CHAPTER FORTY-TWO Cole
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Cole
36 days to go
I hear the faint buzz of Ginger’s alarm, which tells me it’s quarter to five in the morning. Mabel will be up in an hour, and Nash has already texted me twice. I roll over and wrap my arms around her. The sweet scent of her hair hits me and I breathe it in. Everything about her smells like home and I feel the overwhelming urge, as I do almost every second of every day, to bury my cock inside her so deep it erases the thought of any other man having found their way there before me. I kiss her shoulder and she stirs with the tiniest sigh. I groan as her alarm buzzes again and I know it’s time for me to go. We’ve done this dance almost every morning for the last three and a half weeks: I get up before the sun comes up in case Mabel ever wakes early. Thankfully she’s the kind of kid that sleeps like the dead so I don’t usually have to worry, but I would never want her to find me here without a way to explain it. Which would be impossible, because I can’t even explain it to myself.
Things are too good right now. And, in my life, when things are going good, bad things tend to happen and ruin everything. Like the time I’d just gotten used to being a father and my then wife decided she didn’t have it in her to be the right kind of mother to Mabel. And when I took on the role of deputy sheriff, and started laying down some roots for Mabel, right before my dad got sick.
I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop when things are going well. And, right now, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. So much so, I’m starting to wonder how I ever lived without this soft, sweet, sarcastic firecracker of a woman before.
I’m thinking of things I shouldn’t be, like asking her how she’d feel about me putting a baby in her of our own, and how happy it would make me to watch her beautiful body change as she grows our child. I’m thinking about giving her and Mabel a second garden to grow their plants in when they run out of space in their current one. I’m thinking about Christmas mornings, and camping out in the backyard, hosting cookouts and watching our kids swim in the pool.
But the blaring fact that I am a package deal remains. And asking Ginger to take on the role of being a stepmom to Mabel, and accepting all of Gemma’s bullshit on top of that, is a lot. Besides, who actually marries their friend, drunk in Vegas, and then turns around a few months later to say hey I actually really like you, wanna stick around? And even if she does stick around, how can I be sure she will stay for good? I can’t bear to have Mabel’s heart be broken by another woman she loves.
I kiss Ginger’s shoulder one last time, reminding myself that she is nothing like Gemma. She would never hurt Mabel.
She groans in disapproval as I make my way out of bed, taking all this fucking emotion with me.
“Coffee,” she mumbles sleepily.
I chuckle as I pull on my sweats, willing my hard-on to disappear so I can start my day. I’ll save my fucked-up feelings for another time. Today, I have to focus.
I look down at my phone as it lights up.
NASH
Were you nervous before your wedding because I’m not nervous.
Should I be nervous? This is a good thing right? Fuck I hope you were nervous.
I toss my phone on the table.
Today Nash and CeCe are getting married, and tomorrow Mabel goes to stay with Ernie and Trudy, Gemma’s parents, at their cottage up north for just over a week. There is a lot to do to get ready. But first, I must make my secret wife some coffee. Husband, brother and dad mode, activate.