CHAPTER 12
AVERY
As I step into the living room, the new maxi maternity dress swishing around my ankles and highlighting my bump in a way I’ve been avoiding since I started to show, I find Bridger lounging on the couch. His eyes are focused on the book in his hands. One of the books Amelia brought over.
A book about pregnancies and babies.
He looks up at me and his eyes light up as he looks me over and focuses on my bump. “Did you know the baby is about the size of a banana?” There’s a note of excitement in his voice that is new and makes my heart flutter in my chest.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I have an app on my phone that tells me every week what fruit or vegetable our peanut is and all sorts of developmental information.”
“Oh, like how the grooves and folds of the baby’s brain are developing and they can hear voices and sounds?”
A huge smile spreads across my face as I nod. “Exactly.”
He looks down at the book before looking at me and swiping his phone off the coffee table as he stands and stalks in my direction. He holds his phone out to me. “Will you download the same app you have on my phone?”
When I wake up his phone and see the screen asking for a pin, I’m expecting him to take it and enter it for me.
“It’s 0-4-2-7.” I blink up at him and my mouth opens and closes a few times.
He chuckles and winks at me. “You’ve literally taken my sperm and are about halfway through growing a human.
I think we’ve passed the point of you knowing my phone password. ”
It only takes me a moment to get the app downloaded and synched up with my estimated due date. As I hand his phone back to him, the excitement on his face steals a little bit of my heart.
So did waking up this morning in his arms. I hadn’t expected it and figured I would be in the guest room, but I was not even a little bit upset to find myself in Bridger’s bed with his large body wrapped around me.
I felt safe.
I felt cared for.
Probably for the first time in my life it felt like I could really relax.
I’ve never slept as well as I did last night. Honestly, I hope to keep sleeping in Bridger’s bed with his warmth soaking into me. And his cock pressed against my ass.
“You look beautiful, Avery,” Bridger’s rasped words pull me out of the memory of how good it felt waking up with him this morning after it felt like my world was crumbling around me yesterday.
Maybe my world, as I knew it, imploding isn’t such a terrible thing.
I’m no longer trapped by my father’s expectations.
I was able to sleep in this morning and wasn’t stressed out about whether anyone would find out my secret.
There was no pit of dread in my gut about going to work to do a job I’m overqualified for.
“Thank you.” I give Bridger a shy smile, not used to being complimented about my looks, or anything for that matter.
He holds his hand out to me, and I slide my palm into his without hesitation. The way he laces our fingers together makes it feel like we’ve done it a million times and will do it a million more.
Why does everything feel easy with Bridger when the situation I’ve landed us in is far from easy?
“I would suggest breakfast, but from the way you’re looking a little green, I’m thinking you’re not interested in eating.
” I shake my head because the thought of eating anything and then going to my house, where my mom is more than likely lurking in some alcohol and Xanax haze, is not conducive to keeping anything down.
“Okay, we’ll grab your stuff first. Then we’ll grab something to eat. ”
My shoulders drop slightly, and it becomes apparent just how much I’m dreading going back to the house.
Being with Bridger has allowed me to relax, even if it’s only been for less than a day.
It’s been far too long since I’ve been able to do that and probably isn’t helping the exhaustion I’m constantly feeling.
The way Bridger leads me toward the front door, grabbing two bottles of water like a hydration angel on the way, and then his car, is filled with a soft tenderness.
It cuts through the walls I’ve been trying to keep up and jump starts that little bit of hope this will all work out; the same hope I’ve been trying to push away and ignore.
But it’s impossible to ignore it when Bridger remains a solid presence, stoic and broody as he may be, at my side. I quickly enter the address into the navigation and then look out the window to watch the world go by.
He doesn’t push me to talk or spill my secrets and past at his feet. He’s just there.
When his hand finds my thigh and gives a squeeze, it grounds me instead of startles me. It’s like my body has been waiting for his touch, arching toward it and begging without words.
The closer we get to the house, a place that was never my home, my anxiety starts to skyrocket. And the babbling begins.
“You should know some things before we get there.” Bridger doesn’t say anything, but it’s not like I give him time to do so as I barrel on ahead.
“My father is at the firm, so, thankfully, we won’t run into him today.
