In with the New Baby

I don’t know where these thoughts are coming from. I’m not usually this sex-starved. I try not to blush.

I get up, go into the kitchen, and scoop the stew into a bowl and serve her. I place a linen napkin on her lap, and she starts to eat.

“So, so, good,” she says. “If neither of us is married soon, I think we’ll need to marry each other.”

I laugh and twirl my hair. I watch her eating.

“OK, so what’s going on?” she asks and sips her wine.

She places the glass back down and looks at me.

“Oh, nothing.”

“Yeah, right, let’s hear it.”

I explain to Margie about how Lincoln and I grew up near each other in Texas, and that I asked him to go with me to visit my family.

“Bad idea,” Margie says.

“What do you mean?”

“Too soon, you don’t know this guy, he’s your client, bad move, bad business.”

I say nothing and watch her dip the roll in the gravy of the stew.

“Why don’t you speak your mind?” I ask and get up.

I’m hurt.

I don’t know what I expected. Margie is not one for risks or adventures. She wasn’t going to applaud my spontaneity. I knew myself it was a bad idea and yet I’d asked him anyway.

“I am,” she says.

“Whatever,” I say.

I go into the kitchen and pour the rest of the stew into a Tupperware container and load the dishwasher. I think about what Margie said and bring the bottle of wine back into the living room. I refill her glass.

“Honey,” she says and pats the couch next to her. “I’m just trying to protect you.”

“I know,” I say.

Margie loves me. She’d never steer me wrong.

“Why don’t you tell me how tonight went?” she asks and smiles.

I tell her all about Lincoln and our date that wasn’t supposed to be a date.

“It sounds nice. I’m sorry,” she says. “I trust your judgment.”

But I’m not sure I trust mine, I say to myself.

Margie has work to do and goes to the study to crunch more impossible and boring numbers. I don’t know how she does it or why she would even want to do it. She’ll probably stay up until midnight at the earliest.

I begin to doubt myself about asking Lincoln to go with me. I can always change my mind.

Still, I had a nice night with him.

I call up my friend Catharine because I know I’ll get more support from her. She’s a hopeless romantic like me. Sure enough, she says she thinks I should go for it.

“If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll be on that plane with you to Texas,” she says. “And I have a feeling he will. Who could resist your charms?”

“Awww, thanks, Catharine,” I tell her.

I decide to take a bath and relax.

I have a lot more thinking to do concerning Mr. Lincoln. And a lot more fantasizing, too, but sadly, my tub isn’t a jacuzzi and it doesn’t have jets. That’s okay, though, because I prefer to wait for the real thing and I think that whenever I have sex with Lincoln – and I just know we’ll end up doing it, even though we shouldn’t – it’ll be really fucking epic.

Chapter 10

Amanda

I can hear Margie hacking away at her computer at her desk in the study, and I think, I do not want to be like that.

All work and no play can make Margie a dull girl.

Still, I’m thinking about what she said. She can be such a stick in the mud, but I know she’s just looking out for me and she does make good points.

Perhaps I’m letting my emotions get the best of me. Or perhaps I’m letting my hormones get the best of me.

I hate to sound like this but Lincoln, on a physical level, is such a choice piece of meat that I just want to bite into. I had told myself to wait for the real thing. And yet I’m not sure I can resist.

I turn on the bath and let my hand linger under the rush of water. I try to find the perfect temperature between too hot and too cold.

Once I do so, I plug the drain and pour in the bubble bath. The pink sudsiness grows and smells good. I could really use a relaxing bath. The only problem is that I wish Lincoln were here to share it with me. And then it wouldn’t be so relaxing, at least not at first. I would be a lot of crazy fucking.

My heart and body ache for him right now. So much so that I feel as if I want to cry.

Don’t be such a wimp, I tell myself. I’m being overly emotional.

Still, that’s how I get when I like a man, and a man I usually end up falling in love with.

And, now, that would be Lincoln.