Chapter 10 Evan
EVAN
Iclimb out of my car and open the front door to my house—a modern build, nothing like Nate and Nora’s Victorian home with its large bay windows.
A pile of mail sits on the welcome mat, but my place is anything but welcoming.
It’s quiet, too clean, and a constant reminder of how fucking lonely I am.
Sure it’s the perfect party house to entertain with its open-plan space and large kitchen, but lately, I can’t be arsed to have people round.
It’s just the same faces and the same boring conversations.
Chucking the keys onto the console table, I slip off my loafers and lift the mail.
One from the fertility clinic.
My heart lurches in my chest, my hands shaking as I tear into it.
It’s been over a week since Nate had the ridiculous notion about me fucking Nora. The idea scares me to death. I’ll do anything for the two of them, but I won’t fuck up our friendship. This whole baby thing has them desperate and confused, so I have to do the thinking for them.
A smile spreads across my face when I read the letter giving me the all clear and a sperm count to be proud of. I’ll have my best friends knocked up by the end of the week. I pull my phone out and fire off a text to Nate.
Evan: Heard from the clinic. Got the all clear. Sperm count: 60 million per millilitre and 70% motility.
Nate: I got a home insemination kit. Get over here. Nora’s ovulating.
Evan: You want to do it tonight?
Sweat gathers on my upper lip. I wasn’t prepared for tonight.
Evan: I need to shower.
Nate: It’s not a date. You don’t need to shower to knock one out.
I wince. Going round to someone else’s house to jerk off is weird.
Evan: I don’t know if I can do it with you in the other room.
Nate: You want me in the room with you?
Evan: Fucker
Nate: I’ll hold your dick if you need me to.
Evan: I might do it here and bring it over.
Nate: By the time you’ve knocked one out, pissed around with your hair, dressed and driven over here, your sperm will be dead, mate. It only lasts about an hour.
Evan: I’m sure with my sperm count, there’ll be one of those little suckers alive.
Nate: Just come over. Nora’s doing an ovulation test rn.
My stomach’s in knots. I strip my work clothes off and step under the hot spray of the shower, hoping to ease away the tension.
This shouldn’t be weird. Nate caught me jerking off more than once at uni.
Hell, we even came together while balls deep in Emilie.
Compared to that, this should be a breeze, but in my head it’s a tornado.
I close my eyes. Intrusive thoughts play out like a movie. My cum inside his wife. Nate pushing it inside her with a syringe. I can’t stop picturing it—my cum leaking from her plump pussy.
My cock throbs. Normally I would knock one out in the shower, but I refrain, knowing every drop counts. They need it.
More intrusive thoughts. Nora beneath me. Her legs spread. My hips driving into her.
Fuck. My dick is rock hard, but I resist the urge to stroke myself.
This is wrong. This is Nate’s wife. But the images won’t stop. They burrow deeper, replaying again and again as if they’re real.
And because I’m a sick fuck… I let them.
A voice in my head says fuck harder, only it’s not her, or me. It’s Nate watching and I almost come hands-free. His deep brown eyes darker somehow as I drive into Nora. The woman may be his, but both of them are mine.
The water turns cold, and reality hits.
They’re my friends.
I’m so screwed.
Nate answers the door before I even knock.
“Hey.” I thrust the crate of beer cans into his arms. Probably a bad idea bringing beer, seeing as I drove here, but I need something to take the edge off. I follow him into the kitchen and shove my hands into my joggers pockets.
Nora saunters in, her summer dress floating around her knees. She’s pure sunshine, her cheeks glowing as if she’s already pregnant. A picture of perfect health, despite what the doctors say.
The three of us don’t speak. I rock back on my heels in the awkward silence, my gaze flicking between them both.
Nate pulls a beer from the crate, the hissing of the can cutting through the tension.
I reach for one, and he slides the crate along the worktop out of my reach.
“I don’t think you should have a drink, mate.” He turns to Nora for confirmation.
I furrow my brow. “I need a drink.”
Nora laughs, the sound sweet as honey. “It’s fine, Nate. He can have a drink.”
