by Max Monroe
“I don’t want to…” I pause, not even sure what I’m going to say. “It’s just that…Rocky is happy how things are.”
“How do you know?” Ruby interjects. “Has she said that? Has she said to you, I love how my life is right now?”
“Well, no—”
Cassie cuts me off immediately. “Then stop reading between the lines and start reading the facts.”
Eight women stare me down relentlessly. I blink valiantly, trying to erase some of the pressure from their weighty stares, but they don’t let up, and if I have to guess, I’d say they’re not going to.
Not until I agree with them.
“Okay, okay. You’ve all made terrific points, and I’ll do my best to take them under advisement.”
Cassie rolls her eyes. “That’s some typical male bullshit if I’ve ever heard it. Still, I hope you let all of this sink in and change your mind. I mean, what are you waiting for? Do you want the life you want, or don’t you? It’s that simple.”
“Why do I feel like I’m in therapy?”
“Because you are. None of us is even remotely qualified, but we’ve been in the trenches,” Maybe says resolutely. “There’s no one better to help you with this endeavor than the women who’ve been through it all before.”
Lena cackles. “Maybe can help you with DP too. Just FYI—”
Maybe reaches and out and smacks Lena across the shoulder soundly.
My eyes go wide and I chuckle. “I’m afraid to get into that one at all.”
Ruby snorts. “Probably a good choice.”
“I’m also scared to be in a room with my friends ever again at this point.”
Cassie shrugs. “At least you’ve always got us. Congratulations, you’re officially one of the girls.”
“You’re a part of the club,” Maybe adds.
“If you need anything, you can come to us,” Winnie says.
“And trust me, young man,” Greer whispers with a wink. “When it comes to navigating Hollywood with a pregnant woman, you’re going to need us.”
The rational, statistics-driven part of me wants to tell them they have it all wrong.
But the crazy hope blooming inside my chest calls bullshit.
Holy hell. Is everything about to change?
Pretty sure it already has, dude.
Harrison
My mind is a battleground of rational what-ifs and calculated should I’s? But my heart doesn’t seem to give a fuck, only spurring irrational feelings I most likely shouldn’t be feeling.
But my present situation doesn’t allow much time to dig through all the unanswered questions.
We’re back in LA, and tonight, back on the awards circuit. This time, it’s the Oscars. After spending an entire week in near anonymity with Rocky in New York City, being relegated to the background of her life feels particularly cruel.
There’s no more uninterrupted alone time, no more sleeping—yes, just sleeping—in the same apartment and waking up and having a quiet breakfast together, no more helping hands to the small of her back, no more listening to the baby through the hard flesh of her belly—no more holding hands just to hold them.
The only thing I currently have to look forward to is her newfound enjoyment in secretly texting me whenever she finds a moment when Heidi isn’t on her ass about a million different things that all revolve around the same damn thing—keeping her celebrity status as picture-perfect as possible.
Rocky: The baby wants tacos.
She’s all glammed up, in the car behind the one I’m in, minutes away from making another red-carpet appearance at what is apparently one of the biggest nights of the year, and she’s texting me about tacos. I fucking love it.
Me: The baby wants tacos? Are you sure it’s not you wanting the tacos?
Rocky: I am a mere pawn in our baby’s food game. And, right now, she’s craving chicken soft tacos from Taco Bell something fierce. Extra cheese.
Me: How does HE even know about Taco Bell? Like, he knows that soft tacos already come with cheese, but it’s not enough so they need extra? Seems prodigious.
Rocky: Obviously prodigious is how it should seem because SHE is the smartest baby in the history of babies.
A laugh escapes my lips, and the two men in the car with me, Heidi’s eagle-eyed assistants, look up from their phones and straight at me.
“Sorry,” I say and shrug. “Just saw a funny meme about tacos.”
Both Wilson and Toby glance at each other before going back to ignoring my existence completely, and I busy myself with typing out another message.
Me: If you’d like, I’ll make a Taco Bell run for you later.
Rocky: I’ll pass that information on to the baby. As I stated previously, I am a mere messenger. But I have a feeling SHE would very, very, VERY much like.
Me: Great. Tell HIM I aim to please. ;)
A scant five minutes later, the car comes to a stop and I’m shuffled out with Wilson and Toby, and we clear a route through an escalating crowd for the car that follows.
Of course, I haven’t been given any actual clearance to talk to people at all—not even for the sake of making it look like I’m working—so I just plod along looking useless most of the time.
Wilson and Toby prep the first reporters and then step dutifully to the side to make a wall in front of me, as if I’m going to make some sort of charge to the front lines.
Christ. Hollywood is weird.
I settle into position and watch avidly as the limo carrying Heidi, Ben, and Rocky pulls up to the curb and the door opens with the help of an awards show attendant.
Flashes start going off before you can even see anything, and when the person who’s climbing out turns out to be Heidi, they pause briefly.
