15. Maggie
FIFTEEN
maggie
I was still in Nash’s bed when the sun came up on Saturday morning…still naked. I took a deep breath and inhaled his aftershave, and I’d never felt more at home…more at peace.
My hand wandered down his chest…down, lower to his waist, to his cock. I wrapped my fingers around him, finding him hard.
I hooked one leg over him and somehow managed to pull myself up to straddle him, and I found his eyes open.
“Good morning,” he grinned.
I bit my lip, lined him up with me…sank down.
We both moaned.
“Morning,” I finally said.
I rode him in the morning light, my hands splayed across his chest, his breath coming in short, pleasured groans. There was no pretense now, no dirty talk—just us, nothing stopping us from feeling each other. He moved his hands to my hips, his eyes closing.
He was so gorgeous. Perfect. I didn’t care that we weren’t quite the same age, he was just…
…it felt like my whole life had been leading to this.
Like Bryce was just a detour on the way here.
“I’m close,” Nash mumbled, voice rough. His eyes flickered open, meeting mine. “You still want that baby?”
I nodded. “Please. Come inside me. Nash—”
He did, his hips thrusting deep; I ground down on him, meeting him, trying to get him as deep inside me as possible.
It was stupid, what we were doing. It wasn’t responsible. My mother would have asked me what was wrong with me, using my full name like she always did, telling me I was too emotional, too stubborn—
But Nash didn’t think that.
He liked how emotional I was.
I made his kid feel safe, and I was so, so proud of that.
I collapsed against his chest with his cock still inside me, his hands coming up to draw little spirals along my spine. I listened to his heartbeat, one ear pressed to his sternum as my breath got back to normal.
I didn’t want him to pull out. Just wanted him to stay there inside me…stay until it took.
I lifted my head. “Still don’t think I’m crazy?” I asked.
He shook his head, smiling up at me. “I think you’re perfect. And I think I’m very lucky.”
I grinned and finally pulled off of him, lying beside him with my leg hooked over his hips. Nash kept tracing his fingers over my skin, touching my thigh now, his other arm holding me close.
“You always wanted to be a mom?” he asked.
I nodded against his chest. It struck me all of a sudden…he knew virtually nothing about me.
I hummed, then: “I kind of always have been. My little brother—he’s five years younger than me and I started babysitting when I was eight. My parents…divorced, mom was never interested in being there, dad was even less. So I was Lucas’s parent more than they were.”
Nash kissed the top of my head.
“Sounds rough.”
“I guess,” I said. “I know people who’ve been through worse, so I can’t complain.
But it made me want a family and I always just…
I thought the order was to date, then live together, then get married, then have babies.
I thought I’d do it how other people thought was right. Turns out this was right.”
Nash was quiet for a moment, his fingers still moving on my skin.
“Lucas know about you moving here?” he asked.
“He was the only one I really talked to about it,” I said. “He thought I should go. Said Bryce had been making me small for years and I couldn’t see it because I was too busy trying to make it work.” I paused. “He’s eighteen, so he thinks he knows everything.”
“Does he?”
“About this? Yeah, probably.”
Nash made a low sound that might have been a laugh.
“What about you?” I asked. “You always know you wanted to be a dad?”
He was quiet long enough that I lifted my head to look at him.
“Nell wasn’t planned,” he said. “You know that.”
“I know.”
“But the second I knew she existed—” He stopped. “Wasn’t even a question. She was mine and I was going to figure it out.” He paused. “I didn’t know I wanted it until it was happening. Then I couldn’t imagine anything else.”
I looked at him.
He looked back.
“That’s kind of what this feels like,” he said quietly. “For the record.”
“I feel the same way,” I breathed.
We kissed—I didn’t know who initiated it, it just happened. Kind of like when we’d flirted at the bar.
Kind of like how we were falling in love, even though I didn’t think I should say it yet, even though I didn’t know if he felt that much, not yet.
“Nell’s mom,” I said, because I knew how to be romantic. “Is she still in the picture?”
“Dana?” Nash shook his head. “She was a tourist fling, didn’t tell me about the pregnancy until she gave up on parenting when Nell was almost a year old. Now she sends a stupid amount of child support every month and a birthday card every year. Hasn’t seen Nell since she left her here.”
That made me really sad, actually. I blinked fast. “That’s horrible.”
