Page 63 of The Best Friend Problem
But not really.
Should she…should she ask him about it? They hadn’t really talked about what they were doing, save for agreeing that they’d only be doing it with each other. She certainly wasn’t seeing anyone else, and she knew Finn wasn’t either. So, did that mean they were seeing each other?
No. They were not dating. Full stop. The very thought was ridiculous. They wanted different things. Pru needed a partner who would be home every night. Someone who didn’t risk death every time he went to work. She knew the pain caused by the loss of a parent. All her life she’d felt as though a piece of her soul was missing, dead and buried along with her mom and dad. She didn’t want that for her own children.
She knew life could take anyone at any time, but why up the risks? The very reason Finn didn’t want anything long term was the exact same reason she didn’t want anything permanent with him, either.
Ugh! All this thinking was making her hungry. Or maybe that was the twins.
She parked at his place, heading up because, even though she’d gone just a half hour ago, Pru needed to pee, one of the downsides to this whole motherhood journey. She swore she was this close to buying one of those stadium bag things so she could pee wherever. She cringed when she thought about how much worse it would get.
“Worth it,” she whispered, rubbing her belly.
She headed into Finn’s building, using her key when she arrived at his door. It was only recently that Pru felt comfortable letting herself in on a daily basis. Sharing a bed opened up a whole new world of comfort between them she’d never known was missing.
As she stepped into the small studio, the sound of the shower running hit her ears, quickly followed by a happy, high-pitched bark and the furious clacking of nails on the hardwood floor.
“There’s my girl.” She closed the door, bending down to scoop up Bruiser, who thankfully weighed less than five pounds. If the dog had been a husky or lab, she might have knocked Pru over with her enthusiastic greeting. “Do you need a treat?”
The Yorkie mix licked her chin before tucking her nose to sniff Pru’s belly, nuzzling the growing bump, saying hi to the babies. She rose with the dog in the crook of her arm, heading to Finn’s cupboard to get the sweet pup a treat. She was a pushover for a cute face.
Her kids were going to wrap her around their tiny, adorable fingers.
“Hey, Precious.”
Strong, warm, slightly wet arms wrapped around her from behind. Finn’s firm lips placed a soft kiss on the nape of her neck. Mmm, yummy. She hadn’t even heard the shower shut off.
Bruiser gave out a small yip, tiny doggy legs whirling in the air, an indication she wanted no part of the human smooching and would rather be let down. Pru apologized to the pup and set her gently on the floor. Then turned in Finn’s arms to plant a proper hello kiss to his delicious lips.
The kiss quickly deepened, heated. His hands came down to cup and squeeze her backside while she enjoyed a tactile tour of his damp, bare chest. As her hands traveled southward, she noticed he only had a towel wrapped around his hips.
Hello, easy access!
“How much time do we have before the class?”
“Enough for a quickie,” she whispered against his smiling lips. “Give me thirty seconds. When I come out of the bathroom, I expect to find you naked on the bed.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
It was amazing what the man could do to her body in ten minutes. Pru never would have thought it possible, but they left fifteen minutes later, Finn fully dressed, her fully sated from not one but two orgasms.
The baby class was at the hospital ten minutes away. They arrived with one minute to spare.
Totally worth it.
“Hello, everyone, and welcome.” The instructor, a small woman with gray hair and kind eyes, waved them all over. “Take a seat around the circle and let’s all introduce ourselves and give our due dates.”
They went around the circle with introductions. There were a few married couples, a woman with her mother, whose husband was on deployment overseas, a pair of husbands with their surrogate, and Finn and her. It struck Pru that, while they were a kind of couple, they didn’t have the same relationship everyone else in the room seemed to have.
Sure, they were sleeping together and had been friends forever, but there was something each of the other couples had that they didn’t. And she didn’t mean marriage. Having witnessed hundreds of weddings in the past few years, she knew a piece of paper was just that. She and the girls could tell within a week of working with a couple if they would last past the “I dos.”
No, it wasn’t the rings on their fingers that bothered her. So, what was it?
As the class continued, she shoved off the hinky feeling and concentrated on what the instructor was teaching them. They went through calming breathing exercises, pressure-point touch massage that claimed to reduce pain during labor, and different birthing positions. Throughout, the instructor asked questions to test the class’s knowledge, and Pru found herself surprised by how much Finn knew. He seemed to raise his hand every time, nailing the answer.
“When did you become Dr. Baby?” she whispered.
He shrugged, continuing the lower back massage the instructor had taught them. “I’ve got some books at the firehouse that I’ve been reading in my down time.”