She’s a professional, though, and clears the area quickly as Ben climbs out of the car first. He smiles big for the cameras, reaching around his front with both hands to button his fancy velvet-lapeled coat. It’s almost an afterthought when he finally reaches down to take Rocky’s hand as she works to climb free of the car with six months of baby skewing the ratio of her weight and a fifty-pound dress trying to suck her right back into the seat.
Bright-red and satin, her dress molds to the new shape of her body and then explodes in a giant train of gathered red fabric behind her.
It’s a beast of a dress to carry around—anytime, not just when pregnant—but I have to admit she looks downright stunning.
Her star quality is undeniable. It’s no wonder she took the world by storm and then held them captive for most of her life. It’s also the reason they feel so entitled when it comes to her—they’ve never known a time when she wasn’t in the limelight.
I, of course, have known that time. I knew it well when we were kids, and then because I was totally clueless, I still had no idea, even as the buzz around her grew to deafening levels.
I’d like to have her to myself every once in a while, but her lifestyle doesn’t condone it. Frankly, I should be ecstatic we somehow managed the night we had when we made the baby.
Now, in the middle of all this, it kind of feels like a dream.
I turn my attention back to the chaos at the entrance, where fans and paparazzi alike shout for the attention of Hollywood’s new favorite—fake—couple. And I cringe as I watch just how un-dreamy one half of the fucking couple really is.
Ben struts up the steps in front of Rocky with no regard for helping her. The cameras flash and people shout questions, and the rest of the world disappears—including the mother of my unborn child.
I watch with frustration as she struggles with the train of her dress on the long, deep-treaded steps, and it’s all I can do to keep my place in the back of the crowd instead of helping her.
But I silently remind myself that things are good between her and me.
Sure, it’s not exactly what I may have wanted in the beginning, but I’m enjoying being around her, and she seems equally pleased to have me around. I don’t want to get so caught up i
n what I’m not a part of that I forget all the amazing things I am a part of.
Her secret text messages about food cravings.
Shopping online together for furniture for the baby’s room.
Putting my hands to Rocky’s skin to feel the baby kick and dance inside her belly.
Our cute, ongoing arguments about whether our baby is a boy or a girl.
Talking about a list of names, and then shooting them all down the next day when we come to our senses.
It’s all stuff I never anticipated at this point in my life, but now that I have it, I don’t want to give it up.
Ben and Rocky step up to the first reporter in a line of what must be seventy-five and smile wide. I’m not close enough to hear the questions Hannah Harding of Entertainment magazine is asking them, but I can tell that it’s at least not offensive. Rocky smiles genuinely, and her body language says she’s as close to enjoying herself as a trussed-up six-months-pregnant woman is going to get. And if I had any doubts, Ben looks just bored enough to confirm.
I watch anyway, focusing on the way Rocky’s lips move as she chats with Hannah. They’re captivating. She’s captivating. I could spend all day here, just watching her in action. And I know this, because lately, when it comes to events and awards shows like this, it’s exactly what I do.
Toby turns around suddenly and shoves a bejeweled rectangle purse into my stomach. I take it like a running back would a football even though it’s unexpected.
My eyebrows pull together, and Toby smirks. “Carry this.”
I nod to stay within the rules laid out for me about not talking and give the bag a once-over. It doesn’t take me long to realize it’s the purse Rocky had way back before we left her apartment on the other side of the city.
It’s a weird little ping of excitement, but a buzz takes up in my stomach at the chance to actually do something semi-normal for the woman I…well, for the mother of my child.
It’s a tale as old as time, the holding of the purse. Men do it in malls across America with enough frequency that I can almost believe that’s where I am right now. In a very, very crowded mall, holding my woman’s very, very expensive purse while she shops in a very, very fancy, chaotic store.
If only I were that lucky to be shopping alone with Rocky, holding her purse while she gabs about all the things she wants to buy. The mere thought turns my chest into a tightrope war, happiness on one side and melancholy on the other.
But I’m quickly distracted from my thoughts when Wilson and Toby move to the right, so I do the same, and Ben and Rocky step up to yet another interviewer—a man with some media thing called Muscle. This time, I’m within hearing distance, and the tone of questioning is entirely different.
“So, Ben, how did it feel to deflower the most famous virgin in Hollywood?”
What. The. Fuck? As if a match is lit inside my body, my anger spreads like wildfire through my veins.
And Ben—the absolute fucking prick—just laughs in response.
I swallow hard against all the violent urges boiling inside me, and instead, focus on getting a look at Rocky’s face to see if she’s okay. When I finally get the right angle to catch a peek, she’s smiling still, but it’s infinitely more brittle.
She’s uncomfortable. I can see it in her uncertain eyes and in the way her shoulders sag ever-so-slightly forward.
I fucking hate this. I hate everything about this.
Like a bull on parade, inside my chest, my anger charges forward again.
I’m a split second away from throwing some power punches in Toby’s and Wilson’s faces and bouncing right over there to show Ben and the fucking reporter the meaning of respect, but in a brilliant flash of the woman I reconnected with that night six months ago, Rocky straightens her spine as her smile turns wicked.
