A Baby Affair (Parent Portal 2)

As soon as she heard the words, she knew they were the wrong ones. They weren’t even together.

But she felt like she was in the middle of the worst breakup ever.

Maybe it was hormones, this feeling of desperation climbing inside her. Please God, let it be hormones. Could they suck the air out of you?

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Craig’s words, delivered in that familiar, confident tone, put breath back into her lungs. Enough to fight for something that had no name.

“We’re kind of in a mess here, I know,” she said. “Me, a single mom being friends with my sperm donor. And you...a responsible man needing to ensure that your biological offspring is well.” She glanced up at him, full of energy when he looked straight at her. “But so what?” she said. “Who says we can’t be friends? That we can’t make this work? If I want it, and you want it, it’s up to us, isn’t it? It’s no one else’s business.”

“You want to remain friends.”

“Yeah, don’t you?”

“I do,” he said, his gaze serious. “But...”

She didn’t like “buts.” Never had. Neither did Angie. Too many times that word had come out of their mother’s mouth in the most critical moments.

She shook her head.

“We can’t keep pretending we don’t care about each other,” he finished.

Tears sprang to her eyes. At the absolutely worst moment. “Agreed,” she said.

He continued to look her in the eye, sending her comfort and a whole slew of other feelings. Leaving her with questions that didn’t have answers.

“I have a few close friends I really care about,” she said. “Don’t you?”

“I do.” The doctor who’d brought him to Marie Cove in the first place, who was now a current partner in his firm, she remembered. “But I don’t have sex with them.”

“We only did it once.” Two friends of hers in college, suitemates, had done it once after a night of drinking. She’d walked in on them. It happened. It was over. No big deal. They were both married now, to other people, and still friends.

“I want to do it again.”

Understanding dawned with a relief that made her dizzy. He had the hots for her body.

“There’s no law that says we can’t. For now. Until it doesn’t work for one or the other of us.”

What was she saying?

She couldn’t have sex with him without commitment, could she? But hadn’t she already? She was going to live her life without a committed partner, but she did intend to have sex again.

“I’d need it to be monogamous, just because anything else gets too complicated, and it opens the risk for the passing on of things,” she continued, blabbering on as she tried to think. Trying to keep talking so he couldn’t immediately take the option off the table.

“We already know we aren’t suited for anything more and both of us feel that way, so we’re going into it with our eyes open. And for now, while there’s no one else either of us want to sleep with, why not? We’re both adults.” She couldn’t seem to shut up.

Maybe she should have stopped before the stupid clichés started spurting out.

“This is something you want? Not something you’re agreeing to, to keep me happy?” he asked.

Like she said, they were friends. He knew her and had her back.

And she knew him, his sense of responsibility.

“I’ve been trying since Monday to figure out how I could possibly ask you to do me a favor and do that to my body again,” she said. “Because while it worked for the moment, it was so good it just made my hormones rage harder.”

His grin made her belly flop. “That good, huh?” he asked, his expression all male.

She smiled at him, tempted to kiss him and show him how ready she was, but knew she had to get to her sister. And didn’t want to show up all hot and bothered.