Nate glares at her. “How come I wasn’t allowed? You had me on a bloody detox. How come you haven’t made Evan take all those seeds and shit?”
She pats his chest and kisses his cheek. “Because Evan has a sperm count of sixty million per millilitre.”
Nate rolls his eyes and reluctantly hands me a beer.
My shoulders relax at the familiar hiss of the ring pull. “Anyone fancy a Chinese?”
“Do we need to wine and dine you first?” Nate chuckles.
Nora slaps his biceps. “Chinese food sounds good. I am kind of hungry.”
Nate opens a drawer and pulls out a pamphlet. “I’ll call them.”
There’s no need for us to look at the menu. We have the same thing we order every other time. Prawn toast, green pepper in black bean sauce, egg fried rice, and a mushroom chow mein with a side of sweet-and-sour chicken balls.
I gulp down the acid in my throat. My own balls feel as if they’re on the menu tonight as Nora peruses me with an innocent smile playing on her lips, but a hunger in her eyes. She’s pining for more than Chinese food.
“Want to come through into the lounge?” She strolls through the door into their cream living room.
I silently huff. This furniture won’t stay cream for long with a little one running rampant. The scented candles on the hearth will have to go, and so will our Call of Duty gaming nights.
I perch on the end of the sofa in my usual spot, which I’ve claimed as mine.
Nora curls up in the corner, tucking her bare feet up. The crackling tension from the kitchen has followed us in here. A rosy hue paints Nora’s skin.
Can she sense I was thinking of her in the shower earlier? Am I that transparent? Is it me making this awkward? I shouldn’t have fucking gone there, but I did and now my thoughts are running wild, as if I’ve set them free and they’re ready to come true.
Nate sits in the chair opposite me, his dark-brown hair messy, his casual band hoodie covering his stocky frame.
“Chinese will be about an hour.” He drums his fingers against the arm of the chair, a soft beat that matches the thrumming of my heart.
It’s all that can be heard through the sizzling tension.
A thick, invisible current threatens to zap the life right out of me.
I need to get over myself and do the deed, then we can all go back to being normal.
Anything is better than this.
“So,” Nate says, his fingers picking at a loose thread on the armrest. “Sixty million, huh?” His lips curve into a smile.
“Yep. Sixty million chances to get pregnant,” I say, bringing the can to my lips, still feeling rather smug at the fact.
Nate leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees, and he steeples his fingers together, almost in prayer. “Well, technically only forty percent make it from the cup to the syringe, so that’s only twenty-four million swimmers left.”
“Since when did you get so good at math?” I huff.
“Since I found out I had less than a one percent chance of getting my wife pregnant.” His eyes sadden, but there’s a flicker of heat there.
My own body burns as if his gaze is setting my blood on fire. I tug at the round neck of my white t-shirt, needing to itch my skin.
Nora scoots over to me, taking my hand in hers. “Are you all right?”
I’m not all right. I’m burning up with thoughts I shouldn’t be thinking. I’m sick with a need that I have no business wanting, and I’m about to combust if I sit here any longer. There’s no fucking way I can eat like this. I should just get it over with.
I jump up. “Do you have a cup?”
Nate stalks over to the kitchen and pulls a mug from the cupboard. “Where do you wanna do it?”
“Bathroom upstairs.” I take the mug from him. “Isn’t this the same mug you make my coffee in?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “I have a dishwasher. It’ll wash.” He pulls another mug from the cupboard with Nora’s name in a script font. “You prefer Nora’s mug?”
“There’s a small cup in the other cupboard,” Nora says.
Nate opens the other cupboard door and rolls his eyes as he pulls out a shot glass. “I don’t think his sixty million swimmers will fit in here, dimples.”
She covers her giggle with her hand as she pulls out a plastic cup. “This came with the home insemination kit.” It’s the same size cup you’d have orange juice in at breakfast, only tonight, I’ll be serving up liquid gold.
I take the cup from her. Our fingers touch. A surge of electricity zaps through my veins. It’s hot like molten lava and settles in my belly.
I think I’m gonna throw up.