“Better to be an absent parent than a bad parent,” he said. “At least…that’s what I tell myself.”
“Are your parents like that?”
Nash smiled softly, but there was something sad in his eyes. “No, not at all. My parents loved each other hard and loved us just as much—me and Claire. Mom died of breast cancer a few years back. Dad followed her a year later, broken heart.”
I pressed my lips together. “They sound wonderful.”
“They were,” he said simply. “Best people I ever knew. My sister’s okay, too.”
We both laughed, and I curled up closer with him. “Speaking of which…do you need to go over to your sister’s to pick up Nell? And I hate to press the issue, but when are we going to tell her?”
Nash took a deep breath, then an even longer exhale. “Fuck if I know. I’ve never had to tell her about a girlfriend.”
I snorted. “Is that what I am?”
“At least until I make you my baby-mama.”
I laughed out loud then, burying my face in his chest. “That’s not an answer, Nash.”
“I know,” he said, lifting my chin. “But…the thing is, Nellie’s smart. She’s going to know something’s going on—and I don’t intend on keeping you a secret. You deserve better than that.”
“Okay,” I said, still totally lost as to what we would do next. “So…I just stay here and we explain sometimes grown-ups have sleepovers too? I think every bit of conventional wisdom would say that’s the wrong call.”
“You questioning my vibes-based parenting?”
“Lovingly.”
He scoffed, but he was smiling. “Noted—but here’s my thinking. Nell already knows you. Already adores you. You’re not a stranger I’m introducing; you’re Miss Laine, who braids her hair and lets her give dinosaur reports at circle time and has a drawing of Gerald on her wall.”
I frowned. “Who’s Gerald?”
“The dinosaur,” he clarified. “I’m sure you’ll be introduced soon. Point is, the conventional wisdom is about not introducing a random new person as a parental figure. You’re already a person she trusts. We’re just changing the context slightly.”
I looked at him.
He looked back, completely calm.
“You have actually thought about this,” I said.
“I think about everything,” he said. “I just don’t always talk about it.”
That was so specifically, perfectly Nash that I had to press my face into his shoulder for a second.
“Okay,” I said. “So what do we tell her?”
“Nothing yet,” he said. “Today you’re just here. You’re having breakfast with us. Nell’s going to be thrilled and she’s not going to ask hard questions because she’s five and you being here is already the best thing that’s happened to her this week.”
“Can we at least compromise and keep our sleepovers secret for now?” I asked. “Everything I’ve ever learned about child psychology is screaming at me to take this slow and careful.”
“Strikes me as odd you would be worried about that when you spent the past twelve hours begging me to put a baby in you.”
I shoved him gently. “Don’t judge me.”
“I’m not judging you,” he said. “I’m just noting the contradiction.”
“The contradiction can coexist,” I said. “I can want a baby and also not want to traumatize your five year old by having her walk in on us.”
“She’s not going to walk in on us.”
“Nash.”
“I have a lock on my bedroom door.”
“That you used last night?”
A pause.
“I’ll use it going forward,” he said.
I laughed despite myself. He pulled me closer, pressing his lips to my hair, and I felt him smile against my head.
“Hey,” he said.
“Mm.”
“You’re good with kids.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s my whole thing.”
“I mean with Nell specifically,” he said. “You already know how to read her. What she needs. When to push and when to back off.” A pause. “Just trust that. Everything else we’ll figure out.”
I thought about that.
He wasn’t wrong. I did know Nell—had known her for two months, had watched her carefully, had learned the texture of her anxiety and her joy and the way she processed things. I knew she needed consistency and honesty and low-pressure warmth and someone who showed up the same way every time.
I could do that.
I was already doing that.
“Okay,” I said. “Vibes-based parenting. I’m in.”
“There she is.”
“Don’t make it a thing.”
He was already getting up, reaching for his jeans, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “I do need to get Nell, though…so I guess we should probably decide. You staying or not?”
I bit my lip, but really…I was just pretending to think about it.
I was staying.
I wanted this.
The whole package.
“I’ll make pancakes,” I said. “You have chocolate chips?”
“I have a five-year old,” he said. “Of course I have chocolate chips.”
I sat up, wrapping the blankets around me, and Nash leaned down to kiss me again. I kissed him back, sitting in that sensation, reveling in it.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”
“You’d better,” I said.
Then he pulled his shirt on and left me in the room—to think. To dream.
To make pancakes.