5. Cole
COLE
As I stride into the office, I’m already running through every one of the protests Ross and James are going to hit me with when I tell them what I’ve done.
Because God knows there’s plenty of reason to second-guess this.
Even when I was up late last night, trawling through files and agencies and job postings, I knew that I was probably overstepping. Going after the woman the three of us were with all those years ago, in the hopes of convincing her to carry our child?
Yeah, even to me, that sounds pretty ridiculous.
But the thought has been nagging at my mind ever since the conversation we had at the bar. And I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not, but I want to get moving on this surrogacy thing. The sooner we can decide on someone who makes sense for it, the better.
And Millie is the closest we’ve come to agreeing on a woman before.
God knows that Ross and I haven’t exactly been crazy in the dating scene, but James has had his fair share of women, and not a single one of them would come close to doing the job.
I want someone grounded, someone I like, someone I know I can get along with.
And we might not know much about this woman, but we know that there’s something about her that all three of us like—and that might be the best we have to hang on to right now.
Ross and James are in the small meeting room at the end of the corridor, and I push open the door and step inside. They both look up from their coffees, and when they see the expression on my face, both of them raise their eyebrows expectantly.
I flick my tongue over my lips—no point holding back.
I put the papers down on the table before them. “I found her.”
“Found her?” James doesn’t even need to ask who it is I’m talking about. We all know—she’s the one woman who has permeated our entire relationship since the night we spent with her back in college.
I nod. “Millie. I found her.”
Ross pulls the papers toward him before I can say another word, his brow furrowing with obvious confusion. “How the hell did you do that?”
“I went through some temping agencies, figured that she might be doing work like that given that Matt mentioned she’s always going between jobs,” I point out. “And she’s signed up for one of them.” I tap the page before us, and both the guys lean in to get a better look.
Sure enough, there it is, a whole page dedicated to Millie—her smiling picture, an email, a phone number, and an agency form through which we could contact her if we wanted her for any kind of work.
“You shouldn’t have done this,” Ross tells me bluntly, looking back up at me and shaking his head. “This is invasive—”
“The agency practically handed it out to me,” I reply, waving a hand. “I didn’t have to go digging that far to find it. She’s looking for work, she’s going to put herself out there any chance she gets, right?”
“Yeah, but this isn’t exactly the kind of work she put herself down for,” James mutters, as he squints down at her list of skills. “Doesn’t say a damn thing about surrogacy here, you know…”
“Yeah, well, we don’t have to figure that out now,” I reply. “I just wanted to let you know that I found her.”
“Yeah, and what would you have gone and found her for if it didn’t have anything to do with that conversation the other night?” Ross challenges me, practically daring me to contradict him and tell him that I don’t know what he’s talking about.
Truth is, of course, I know all too well what this means. The only reason she came up again between us was as a possible surrogate, and now here she is right in front of us. It’s far from coincidence, and even I can’t pretend otherwise.
“It looks as though she’s still searching for work,” I point out, sitting down opposite them. “We could reach out through the clinic, let her know that we’re a private agency looking for someone who would be willing to surrogate…”
“Oh, come on,” James replies, taking a sip of his coffee. “You realize how crazy this sounds, right? We haven’t spoken to this woman in years. And even if we had stayed in touch, it’s one hell of a leap from hooking up one time to asking her to carry our child…”
“Our children,” Ross corrects.
I look over at him in surprise. “What do you…?”
“If we’re going to do this, then I want it to be multiples,” Ross tells us calmly.
It’s clear that this is something he’s been giving a lot of thought to, and I wonder just how much time he has spent pondering all the possibilities of our potential child.
“Triplets, preferably. I don’t want one kid being passed back and forth between the three of us.
Three kids, then they grow up with siblings too. ”
“Damn,” James mutters under his breath, clearly somewhat taken aback by the very notion of it.
I can’t say I blame him, but honestly, Ross is right.
I don’t want a single child that we just share and hope for the best. I want a kid of my own, a kid I can raise alongside my friends, not as one of three parents taking care of them.