“I can only assume you have to ask that question because you’ve never been with a virgin yourself, Gerry?” Rocky questions, her head held high in the air. “Or perhaps you’ve never been with a woman at all? Because if you had been with a woman, I’d assume you’d have slightly better manners than to ask a man and the pregnant woman on his arm what it was like to conceive their child. Would you ask your mother this question? What about a woman in the grocery store? Because if you wouldn’t do it in those scenarios, I can guarantee you also shouldn’t do it now.”
Attagirl. Instantly, pride fills my lungs, and I have to bite my bottom lip to keep the smile that wants to consume my face under wraps.
Ben does his best not to gape, but he bears a striking resemblance to a large fish despite the effort.
“But if you most know,” Rocky continues, “it’s the best he’s ever had in his entire life. I am a goddess both in life and in the bedroom, and if you try to run this quote without referencing my sarcasm, you’re an even bigger pig than I thought you were.”
She steps away without saying anything else, and this time, I can’t not smile. Hell, it’s all I can do to keep the damn thing from bowling over all the people in between us. It is that big and obnoxious.
Heidi’s face is, not shockingly, quite the opposite. Horror makes the line between her eyebrows burrow deep into the skin to become the Grand Canyon of wrinkles.
Still, she doesn’t throw a shit fit, and as a man who has based his whole career on being strategic, that tells me something. She’s fully committed to keeping her shit together at this awards show, no matter what happens.
And I’d like to say the way Rocky just handled herself doesn’t plant a little seed in my heart, but I can’t. Not without being a big fat liar. With a bit of water and a short amount of time, I expect that little seed will probably be in full bloom…
Raquel
Pregnancy makes equilibrium feel harder to achieve than the ever-Earth-constant called gravity.
Heels are one thing. But heels while a six-month-old bowling ball sits smack-dab in my center is a whole other ball of wax.
Not to mention, this dress I’m wearing must be adding another hundred pounds to my already weighed-down preggo frame.
But being in the middle of the red-carpet extravaganza that is the Oscars, all I can do is breathe through the discomfort and force my mouth to stay in a smile.
You’re almost there, Raquel, I remind myself as I see the light at the end of the tunnel—aka the end of the media interview line.
Only a few more minutes of this and I’ll be able to head inside and sit the fuck down.
And then only, like, four hours of this awards show left to go.
Ugh. I choose not to think about that sad reality and focus on the fact that after tonight is done, Harrison promised me tacos.
Yes, yes, the tacos. Just keep thinking about the tacos.
With tacos in mind and the media interview line coming to a glorious finish, even the baby appears content and cozy over the idea that her daddy is going to feed her Taco Bell when all of this is through.
All is going well.
Until equilibrium gets the best of me and these goddamn awful heels strapped to my swollen feet. I teeter and trip on the train of my dress, and the weight of my belly tilts me to the ground.
Oh fuck.
The world around me explodes. Bright, vibrant flashes of light and a booming wall of sound, the wave hits me all at once and knocks me completely off the balance of my heels.
But as if Superman heard my silent plea for help, someone swoops in and wraps a strong, masculine arm around my waist and steadies me before I meet a tragic fate.
Up and to the side, I look into the vibrant leafy eyes I’m starting to know like the back of my hand. They’re soft and apologetic yet resolute at the same time.
Holy shit, Harrison.
“I got you,” he whispers, and his strong, raspy voice is a salve to my already shot nerves.
And all I can do is just stare up at him, seeking temporary solace in the strength of his gaze.
Photographers yell for my attention, scrapping to get some kind of answer about the man who’s
suddenly taken Ben’s place at my side, but I don’t have even a squeak of voice to contribute. Not a yell of protest or a cry of elation—I am a big ball of silence.
Thankfully, I do find it within myself to seal my lips into a smile and put a hand to Harrison’s warm, steady one at my waist.
He looks to the crowd, his charmingly confident smile growing by the minute and taking over his face.
I sigh as Heidi’s anger shoots almost visibly from her ears in front of us, but by and large, I ignore it.
The good thing about Harrison’s timing is that even Heidi wouldn’t dare to make a scene about his decision to fuck up her entire plan here.
No, she’ll save that for a private, audio-secure facility where she can really let every batshit crazy bit of her hysteria fly.
God save us all.
I almost laugh at the morbidity of my thinking, and the flashes explode again like a meteor shower in a clear, dark sky.
I can barely see ten inches in front of my face anymore, but Harrison’s arm stays around the saddle of my hips to guide me as we step away from our marks and head toward the entrance to the theater.
We don’t waste time to step inside, and once the doors shut behind us, my ears buzz from the sudden change from constant noise to otherwise softened silence.
I turn to look at him, not even sure of the words I’ll say, when he beats me to the punch.
“I know. God, I know.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry for messing everything up, but I saw you trip, and I…I just moved. All I could think about was catching you before you fell, and then…” He shrugs with a tiny self-deprecating laugh. “It was the damnedest thing, Rock—I couldn’t let you go.”
“Harrison,” I whisper, a knot of emotion immediately making an attempt to clog my throat, and I reach out to take his big, strong hands in mine.
