Anything for Her

Chapter 1

Carter

I smiled in satisfaction as I closed my laptop.

I was finally done with the first draft of my third book.

Sure, that wasn’t a ton of books given the seven years I had been writing, but in that time I had done two big moves, started dating someone, gotten engaged, and gotten married.

I looked down at my wedding ring. I still couldn’t believe I had now been married to Jax for two years.

Speaking of Jax… I jumped from the desk that was in the den where my grandma used to sleep that we had converted into my office after she passed away.

I walked out of the room and rubbed my eyes.

The house was so quiet and empty when Jax wasn’t home.

Even after three years without my grandma and a year without Speck, I still hadn’t gotten used to having the house to myself, which was probably why I spent most of my time at the cafe.

The emptiness in our house wasn’t from lack of trying to fill it.

Jax and I had waited a year after our wedding to start trying to get pregnant, but since then, we had switched back and forth between the two of us being inseminated using medicated IUI.

Just recently, we had started discussing switching to IVF, which meant deciding which of us was going to go through that process.

Over much discussion, I volunteered to be the one to go through IVF since I had a more flexible schedule.

Plus, if I got pregnant, I would have to spend a lot less time on my feet than Jax would, so it just made sense.

What didn’t make sense was the ungodly amount of money we would have to spend to do IVF.

With Jax’s trust fund plus both of our salaries we were blessed to be able to afford it, but it still didn’t seem fair to have to spend all of that time and money to have a child when so many straight people were able to just have sex. That sounded like much more fun.

I shook these thoughts from my head, because that’s not what I needed to be focused on right now. Right now, I had to get to the cafe, because I had agreed to help Jax with open mic night.

She’d been trying to convince me to read a part of my newest book for open mic, but I told her those days were long behind me.

Pouring my heart out to the girl of my dreams in front of an entire cafe of people, including my whole family, was enough for a lifetime.

I definitely didn’t need to do that again.

After changing into something nicer, I drove to the cafe. It was a nice May afternoon, so the sun was shining bright. My phone rang as I got closer to the cafe, and I smiled when I saw it was my mom calling. “Hey, Mom! What’s up?”

“I was just wondering if you finished the book.”

My smile became even wider now. “Of course I did. Tomorrow is book club.”

Book club was just my mom and I talking on the phone or over FaceTime about the latest book we read.

We had started about a year ago and hadn’t missed a week yet.

On busy days, our conversations only lasted a few minutes, but my favorite weeks were when we both had time and we really dove into our discussion—some of them lasting hours.

“Good, because I have so many feelings about this one.”

I laughed. “Then it’s good we have time to really discuss it this week.”

“Thank god. Please remind me why we chose to read a heterosexual romance this time.”

Not our best decision. “We were trying to broaden our horizons.”

“Well, just for the record, I don’t want my horizons broadened anymore. The next book is going to be a sapphic romance.”

“Speaking of which…” I hesitated while I tried to decide if I actually wanted to say this. “I just finished my next book. It’s not polished at all and probably has many mistakes, but do you want that to be our next read? I need to do my first read through anyway.”

As I waited for her answer, I tried to remember all of the sex scenes so I could make sure to take them out before I sent the document to her.

“Yes!” My mom’s voice was giddy with excitement. “You know I love reading what you write. Plus, an unpolished sapphic romance is still going to be better than a heterosexual romance.”

“I really hope you still feel that way after you read this one.”

I was proud of what I wrote, but no one else (not even Jax) had read it yet.

I never knew for sure if it was actually good or if I was kidding myself until I heard feedback from others.

Although, I guess I still wouldn’t know after my mom read it since I knew she was going to say how good it was even if she hated it.

“I have no doubt that I will.” She paused for only a second before switching topics. “So, Jax’s big birthday weekend is coming up, huh? Olivia is very excited to come surprise her. It’s all she can talk about.”

“I’m excited too. It’s been way too long since we saw her.”

My siblings and I liked to try to spend our birthday together, but that hadn’t happened this year.

Ronan had something for work and Quinton had surprised Olivia with a family trip to Disney World.

Even though this was obviously for Jax, it also felt like a makeup birthday for me and my sister as well.

