed on Mia, beside her belly, was that her tits grew. I wasn’t surprised then, to find her ass had a little extra bounce to it, too.
I wanted to put my hands on it, squeeze the round globes in my hands as I pounded into her from behind again…
Wait a fucking second.
I didn’t do double dipping. I know I said we needed to talk, and I know I was having some mixed feelings on the drive over, but hell if my head didn’t seem to want to keep Mia around. I was going to have to think about that little fact a bit longer.
Mia had me climb three fucking flights of steps. Three. Now, I know that’s not a lot, but she was at the top of the apartment complex and if her belly was the size it was now? Surely she would be winded on this trip a few more weeks down the road.
“You should proba—”
She held her hand out to her side, angled back toward me without actually turning to address me. “Save it.”
My brows lifted on their own accord, I swear it, at her abrupt dismissal of what I was going to say. “You don’t even—“
Mia stopped in front of a door and turned toward me. “I said. Save it.”
Well-fucking-then.
I stopped beside her and crossed my arms over my chest. Fine. I wouldn’t say it. Yet.
She turned back to her door and unlocked it, stepping inside and holding the door for me. I took the door from her on my own way through and she moved away, toeing out of her shoes. Moving them with her toes, she placed them along the wall and hung her keys on a peg, putting her wallet in a small basket attached to the bar the peg was on.
“I’m going to change into something more comfortable. Just… Sit somewhere.” She waved her hand dismissively as she walked away from me and like the involuntary brow raise a little bit ago, my lips were twitching to grin.
I let the door close behind me and bent down to untie my dress shoes, placing them near the shoes Mia set aside. They were next to a pair of running shoes, a nicer pair of sandals, and a pair of those plastic flip flops you could buy for less than five bucks.
Deciding to take a look around, I pocketed my hands and moved quietly through her place. There was a small bathroom and laundry room, and the next room I passed through was a living room area and one of the smallest kitchens I had ever seen. The place couldn’t be much bigger than five hundred square feet. I wondered what she was paying for little digs like this.
Which had me wondering what it was, exactly, she did for a living.
Which, of course, had me curious about how that would all work out once she had the baby.
Fuck. This train of thought I had where Mia was concerned fucking baffled me.
It looked like the nicest piece of furniture in her apartment, and by that, I mean more expensive than twenty dollars apiece, was her couch. I went over to the sectional and sat down, surprised to realize it was extremely comfortable.
I mean…it was bright turquoise, but it was comfortable.
I sat forward, my forearms on my knees, as I waited for her to come back out. I wasn’t a lady, but I couldn’t think of a reason why her slacks and shirt were uncomfortable and why she had to change. It wasn’t like she’d been in them all that long.
She arrived to the restaurant, barfed in the restroom, and left. Not that much time in her clothes.
Then again, she did barf, and was pressed against the restroom wall…
I couldn’t help but grin at the memory.
So yeah, maybe that’s why she wanted to change. Bathroom walls were dirty. Her panties probably were, too.
When a door opened at the other end of the room, I looked up to see Mia emerge, this time in cotton shorts and a dark t-shirt that hugged her stomach. Her crazy curls were pulled back from her face now, but I only glanced at them quickly before dropping my gaze back to her stomach.
Mia stretched at the bottom hem of her shirt. “They’re getting too tight, sorry,” she grumbled. Barefoot, she padded past me into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, then moved back toward me only to stop at the counter seating area. She placed her bottle of water on the counter and pulled out a stool to sit facing me, but she didn’t say anything.
I tried to work on getting my mad back, but I couldn’t manage to find any anger as I looked at her sitting there in front of me, propped on a stool with her hands clasped between her bare knees.
“Were you going to tell me?” There. I would start with that.
She stared at me a moment too long, and I had my answer. No, she hadn’t been planning on it.
“I was going to try,” she said instead.
I nodded a few times, my eyes locked with hers. She looked uncomfortable but I gave the girl props, she kept eye contact.
“You should—“ I started, but she spoke at the same time, “Look, I was—”
We both stopped and stared at one another before Mia sat up a little straighter in her chair.
“I was going to try telling you. I know that’s not a good enough answer, but I was going to try. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the first night who I was. I should have. It was childish of me not to tell you, just as it was childish of me to want to be with you for a night.”
Well, I wouldn’t say childish…
“By the time I found out I was pregnant, I was already three months along. Conor, it took me three weeks to try and talk to you, and even that I failed at. I just…” she shrugged her shoulders and looked down at her lap.
I didn’t have the anger in me any longer. To be honest, I’m not sure it ever was true anger. When I found out I took her virginity, I was angry, sure, but more at myself. Omitting the truth is lying, yeah, but I probably could have handled her better afterward. And when she walked into the restaurant earlier, it wasn’t so much anger as it was shock at learning the woman I had fought to get out of my head was a girl I had known when I was a kid, and that she was obviously pregnant with my child.
