Her Dad's Friend

“What do you mean, I’ll see?” I ask. “What will I see?”

My mom leans over and with an exaggerated *wink, wink* says, “He means you’ll see later tonight.”

“Ew, Mom, stop,” I said.

My dad is not amused. Though he seems happy for me and Paul and he didn’t protest when I moved into Paul’s gorgeous apartment, I don’t know if he’s fully on board yet with us as a couple. That will take time. Years maybe. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to see my child dating my best friend.

He frowns at my mom. “Yeah, Sharron, stop.”

My mom snorts and apologizes. She’s had one too many cocktails tonight.

It’s still fairly early when Paul and I leave the restaurant. This whole pregnancy thing is wearing me out and I’m hardly even showing yet. The only physical changes I’ve noticed is that my clothes don’t fit like they used to and my boobs are engorged.

There are plenty of other changes though. The big one, I started noticing after the nausea finally wore off, is pregnancy hormones. I’ve heard of expecting women having mood swings and cravings, but no one told me I would be horny as shit twenty-four/seven. Sometimes all it takes is for Paul to brush against me and I’m chasing him down, humping his leg. Seriously, though. All I want to do is fuck. Poor Paul is keeping up, but by the time the evening comes around, he’s wrecked.

“My feet are killing me. Can we go home now?” I ask him on the way to his truck. I lean my head against his shoulder and wraps his arm around me, his hand on my hip.

All I want to do is eat a big bowl of ice cream, watch a chick flick, and have sex until I drift off into dream land.

“Whatever you want,” he says.

As we drive away, we’re going in the opposite direction of the apartment. “Where are we going?” I ask.

“You’ll see.” He drives through town with that same smirk on his face. He’s up to something. Instead of pushing him about it, I lean my head against the window and watch the scenery whip by.

I see the sign for the freeway, and I deflate. I really hope he doesn’t plan to take me out of town for some kind of graduation surprise. My bladder is the size of a pea these days and car sickness is still an issue even if it’s not as bad as it was those first few weeks.

Instead of taking the freeway, he takes a left, into the old Victorian neighborhood. The sun is going down behind the cliffs. The steadfast homes that have been watching over this town from the cliffs for over a hundred years live to see another day. The speed limit through this neighborhood is forty, but he’s creeping through at a mere 25.

What in the hell is he doing?

I look over at the house of my dreams and realize there is no longer a for sale sign staked into the lawn. Someone has been hard at work fixing it up since I last saw it. There’s a new coat of paint, and all the little ginger bread details that were broken have been replaced. It’s stunning. I love the darker gray and the deep purple trim it’s been painted. It even looks like the new owners have put in double pane windows and a new lawn.

“I’m glad someone finally bought that house,” I say, looking at it longingly. “It deserves a good family.”

“Yes it does.”

He pulls into the driveway and parks. “I want to take a peek inside.”

When he starts to get out of the truck I say, “We can’t. Someone lives here now.” The porch light is on and everything.

He comes over to the passenger side and opens my door for me. “Yeah. We do.”

I sit for a moment, trying to make sense of his words. Like, what do those words even mean? I’m so confused I think I’m hearing things.”

“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?” I say.

He laughs and takes my hand, helping me out of the truck. Removing a key and key ring from his chain, he says, “Welcome home, Rachael,” and hands it to me.

“Shut up. This is yours?” It’s impossible to contain my excitement. I know my voice has reached obnoxious levels, but I’m having a hard time policing my happiness. Curtains flutter as neighbors look out their windows.

“No, it’s ours. The place we are going to raise our baby and start our lives together.”

The tears start to fall. That’s another thing I seem to do a lot of lately: cry.

Inside smells like sawdust and fresh paint. It’s just as I imagined. Right when you walk in the front door, there’s a sweeping staircase and a massive chandelier hanging over it. Wood lace accents are in the corners, and everything is finished off with elaborate crown molding. The arched doorway to my right opens into a sitting room the size of my apartment. I go in there first. There’s a fireplace and furniture I recognize from Paul’s friends store. It’s decorated in an ocean theme with a lot of white and pale aqua colors as accents. I can’t imagine what it would cost to furnish a house like this.

The chairs and couches are made to look old in order to match the house, but have subtle modern details to keep it interesting and from looking like we stepped back in time.

Among the ship models, letters in bottles, and map paintings, is our baby’s ultrasound photo that has been blown up, framed, and hung on the wall as an art piece. I never would’ve thought to do something like that. It’s a good thing Paul decorated or I could’ve had this place looking like a school dorm in no time. It’s everything I could’ve wanted and so much more.

I wipe away the tears with the back of my sleeve. “I can’t believe this. You’re literally making all of my dreams come true. Could you be any more perfect?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. Come look at this view.”

He leads me to the back of the house, toward the sitting room. I step through the door and lose all of my cognitive abilities. I’m stunned. There are no words.

The entire back of the house is made of windows. In the corners are more of the wood lace details. Some of the windows curve like an old greenhouse so that I can see the sky above me as well. There’s a small fenced yard in back. Plenty of room for a garden, and playhouse when our child comes of age. The rest of the view is nothing but ocean. The sky is bright blue with low-hanging clouds of pure, fluffy white. In the distance there are sailboats and a charter boat. Farther from that is a shadow of an island. I can’t believe this is the view I’ll see every day when I come home from work. This is what I will get to look at while I’m feeding our child. I can definitely see myself here with my little family for the rest of my life.

“Let’s go upstairs. I want to show you our bedroom,” Paul says.

We go upstairs. There are more of those Victorian touches all over the house and the modern ones, too. We go into our room. There’s another wall with windows, but there are more modern gadgets and décor in here than there is in the rest of the house. Paul pushes a button on the wall and the drapes start to move from the center of the window to the walls in order to expose the view. In the bathroom, instead of the claw foot tubs I’d seen in the bathroom we passed by downstairs, there’s a Jacuzzi tub. That will be nice to sit in for hours, and there’s plenty of room to fit Paul and I comfortably should we decide to share a bath—which we most definitely will if I have anything to say about it.

All the furniture in the room is the stuff Paul bought me for the apartment. He must’ve cleaned the place out. I can’t say I’ll miss that place. At least here we can be as noisy in the bedroom as we’d like without getting the neighbors involved.

I’m standing at the window looking out when Paul comes up behind me. He wraps his arms around my waist and holds my growing baby belly. It doesn’t take much to get me started these days. Just the slightest touch from him can get me in the mood. Hell, even the wind blowing against my skin gets me in the mood most days. It’s almost as if my nerve endings grew nerve endings and they’re all on ecstasy. I’m experiencing new touches and feelings for the first time.

When he moves his hands beneath my shirt to touch the skin on my belly, I lean against him. My nipples are hard, almost aching, begging to be touche

d. My boobs have grown an entire cup size. Paul has seemed to make it his personal mission to fit the entire thing in his mouth like he had when they were smaller, but so far he hasn’t succeeded.

He brushes his thumb against the taut pink nubs, and that alone turns me into a puddle in his arms.

“I want you so bad right now,” I say. “Get naked.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says in a deep, breathy voice that drips with longing.