Because of Them (Because of Love #2)

Chapter Twelve

AUDREY

T he driveway is full. Another car is parked on the nature strip and a third sits in front of the neighbour’s garden. I hadn’t realised Callum and Cassidy had invited this many people to their housewarming. But then again, I’m here, so I should have expected the invitations to be wide reaching.

I’m still getting used to the whole concept of being friends with Callum. We share so much history, and our daughter, that the change in status from married couple to casual friends is jarring. It’s weirder still for me to feel so close to Cassidy. But something clicked between us the day I opened up to her about the pregnancy, and every moment since then I’ve found myself leaning on her for moral support more and more.

“Will Cassidy be at Daddy’s new house too?” Maisie asks from her place in the back seat.

I steer the car into the driveway to turn around and park across the street.

Michael unbuckles his seat belt, twisting around to face Maisie. “Isn’t it your new house too?”

Her grin somehow reaches her ears as she bounces in the seat, waiting for me to reach over and unbuckle her harness. I twist my body uncomfortably, trying to reach. I wince as a sharp pain shoots up my spine at the unnatural way I’m trying to bend it.

“I’ve got it.” Michael places one hand on my arm and stretches the other behind us to let Maisie out.

The weight of his fingers presses into the soft flesh below my shoulder. I shudder at the unexpected feeling that spreads from his touch. It’s laced with intimacy and care but charged with an explosive tension. I want to see what other feelings his touch could draw out of me. But I can’t. Not here, not now. Not while I’m sure this attraction is being heightened by the hormones. Not with the way I know it will only make this whole situation messier. Not until I’m sure we could be something more than an easy—but incredible—fuck.

“It is my new house!” Maisie declares as she jumps out of her seat and tugs at her door handle. “Ugh, child lock,” she moans when it won’t open.

Michael’s hand squeezes my arm as he holds in a laugh. “I still can’t believe you didn’t invite me to her graduation party.”

There’s a twinkle in his eye as he lifts one corner of his mouth up in a playful smirk. We’ve been through this, and the joke is starting to get old, but he keeps telling it anyway. My body curls in on itself and I force my shoulders to stop rolling forward. I push them back instead. Sitting up straight I glare at Michael with every ounce of apathy I can muster.

“It was two weeks ago. Will you please drop it?”

“Why didn’t you invite Michael to the party Mummy?” Maisie’s head pops between Michael and me. She climbs over the centre console and into my lap. I hold back a wince when she presses her knee into my stomach.

“It’s because I told her I was busy,” Michael says before I can answer. “She had no way of knowing I would cancel my plans to celebrate with you.”

Is he … is he taking the heat for me? The air in the car grows warm, then hot as Michael’s hand rests on my knee.

“Any plans?” Maisie asks.

“Yep.”

“What if you were meeting the Queen?”

Michael scoffs. “Especially if I was meeting the Queen.”

In my lap, Maisie jumps with a gasp. It’s hard to breathe but not because the baby is pressing on my lungs and not because Maisie has settled her weight against my chest. I stare out the window, willing the tornado of emotions to calm. He doesn’t mean it. He’s just saying it to entertain Maisie.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” I ask as Michael reaches for the car door.

He squeezes my knee and withdraws his hand, leaving behind a persistent tingle. One that lingers even as we cross the road. One that spreads when his palm rests on the small of my back as we step up the front steps.

Maisie runs off through the open door to find her cousins, but Michael hesitates in the entry.

“You should eat this,” he says as he holds out a pear. “So you don’t start feeling sick.”

I take it from him, spinning the fruit in my hands to break the stem.

“Technically, the pear is for last week. Sixteen weeks is an avocado, but that doesn’t make for a very good snack.”

The pear is juicy when I bite into it, filling my empty stomach and easing a fraction of the never-ending nausea I’ve grown accustomed to. “I want an avocado too,” I say after swallowing a few hasty bites. “With a greasy roast chicken and a fresh roll and the saltiest chips you can find.”

Michael wraps his arm around me and kisses my forehead. “Done.”

We walk, arm in arm through the house. In the kitchen Callum greets us with an enthusiastic, but exhausted, thanks. Cassidy’s eyes widen when she sees us. She squeaks when she takes the small housewarming gift—a plant I would kill in a week but that I’m sure will thrive in her care—from Michael. She spins back and forth on her heel, before settling to place the terracotta planter on the kitchen windowsill.

