Because of Them (Because of Love #2)

Chapter Eighteen

AUDREY

M y stomach aches. Not in an ‘I’m pregnant and I’m worried something is wrong kind of way’, but in a dull, exhausted kind of way. In the way that it has since the day I found out there are two babies growing inside me, pushing against my organs and stretching my skin.

Annoyingly, it feels like my whole body has swollen with the news. I assume it’s normal for my belly to be larger with this pregnancy than it was with Maisie, what with there being two babies in there and all. The midwives assure me that my weight gain—across my middle and everywhere else—is well within the expected range. Still, knowing it’s ‘normal’ doesn’t make me feel any better about how my bracelet doesn’t swim around my wrist like it used to, or how I haven’t been able to wear my grandmother’s ring in weeks.

My feet hurt, too. Swollen and pressing against the usually comfortable fabric of my sneakers. Although that’s to be expected.

“Can we sit?” I grab at Michael’s arm, steering him towards the empty bench in the middle of the crowded shopping centre.

His forearm is tense from supporting our shopping bags. My fingers twitch against the corded muscle as I use him to hold my balance while I lower myself down to sit. Our bodies were always starkly different, but now, with my growing pregnant belly and the roundness somehow added to my face, the difference is startling. He’s so … fit. But more. Toned, muscle on muscle in a way I never thought I would find attractive. But God, I do. I did. I shouldn’t.

“I’ll be back,” he says before rushing off to the juice stand opposite us.

The very first time we met, long before we got ourselves into this … delightful … scenario, I thought Michael’s physique was intimidating. I was overwhelmed by the strength in his size, taken aback by how small my hand felt in his. Those unsteady feelings were swiftly forgotten when he pressed a hand against my lower back and lent down to whisper in my ear. My heart raced; my core throbbed with anticipation at what he might be able to do with his body.

I was right, and the pure sexual chemistry was, at first, the only reason I kept going back for more. I craved a connection, and the physical one between us was something nothing, or no one, could measure up to. I knew it wasn’t going to last forever, but I didn’t care. I let the immature moments slide, I didn’t let myself worry about how he had no ambition or how he still preferred being out all night to rest filled weekends. He’s young, he has a right to those feelings. And it was just a fling.

Slowly, he started to show me that maybe we could be more than that. He traded a boys weekend with a winery lunch with me. He met Maisie. And sure, looking back I can see I was wrong to introduce him into her life when I did, but he wanted to be involved. Until he didn’t.

I have to remember how much it hurt when he showed me that we were never more than casual to him. Something that could be so easily thrown to the side when the reality of my life became too much.

Fun. That’s all I am. That’s what we said after Callum’s housewarming.

Even so, I can’t help but slink down in the chair to rest my head against his chest when he comes back and sits next to me. His heart stammers, so much so I wonder if maybe he feels this new connection between us, too.

“Here,” he says, placing a small cup of chopped mango in my hands. “They didn’t have any forks.”

I pinch a piece in between my fingers and pop the juicy flesh into my mouth. “Mango?”

“Twenty-two weeks. I just don’t know if they’ll be smaller, since there’s two of them. The app didn’t say.”

“I suppose they might be, but it’s okay. Thank you.”

I work to catch my breath as I nibble at the mango. I’ve walked too far today.

“Do you think we got everything?” I ask once my little cup of food is empty.

Reading the list off his phone, Michael nods, his chin resting against my head. “All the big stuff is done: cots, pram, car seats. I’ll come back with the truck during the week to pick it all up. A million tiny clothes, bottles. If there is anything we missed, it’ll be stuff I can run out to get you when we realise we need it. Plus, we have time.”

He’s right, we do have time, but I feel like it’s a train racing express down the track toward my due date.

“I’m sure we missed something.” Like the whole fall in love, move in together, get married steps that usually come before having a baby.

“Audrey, it doesn’t matter. We’ve done a lot. And my feet hurt so I can only imagine how yours must feel.”

I relax further into his embrace. “They feel swollen,” I admit. “All of me feels swollen, all the time.”

“Then let’s go home.”

I’m too tired to question who’s home he is talking about. As we walk back to the car I’m too focused on how he keeps an arm around me to care. Even as he plants a kiss on the top of my head before opening the car door and helping me in, I don’t ask. Because ultimately, we don’t have a home together and that thought hurts.

The tension in my shoulders drops when Michael pulls into my street. The familiarity of my own home, the babies’ home, induces the deepest breath my squashed lungs can muster. And it’s not that I want to rush into living with Michael when we are barely in anything that even resembles a relationship, but I don’t like thinking about how he won’t be here. I’ll be alone, dealing with not one newborn baby, but two. Baby Maisie was hard enough, this is going to be … rough.

I shake off the shiver that runs up the length of my spine.

Leaving Michael to sort out all the bags in the back of his truck, I hobble up the hallway to flick the kettle on. Once I’ve made two cups of tea, I carry them to the couch and sit down, resting my feet on the coffee table. The coffee table with sharp corners and a lower shelf full of Maisie’s books. My gaze flies across the room at all the little changes I made when Callum moved out. The fiddle-leaf fig growing happily in its giant ceramic pot in the corner, tiny pebbles covering the roots. The candle and dried flower arrangement on one side of the TV, and the Lego succulents on the other. The open entertainment unit with Maisie’s games console and my outdated DVD collection. None of it is baby proof. I knew we were forgetting something.

I stretch forward, my back aching as I reach for the pen and paper Maisie left on the coffee table. ‘Baby Proofing’, I write at the top, followed by a list of all the things I just noticed. From my spot on the couch, I think my way through every room, jotting down everything a baby might get hurt on, choke on, or destroy.