“It’s really sweet of you to set this up for Jax.”

“Honestly, it’s completely selfish. Don’t tell her I said this, but I also want to see Olivia.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I looked around as I parallel parked close to the cafe. “I just got to the cafe, so I have to get going, but I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“One p.m. sharp over FaceTime. I need you to see my face as I express all of my very strong feelings.”

“Sounds great. I can’t wait.” I really couldn’t. I looked forward to this every week. It meant the world to me to still do something so special with my mom. “Bye, Mom! Love you!”

“Love you too, sweetie. Tell Jax I said hello.”

“I will. Don’t worry.” I ended the call then turned off my car and got out.

When I got to the cafe, a very familiar face opened the door for me.

“Tim!” I shouted as I held my arms out toward him. “How are you? How is school going?”

Tim returned my hug and held me extra tight as if he didn’t want to let go. “School is amazing. I can’t believe I only have one more year left.”

I patted his shoulder as I pulled out of our hug. “I can’t believe it either. You can’t be a college grad. That means I’m old.”

“You are far from old.” Tim put a hand on my cheek. “Honestly, you don’t look a day over twenty-five.”

I laughed because I knew that was a lie. Tim had always been quite the charmer, and I was glad to see college hadn’t changed that.

A muscular guy walked up beside Tim and put a hand on his shoulder. My eyes almost popped out of my head when I realized who it was standing in front of me. “Bryer! Oh my god! It’s great to see you!”

Tim had come back to the cafe a few times since going to college, but Bryer had never been with him. The last time he came in without him, I actually wondered if maybe they had broken up, so I didn’t even mention him.

I reached out my arms toward him. “How are you?”

When he returned my hug, I honestly couldn’t believe how much bigger he had gotten. “I’m good. Doing really well. Thank you.”

I stepped back and looked between Tim and Bryer. “I’m so happy to see both of you. I was honestly worried you broke up.”

Bryer put his hand on his chest in mock offense and looked at Tim. “You mean you didn’t talk about me on any of your visits?”

Tim laughed. “I didn’t get here very often, so every time I came, I was busy talking about myself. Obviously.”

“It’s true. That is his favorite subject,” Jax said as she walked outside to join us. “Are you three ever going to come in or are you just going to stand here blocking my other customers?”

Tim smirked at me and lifted both eyebrows. “The boss has spoken. I guess we better get inside.”

I put my arm around Jax and pulled her close to me. “Hey! Be nice to the boss lady. It’s almost her birthday.”

“I obviously know that,” Tim said with an amount of sass only he could get away with. “That's why we’re here.”

Jax nodded. “It is. They brought me an East Pine shirt.”

I stuck out my bottom lip in an exaggerated frown. “I want an East Pine shirt.”

East Pine was a university in New Jersey where Tim and Bryer went to school. Tim was majoring in Communications and Bryer was majoring in Exercise Science, but from the few updates Tim had given us, it seemed Bryer’s bigger focus was on football.

Tim smirked at me once again. “Maybe you should go back to Jax’s office. There might be a belated birthday present in there for you too.”

Even though I already clearly knew what it was going to be, I hurried back to Jax’s office and tore the tissue paper out of the bag sitting on her desk. I pulled out a red “EPU Football” shirt.

I heard a noise behind me and turned to find Bryer leaning up against the open doorway with his arms crossed in front of him.

“I figure since your brother played football at Bellman you probably have a lot of that merchandise. I thought maybe you could use a shirt from a good football team instead.”

I wasn’t sure if I actually had any Bellman Football shirts at this point given how long it had been since we were in college, but I didn’t want to point out that fact right now. I was already feeling old enough having celebrated my thirty-fifth birthday a month and a half ago.

I closed my eyes and hugged the shirt against my chest. “Thank you. I love it.” When I opened them, Bryer was looking at me with a proud smile. “So, how is football?”

Bryer’s face lit up at my question as if he had been hoping I would ask.

“It’s going really well, actually. My coach said he’s seen so much improvement each year that he thinks if I play semi-professional ball when I get out of college, I might actually be able to go pro.

” He shrugged. “I don’t know how true that is, but even being a third-string benchwarmer for one of the NFL teams would be a dream come true. ”