“To get the morning sun,” she says quickly as she steps back, beaming. Her eyes dart from me to Michael and her mouth drops open, but she clasps her hands across her face and disappears outside before I have a chance to ask her if everything is okay. I assumed Callum would have told her I was bringing Michael, but maybe the message was lost along the way.

Callum hands us each a drink from the fridge and we head outside. Michael and I feel like the black sheep of this jumbled group of friends. Cassidy moves to sit on the grass with two women. One looks oddly like her, only blonde. Under her tight grey dress there’s a gentle, but obvious, curve to her stomach. A giant rock sparkles on her finger and I clench my fists against the strange pulling in my gut. Sucking in a breath through my clenched teeth, I fight to relax my fingers and spread them against my stomach. It isn’t round like hers yet. It’s bigger than it used to be and on a good day in the right clothes I almost look pregnant, but I’m still waiting for my stomach to really pop into that round, obviously pregnant shape.

As though sensing my discomfort, Michael leans close to me and whispers, “You look beautiful.”

The warmth of his breath settles behind my ear and spreads down my spine leaving a new feeling deep in my core. The same one I’ve been trying to fight off since that moment in the car. I take a small step forward, ignoring the low grumble in Michael’s throat when I do.

He’s full of moments like this lately. Offering me a hand up, but not forcing the help on me. Standing protectively at my side when I need it, whispering words that give me confidence and simultaneously make me want to melt into his arms. And it feels good. Trusting him, knowing he is always there. And especially the melting into his arms. But it worries me too, these feelings I’m suddenly recognising. The way I want more.

The other woman sitting with Cassidy and her sister has long brown hair tied in a braid and wears a knitted jumper over her ankle length blue dress. She leans back on her hands, tilting her head up towards the sun and soaking in its rays. I don’t know her, but something about her makes me want to. Snapping her head back to Cassidy and Madison, she opens her mouth in shock before letting out a wicked laugh. Yep, I definitely want to know her.

Rolling my shoulders back in an attempt to muster up the courage I need to join the small group of women, I notice Michael has disappeared from my side. Maisie has run off back inside to show her cousins her new room. Callum leans against the brick wall, chatting with a tanned man I do not know. His sister followed the kids upstairs.

My choices are to stand here, drinking my lemonade alone, waiting for someone I know to return to my side … or sit on the grass with the other women. I choose the latter, but I gnaw at the inside of my cheek as I make my way across the grass.

“Audrey!” Cassidy cheers when I’m close, pushing up from her laid back position. “I’m sorry we don’t have chairs.”

I brush it off, awkwardly dropping to the ground. I sit with my legs crossed and my hands in my lap, and feel oddly like I’m the new kid at school. Whether she notices my discomfort, or just realises her manners, Cassidy nudges my knee with her own and turns to the brunette.

“Audrey, this is my old roommate, Amira.”

Amira smiles, nodding her head in my direction before laughter from the guys distracts her. She tilts her head back up to the sky, but from this close I can see her gaze fall on the unknown man now talking to Michael.

“And this is my sister, Madison,” Cassidy continues. “She’s pregnant too … she’s pregnant.” She over-enunciates the ‘t’ sound the second time, trying to hide her slip.

I brush off her concern and turn to Madison. “It’s okay. I’m sixteen weeks pregnant.”

A weight I hadn’t realised I was carrying falls from my shoulders. Other than Michael and Cassidy, I haven’t told anyone other than my medical team. Not even my parents, not even …

“Maisie doesn’t know,” I quickly add. I jerk my head around, to see the kids running back into the yard.

“Your secret is safe with us,” Amira chimes in.

I suppose I have to tell Maisie soon. But I’m not ready for the questions I’m sure will follow. She’s asked how babies are made in the past, back when she used to beg Callum and I for a little sister. We brushed it off with the cliche ‘when a mummy and a daddy love each other they can choose to have a baby.’ How am I supposed to tell her that this baby was an accident, but that we love it anyway? What do I tell her about my relationship with Michael? I stare at him for a while, thankful that he has slotted himself into the group of guys the same way I did with the women. A slightly older man has joined them, the salt and pepper of his hair obvious even from across the yard. They talk and chat and laugh, Callum is gesturing around the yard while Michael nods along aimlessly, pulling at the label of his beer.

I’m glad he is getting along with the men. No matter what happens between the two of us, he will become intimately involved in this thrown together family circle we have going on. That’s why I invited him to Callum’s housewarming in the first place. He is the only reason I’m here. But I’m glad I am. Something about this group of women feels nostalgic and comforting. We’ve barely shared a conversation but I’m instantly welcomed into the group, as though we’ve all been friends for years.