“What have you been up to, Mia?” I asked. The shock on her face was comical. It was not the direction she was thinking I would go, I was sure. Hell, it baffled me a bit too.
She contorted her face a few times as she worked on spitting out words, but finally she settled on, “I teach?”
“Is that a question, or is that what you do?”
Mia nodded. “I do. I teach. Second grade.”
“So that’s what, seven and eight year olds?”
She nodded again.
“How long?”
“I just finished my first school year.”
“You get decent benefits?”
She nodded but shrugged as well. “If you’re asking about the baby, Conor, I said I was going to be fine.” Unlike the previous time she told me this, her voice held no bite.
I shifted in my seat and narrowed my eyes ever so slightly. “Do you want me in the baby’s life?”
I don’t know why her answer mattered, but I was surprised to find it did. I would have been fine going through my days, not knowing I’d fathered a kid. But knowing there was a kid out there that was mine? I’m not so sure I could do it and not have any sort of contact with it.
“I don’t need you in the baby’s life, no.”
“That wasn’t the question though.”
“Conor, I don’t know you anymore. I can’t make that kind of decision. I don’t know if there’s a good guy under that front you put on at the bar, or if that front is really just you.”
“Then ask me something.” It caught me off guard, but I wanted her to know who I was. I wanted her to have that knowledge so she could make that decision. Granted, I was surprisingly afraid she would learn that what I put on for show at the bar was really just classic Conor O’Gallagher.
I found myself wanting to know if I could be the good guy who got the girl. Crazy as that fuc
king sounded.
Mia frowned at me but she didn’t move from her spot. I could see the wheels turning behind her eyes. She leaned to her side so she could rest her arm on the counter, her head in her hand, as she scratched at the side of her head. Her eyes remained on me as she thought. “This is awkward.”
“Anything, Mia.” I leaned back to appear more casual, slouched against her couch with my arms thrown over the back, when casual and carefree were the last two things I felt inside.
Nervous.
Anxious.
Not worthy.
Those were pretty forefront in my mind.
Not to add the confusion of why those things were there.
“Well…” She sat up and rocked in her seat, as if to find a better position. Her eyes were fixed to my chest but moved up to my eyes. “I guess, what have you been up to the last few years? Just taking over the bar?”
“Yeah and no. I bought it from the parents and Rory and I worked on the remodel before opening the doors again.”
“Did you go to school?”
I lifted my brow. I remember the day I left for college; it was probably the last time I’d seen a little Mia. “You know I did.”
“Well, did you finish school, then?”
I nodded. “Business,” I said, guessing her next question. I leaned forward again.
“Any serious relationships?”
I shook my head no.
Her brows rose. “None at all?”
I shook my head again. “Nope.”
“So you really do just take a random woman up to your place at night. Every night?”
I didn’t think lying to her would be a good answer. “Most nights.”
“If we do this…co-parenting thing…that stops with the baby.” She crossed her arms under her ample chest. “I don’t care what you do in your free time, but you don’t bring women up when you have the baby.”
“I wouldn’t.” It was my turn to shift in my seat.
“How often are you willing to be away from the bar? You’re there all the time now, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “Usually, yeah, but I can take time off. What are you thinking? Do you need, want…someone to go to appointments with you?”
She shook her head. “Oh! No, not that. I was talking about when you’d have the baby.”
Again, I nodded. Made sense. “I would, you know, go to appointments with you, if you wanted.”
“No, that’s ok.” Mia’s smile was forced. “Um. So yeah. What do you… How do you want to do this, I guess?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do we do this civilly between us, do we get lawyers?” She scoffed to herself. “Well, lawyers are probably a good idea, regardless.”
“How about we just take it a day at a time?”
Mia swallowed and nodded. “Ok.” Her eyes widened briefly and she smiled. “Do you maybe, do you want to feel the baby?”
“Like, touch your stomach?”
“The baby’s really active right now. You might not be able to feel it as much as I can, but you might be able to. You know, if you wanted.”
Did I want to? Kind of, actually, yeah. It was some weird fucking shit, though.
But this was the most open Mia had been all night and I was going to grab on to that olive branch. I pulled to a stand, rubbing my suddenly wet palms on my pants, and walked the short distance to where she sat. I pushed the sleeves of my shirt up a little more just as I reached her.
Mia reached out a hand and grabbed my wrist. I had to refrain from jumping at the contact. It was electrical, and fuck if I knew what that was about.
She guided my hand to the swell of her stomach and my palm touched just as something pushed from the other side.
Well, not something. Our kid.
Our kid.
I just felt our kid.
And suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be in this kid’s life.
And in Mia’s.
I would find a way to be in Mia’s life, more than just as the father of her child.
For the first time, I found myself wanting forever.
Conor
I probably stood there for another five minutes, my hand in one spot on Mia’s belly.
She’d ask, “Did you feel that one?” every time she felt a push or a kick, and I found I was disappointed that I only felt a few of the movements she felt.
Her hand was still on my wrist and she guided my hand to the top of the swell. “What about there?”