“Did I ever tell you your house is beautiful?” Michael calls down the hallway after dropping the last few bags into the spare room I’ll need to turn into a nursery.

I tap my pen against the paper. It is, as a real estate agent I can see that. But it’s not me. It’s not mine. “I’m trying to make it feel more like a home, but no matter what I do it feels stuck in the past.”

Michael jumps down onto the couch beside me, startling me with his unnecessary force.

Keeping my feet on the coffee table, I turn my upper half to face him. The baby proofing to-do list rests in my lap.

“I wish it wasn’t so modern. I can add as many coloured pillows or arty prints as I like and it still feels a little too much like a museum of recent history. You know?”

Of course he doesn’t. He’s never been in a serious relationship and still lives in a bachelor pad complete with a home gym system worth more than all Maisie’s toys put together. He has no idea what it’s like to feel like your house isn’t your own.

“I get that.” His response surprises me, and I wring my hands in my lap above my list.

“It makes me feel so ungrateful. As much as I appreciate Callum letting me keep it in the divorce, I wish I could move into somewhere new, something that feels like mine.”

“So, why don’t you?” he asks.

“What, move? I couldn’t. I can’t. Between trying to sell this place and looking for somewhere new, I doubt I’d have the time. Let alone finding a bank to finance the inevitable mortgage once I pay all the taxes.”

He grumbles, deep in his chest. The sound brushes over my skin, leaving goosebumps trailing over me.

“You deserve to be happy, Audrey.” He mumbles, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. With both hands, he pushes his long beachy hair off his face.

“Unfortunately it’s not that simple.” I snap the words out, harsher than I intended.

Michael sighs, shaking his head in his hands. He pauses when his head tilts towards my lap.

“What are you writing?” Grabbing the paper he sits up.

“Another to-do list to add to the pile,” I say, trying to take it from him. “There’s so much to do and I’m running out of time.”

Michael leans away from me, until the list is out of my reach. He scoffs as he reads through my messy handwriting.

“I don’t think you need to worry about all this right now Audrey.”

A heavy ball of stress hangs in my lungs, fighting against each breath I take.

“Michael, it’s not a joke. These are all things I do have to worry about. I won’t just have one baby crawling around, I’ll have two. Plus Maisie. I need to make sure the house is safe so that when I’m inevitably in the other room with twin A I’ll know twin B won’t end up electrocuting himself or choking on a pen lid.”

Reaching forward, he places the list on the coffee table and grabs my feet, pivoting me until my legs are across his lap. I squirm, fighting against the intimacy of our position. But it’s comfortable, and he trails his fingers along my calves with just the right amount of gentle pressure until I’m falling back to rest my head on the arm of the couch.

“I know it’s serious, but we have time. You’re not due for another four months, and aren’t babies immobile for like six months? I promise I will get all of this done.”

I push my legs against his lap, the ball of stress growing until it presses against my stomach. A curse flies out of my mouth with my exhale.

“When though, Michael? I can’t expect you to give up every RDO and weekend helping me sort my shit.”

“What if I want to?”

He tries to still my legs, holding my feet and pressing his fingers against my soles. The tightness spreading through my body eases, but comes flooding back when I look up at him.

His cheeks are red, and he turns away from my gaze before I can read the look in his eyes. Stretching his hands above his head, he pulls his hair together, tying it into a messy bun at the nape of his neck.

“You don’t.”

“I do. Believe it or not, Audrey, I want to spend time with you. When you told me about the baby … babies … I promised I would be there. That I would help in every way that I can. I meant it then and I mean it now. And believe it or not, I like spending time with you. A lot.”

He shifts, until my legs are no longer in his lap but pinned between his knees. My breath catches as he lowers his body over mine. Heat pools, everywhere, at the memory of him leaning over me. At how our bodies danced, at how he made me see stars, over and over again, every time we were together.

Fun. I have to remember.

“There’s something here, Audrey. Maybe it started out as something casual. But it’s not like that now. It’s so much more.”

His voice is guttural, sending the heat swirling through me right between my legs.

“You just think that,” I choke out, my own voice husky and breathless.

“I don’t, Audrey, I know it.”

He crashes our lips together. I hesitate, torn between what my head says, my heart thinks, my body wants. I want the fun. I want the release. I want to believe his words. My head screams that it’s just hormones and he doesn’t really mean it, but I ignore it.

I kiss him back, twisting my arms between us until I can clasp his face between my hands. He groans, pressing himself into me. His erection rubbing against my clit through the fabric of our pants. I run my tongue along his lips, and when he opens his mouth, I do the same, until our kiss becomes a frenzy of exploration and passion. He nips at my lower lip and a wave of pleasure rushes through my veins.

“Fun,” I whisper, mostly to remind myself.

Michael growls in response, pulling away from the kiss to look down at me. “No, more.”

With one hand still holding his body weight, he brings a hand down to skate up my shirt, pausing below my bra. I arch my back, urging him to touch me.

He brushes a thumb across my swollen nipple, his tender touch sending fire through me. But then he stops. He pulls me up until we are both sitting, panting shared breaths.

I bite my lip, scrunching my nose when he pulls back from our embrace.

“Fuck,” he mutters. Sucking in a long breath he pulls my hands into his.

“I want so much more than some casual release with you, Audrey. For the first time ever, I want more. I want it all. I want to show you that first. Before we …” he trails off, but his unspoken words ring in my ears.

“I want to believe you.” The words hurt me, and I can see the pain in his eyes, too.

“Then I’m going to do everything in my power, every day, until you know it’s true.”

And I can’t explain why, but I believe that.