And with the technology we have access to, it would be entirely possible to ensure that we have multiples…
“You’re talking like we have someone who’s already agreed to this,” James replies incredulously. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s nobody on board to do this yet.”
“So we reach out to Millie,” I announce, planting my hand on the page before us. “See if she’s up to it.”
We all stare down at her photo in silence. Seeing her name and contact details right in front of us, it has made all of this a whole lot more real. It’s not like we can just chalk this up to a hypothetical any longer. We could actually do this if we wanted to. Actually put this into motion.
But it’s more than just the weight of the decision we’re making with regards to potential future children. It’s about her too. About seeing the woman who brought us together six years ago.
If I’m being honest, one of the reasons I never bothered with dating that much was because I knew it would be unfair to compare any woman I was with to the memory of that night.
I know it’s not the kind of thing you can just recreate, an alchemy of recklessness to it that you can’t just snap your fingers and reclaim whenever you feel like it.
She’s something special, and inviting her back into our lives, even just for something like this, might prove to be more than any of us are ready for.
“Fuck it,” James mutters, snatching up the paper and staring at her picture for a moment. “I say we do it.”
I blink, surprised. Of the three of us, James seemed least certain about this approach.
“You think?” I ask, leaning forward, a spark of excitement in my chest. This could actually, really happen.
James nods. “You’re right, there’s no harm in pitching the idea to her,” he replies. “We can do it through an anonymous agency. Make it look like it’s just another job offer for her. That way, we’ll at least know if she’s open to that side of it.”
Ross’s brow is still furrowed, and he’s looking unconvinced. “What if she says no and then figures out it’s us?”
“She won’t,” I reply. “I’ll go through one of our agencies, make it look like it came entirely from them. The entire process is anonymous at least for the first few steps, so it’s not like she’ll have any reason to wonder why we’re not around.
Ross taps his finger on his chin, pondering.
He’s always been the heaviest overthinker of the three of us—a good thing, sometimes, at least when it comes to work.
I know I can trust him to take on almost anything without missing a beat, but sometimes when I see the deep furrow in his brow, I wonder if we’ve put more on him than he can really take.
“And what about Matt?”
“That’s a bridge we cross if we come to it,” James replies. “He doesn’t know about any of this, and he doesn’t have to, if nothing comes of it.”
“Yeah, if she just says no, then no harm, no foul,” I add. “Not like she’s ever going to find out where the offer came from, or that we had anything to do with it.”
Ross flicks his gaze between the two of us, calculating. He clearly doesn’t like the idea of taking such a huge risk, but this is about more than just business. This is about a future. My future, a future that includes a real family.
“I’m not getting any younger,” I press him. “None of us are. And I don’t want to be the kind of father who can barely keep up with their kid because they’re getting too old for all of that shit—”
“Agreed,” James cuts in. “I want to be present in my child’s life. There for them, not distracted because I can hardly get out of bed myself.”
Ross lets out a long sigh, perhaps sensing that we’re not going to ease up on convincing him until we get the answer we’re looking for. He tosses his hands in the air. “Put in the application,” he says. “You’re right, there’s no harm in it, especially if she’s never going to find out.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I say, trying to keep the huge grin off my face. I don’t want to seem too keen, in case he changes his mind and decides he doesn’t want to go through with this after all.
I rise to my feet, grabbing what I brought with me and slipping it back into my bag.
“Well, I guess it’s decided,” I announce.
“I guess it is,” Ross replies, and he stares down at his coffee for a moment, like he’s trying to make sense of the choice he just made.
James has his hands locked behind his head and a grin on his face, eyes distant, as though he’s already picturing some future he can hardly wait to dive into.
“I’ll get that seen to,” I finish up, and I turn to head out of the room before either of them can pepper me with any more questions.
As I make my way down to my office, I can feel something at the back of my head, a thrill that I know I can’t ignore.
And part of it is about the process of having a child, the thought of bringing kids into the world that I can raise as my family.
But another part of it has everything to do with the woman we’re about to ask to take on the task.
And I don’t know which part, right now, I’m looking forward to more.