I tried to focus on my hand and what was beneath it, but I kept fighting my eyes from searching over her face.
This Mia was certainly a grown up Mia from my childhood.
The Mia then was, like Rory and I called her earlier, pudgy. She’d been a little rounder than most of the kids, but she was a laugher. She laughed and she smiled, and as much as I hated Bren and Mia hanging around, there may have been a few days I said no to a party or something just so I could hang out in the backyard with my kid sister and her tagalong friend.
When their friendship ended, I had already left for college, so not seeing her again after that point wasn’t something I dwelled on. She was eight years younger than me, and my kid sister's once friend. She’d been a blip on my radar.
It was easy to see how I didn’t recognize her back in March. She still had the crazy hair and the eyes that looked like they could see right through you, but she had grown up into quite the beautiful woman. No, she wasn’t flashy like many of the women I spent my time with, but still, there was something about her.
Mia’s gaze was down on our hands the entire time, and finally she glanced up to see me watching her. Her face flushed and she bit on her lower lip, much like she did again and again that night in March.
We had made good leeway tonight, came pretty far from the argument at the restaurant, and I shouldn’t want to overstep the line.
But I wanted to.
And because I wasn’t one to take too big of a step back, I did what I wanted.
As I slid my hand down the swell and over to her hip, I leaned down so I could press my lips to hers. Before meeting her lips though, I paused long enough to let her pull back.
But Mia didn’t pull back.
No, no she didn’t.
She leaned up. I could feel her hip tense as she pushed to stand on her stool just enough to make that contact, and then relax as I met her and followed her back down as she sat. Putting my other hand to her face, I kept my lips against hers light and the kiss slow. What I really wanted was to lift her up and find her bed, toss her down and fuck her senseless, but there was the kid between us now.
Shit, how did that work?
Mia pulled back and frowned up at me, so I mirrored her frown. “What?”
She shifted in her seat. “Don’t start something you have no intention of finishing. Don’t…kiss me because you feel like it will give you…I don’t know, leeway with me. Just…” She maneuvered to stand and squeezed past me, her baby belly brushing against me. “We can’t kiss, Conor. We just…we can’t.”
She was moving away, but fuck, I didn’t want her to. I reached with both hands, grabbing onto her hips, and pulling her back as I moved forward. When I rocked my erection against her, she gasped lightly.
“Give me a chance,” I whispered into her ear, rubbing my chin just under it.
Her laugh was cold. “Give you a chance? Geez, Conor, why would I want to do that?” She looked at me over her shoulder, but didn’t move away from where I was pressed into her back. “This is probably just some…I don’t know, fetish or something. You’re curious about fucking a pregnant girl and—”
Everything kind of drowned out after she used the term ‘fucking.’ That’s what I did, yes, but to hear it coming out of Mia’s mouth? Can’t say I liked it too much.
“—eventually you’ll just get sick of me, of us, and you’ll leave. Sorry if I don’t want to play that game.”
With my hands on her hips, I turned her to face me. Her face was still
flushed, or rather, it was flushed again, and her eyes were wild. But her lower lip was trembling again.
“Look. This is new for me. I’m guessing it’s new for you too. I don’t see any chicklets running around.” I lifted my brows, waiting for her to challenge me in the way she did. When she didn’t, I continued. “I can’t promise next week. Fuck, I can’t promise tomorrow. But I want,” I shrugged and swallowed. Shit these words were hard. “I’d like to try.”
She stared at me like I grew two heads. Fuck, maybe I did.
“But…I mean…” Mia stumbling over her words was kind of cute. She was flustered and it was more than evident. “That’s not you though, Conor. I’m sorry, but you’re a flirt. And while, yeah, flirting isn’t necessarily the end all, you don’t just flirt to flirt. You flirt to get laid.”
Point, Mia. “Just let me try.” I don’t know why this mattered so much to me, but it did.
Mia shook her head, raised her brows, and I’m pretty sure she rolled her eyes, all in one move that my sister did all too well. It meant she’d fold. It meant—
“Whatever. I guess you can try. But!” She held up a finger between us. “If you’re serious, you are going to be monogamous.”
I grinned crookedly. “So that means we’ll be having sex.”
Her hand shot out so fast, hitting my chest before I could stop her, but it didn’t stop the laugh that burst out of me.
“I haven’t decided yet. Just…one day at a time, Conor.” She wiggled her hips from my hands, trying to pull away, but I just pulled her closer. Fucking belly of hers wouldn’t allow her to be as close as I wanted her, but that was ok. I’d deal.
“Seal the deal?” I asked down to her, and her brows creased yet again. I let go of a hip so I could rub my thumb over the ridges there. “You’re going to get stuck, you keep doing that.”
“I just…I don’t know you Conor, and this?” She waved a hand between us in the miniscule space between our chests, “This isn’t the Conor I’ve been watching.”
“You said you’d give me a chance.”
“I don’t want you to resent me.”