However,” I pause and swallow hard, “my mom will be home. She’s always home,” the words taste bitter on my tongue and sound scathing.
I rush out, “Not that being home is a bad thing. It’s not. I respect a woman’s choice to stay home and be a housewife or a mom, but my mom is neither. She’s a socialite without a limit on her credit card and a pharmacy on speed dial while getting regular deliveries from the liquor store.”
When I chance looking over at Bridger, his jaw is clenched so tight that I’m a little afraid for his teeth. He looks pissed. While I can’t blame him, all I can think is that I hope he’s not pissed at me.
“Explain,” he grits out.
I almost laugh, one of those awkward, embarrassed laughs you can’t control and wish you could, because he sounds grumpy as hell.
It’s not surprising, Bridger comes off as broody and on the quiet side.
Still, since I burst into his life yesterday, I’ve gotten glimpses of him opening up to me.
Every time he lets me in, even just a little, it feels like I’ve won some kind of championship that comes with a giant trophy and a flower wreath.
Which is silly, but true none the less.
“She’s a drunk and she takes the mantra of ‘better living through pharmaceuticals’ to the extreme.
She’s not hooked on pain pills,” I pause, and my eyebrows pull together before I mutter, “at least I don’t think so.
” I shake it off and keep going. “But she does love Xanax and her sleeping pills. Everything is mixed with alcohol like some toxic chemical powder keg just waiting to explode.”
“Who raised you?”
I sigh and look out the window again. “Nannies mostly when I was too young to be able to fend for myself and when mom wasn’t having some paranoid delusions about the nanny sleeping with my father.”
“Was he?” Bridger sounds offended on behalf of my mother and I almost giggle.
“Probably,” I answer with a shrug. “The man doesn’t see any value in women beyond being a wife which might as well mean sex toy.
” My voice changes, becoming wistful and full of yearning, “He always wanted a son, but I’m an only child.
He didn’t know how I could benefit him for most of my childhood.
When I started school and maintained really good grades, he started to see a little bit of value in me.
It’s why he sent me off to college and law school. ”
“But?” His prompt is gentle and that almost stings worse because it means he knows I’m in need of a little coddling.
“But it wasn’t enough. I was still a woman in the man’s world he built.
His empire. His legacy. My degrees don’t really matter to him because he never gave me a chance to be a lawyer in his firm.
I’m treated like a paralegal, one who just happens to have a law degree and has passed the bar,” I mumble sullenly.
“Did you want to become a lawyer?”
Bridger’s question is innocent, but it still breaks something inside of me.
“No,” I gasp and rub my chest right over my heart where the ache is the deepest. “At this point I’m not sure what I wanted to be.
Maybe I just wanted a chance to figure it out instead of having my entire life mapped out for me by someone who never saw my worth. ”
He gives my thigh a squeeze, his voice a low rumble, “You deserve so much better than that, Sweetheart.”
I nod and keep my lips pressed tightly together. Because I can’t trust my voice. I’m fairly sure if I say anything then a sob will break free and I’m tired of crying.
“It’s why I got so emotional when Amelia told me that I’m part of the family,” I admit, my tone dejected, “I’ve never had one before.”
Bridger squeezes my thigh again. It’s not pretty words. It’s not sunshine wrapped in a rainbow and bedazzled with rhinestones. But it’s real and it’s enough.
After arriving and parking, the way Bridger puts his hand on the small of my back, a steady presence in the chaos of my mind, has me thinking about jumping into his arms and climbing him like a tree instead of finding out what version of my mom will greet us.
I don’t bother knocking because I already know there’s no point.
The house, which feels more like a mausoleum, is quiet. I almost heave a sigh of relief, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
Our steps are quiet as I head through the entryway and toward the stairs.
Everything about this house is cold. Nothing was done with the thought of a child living within these walls, which is ridiculous considering how large the house is and how many rooms it contains.
There is enough space for ten kids, but only the kind of kids who can fit into a mold made of luxury, expectation, and gilded marble where dreams die.
“Wow,” Bridger mumbles, “I didn’t realize you grew up in a mansion.”
I shoot him a small smile filled with sadness. “It always felt more like a tomb than a house.”