Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
“That’s deceptive,” I mutter.
“I’m not telling you to do anything to keep it from happening,” she clarifies. “But the chances of getting pregnant the first month is slim, right? Your research told you that it takes most couples several months.”
I nod, swallowing the ball in my throat that’s still wanting to argue with her.
“So have great sex with Cash. You’ll always wonder what it was like if you never do it. Now’s your chance. Who knows, maybe he’ll climb in your bed and never leave.”
“Maybe,” I tell her, but I know it can’t happen.
Even if Cash decided we were good in bed together, our goals in life don’t lineup. He doesn’t want kids, and I’ve always wanted to be a mother. The line between the two of us is like a steel-covered concrete wall, and nothing will have the power to break it. It would ruin us. Our friendship would never survive it. Of that, I’m certain. Losing him, risking that friendship isn’t something I could do knowing the consequences.
I have no doubt it’ll be great sex, but the aftermath wouldn’t be worth it.
“Seriously,” Madison continues. “Save the money and jump his bones. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
I know I will, but I’d regret it even more if there was fallout from us getting together that way.
I know myself. I know I could be convinced not to have children, to think that a life with him without kids would be enough, but I know I’ll end up resenting him because of it.
There’s absolutely no way this could happen and things end up working out.
It’s not going to stop my heart and brain from working together to convince me that I can have my cake and eat it too, either.
“Do you want another cupcake?” I ask rather than continuing the conversation.
Madison looks a little sad, but she dips her head.
After I grab her another treat from the display case, she changes the subject. I’m grateful that she can see I’m at my limit of being pressured.
The woman is living her own fantasy, but she has to understand she’s the exception to the rule. Not everyone will beat the odds and end up exactly where they want to be. They end up where they’re meant to go, and there isn’t a scenario that I can formulate in my head where Cash and I end up happily together with a bunch of kids running around.
Chapter 9
Cash
“I still can’t find it,” I grumble, getting even more annoyed when Chandler invades my space and comes around my desk.
“Right there,” he says, pulling open the drawer to the left.
“Did you hide it?” I accuse.
“Really?” He huffs a humorless laugh. “You don’t remember saying something along the lines of fuck this job and the horse it rode in on yesterday? Because that’s when you shoved the notebook in there like not having it open on your desk meant the work didn’t have to be done.”
“If your granny heard you talking like that, Chandler Jacobs.”
I jerk my eyes up just as Chandler spins around, both of us smiling to see Adalynn standing there.
I’m smiling because she’s the most beautiful woman in the world. Chandler better be smiling because she’s holding one of the packages that she uses for a full dozen of her cupcakes.
“Do you have any of the—”
“Chocolate chip cookie dough? Yes,” she says and hands him the box. “Don’t eat Cash’s though.”
Chandler looks like a small, giddy child with a pep in his step when he crosses my office and takes the box.
“Close the door behind you,” I tell him when he walks past her. “And you heard her. Don’t eat the vanilla with chocolate icing.”
I could kill him for the way he thrusts his hips like he fully expects that we’re going to do something like that in here. I resolve, instead, to put him on roadkill duty for the next month instead because I’d never confront him in front of her.
Adalynn waits for the door to click closed before she steps closer and takes a seat in the chair across from my desk.
“New dress?” I ask, knowing the answer already. I’ve cataloged every dress the woman has ever worn from my favorite to my least favorite.
This one, however, is very likely going to end up in a new category. I’m still working it through my mind to decide if I’m going to label it dresses I love to hate or dresses I hate to love when she looks down at the patterned fabric with a smile.
It looks similar to the dress Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz, only where the white part of the dress was for the movie, the fabric is cutaway, her milky smooth skin on display.
Right now, in my office, I fucking love it on her. If she were to wear it to The Hairy Frog around a bunch of drunks who are trying to gather the courage to approach her, my opinion would be the opposite.