“So, you and the golden retriever?” Madison asks.

For a second I dart my eyes around the grass, wondering if I somehow forgot that Baxter came with us. When I don’t see the dog anywhere I turn back to Madison, eyebrows pinched. She rolls her eyes. “Long blond hair, adorable smile, sexy as fuck muscles?”

“Michael?”

“Mike?”

My head jerks to Cassidy. “You know him?”

The mid-spring air grows thin around us, a heaviness settles inside me. I know her answer before she says it.

“Yeah, I … uh … we … look we went on one date. But it was one date, and nothing happened and I don’t want it to be weird.”

I take a minute to react. It doesn’t have to be weird unless I make it weird. We’d never spoken about it, but I knew about Michael’s past. Mike’s past. It didn’t matter, because what matters is the future, whatever that might look like. I’d just never considered that Michael might have dated someone I knew. Someone whose life has ended up so closely tied to mine.

I need to say something, but the moment has dragged on and I still don’t know what to say. It’s been so long that it’s probably even more awkward for me to say something now. It’ll seem too forced. Probably because it is.

As though sensing my unease, Madison leans over to nudge Amira. “And you and Noah? How was the wedding?”

Blush rises from Amira’s neck, leaving her face a bright shade of pink.

“The wedding was good. But no. No me and Noah. Nup.” She stands in a rush and shuffles her feet in the grass while she fixes the skirt of her dress. Once she’s satisfied with how it falls, she turns her focus to Cassidy, glaring down at her friend with fierce lividity.

Madison and I share a confused glance, she shrugs her shoulders as Amira stalks off towards the house.

“I think something happened at the wedding,” Cassidy snickers.

It’s late in the afternoon when Callum finds me resting on the couch inside. My back started to ache from sitting on the grass, then my feet started to hurt from standing. My ankles were starting to disappear again when I slipped away from the group.

“You okay?”

I let out a long sigh as I push myself to a seated position. “Yeah, I was just trying to think of how to tell Maisie about the baby.”

“No ‘mum and dad fell in love’ this time, hey.” He gives a gentle chuckle as I shake my head.

“Let’s ask your mummy if you can have a sleepover!” Maisie’s voice echoes down the steps, followed closely by three sets of heavy footsteps.

“Maisie, come here,” Callum calls out to our daughter. “Like a Band-Aid,” he adds as he sits next to me.

Maisie skips over and her cousins dart outside to their parents. She jumps onto her dad’s lap, stretching her legs out until they push against my thigh. Callum hugs her, then looks up at me. I glare at him, trying to tell him silently that I have no idea how to approach this.

I feel trapped, forced to have a conversation that I’m not ready for, no matter how necessary it may be. Only, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. I need Callum to pull the Band-Aid. I shift my gaze from Maisie up to her dad, nodding my head in his direction. He cocks an eyebrow, but sucks in a breath and turns Maisie to face him.

“You know how when a mummy and a daddy love each other, then they can have a baby?” She nods, her toothy grin growing over her cheeks. “Well sometimes it gets a little mixed up, and two people who aren’t in love end up having a baby.”

Maisie nods, but her eyes squint as she tries to make sense of what Callum is saying.

Band-Aid.

“That happened to Mummy and Michael,” I say with one quick breath. Maisie turns to me, lifting a hand to scratch at her chin. “Mummy is going to have a baby, and Michael is the daddy, even though we aren’t married or love each other that way.”

“But you like him enough to have sleepovers?”

I choke on my own saliva. “Yes.”

“Will he have more sleepovers?”

I don’t know, but I might want him to.

“We haven’t really talked about that. But the baby won’t be born for a while so we don’t need to figure it out right away.”

“Is it a boy baby or a girl baby?”

“We don’t know yet, chicka.”

“Okay!” She bounces off Callum’s lap and turns to face him. “So can Jackson and Halley have a sleepover?”

Just like that, she’s moved on, and I’m left wondering if I was overthinking the whole conversation. It’s good, now that it’s out in the open and I don’t have to hide my pregnancy from her. But I’ll have to call my parents to tell them before Maisie sees them next.

“No honey, you have kinder tomorrow. If it’s okay with mum you can sleep here though.” Callum turns to me to add, “I’ll drop her there in the morning, if it’s alright with you? Then you can pick her up as normal for the rest of the week.”

Maisie presses her hands on one cheek, tilting her head and pouting her lips. “Please mummy? Please, please, please?”

Like I could say no to that face.