27. Allie
ALLIE
I have my eyes closed, head back against the pillows as I attempt to make myself comfortable—a feat that feels damn near impossible these days. I set my phone on the bedside table as I press play on the audio app before grabbing my rose toy.
I spread my legs, nestling it over my clit as I hit the power button, and it buzzes to life, the vibrating sensation washing over me, setting that much needed fire in my core.
I genuinely thought I was losing my mind.
Thought I had some kind of chemical imbalance happening in my brain that caused an abhorrently abnormal increase in whatever fucking molecules make one horny.
Sure, my boobs are huge, and the baby is moving often now, which freaks me out.
My cravings are outrageous, and I can hardly sleep most nights, but fuck…
all of that would be bearable if I could just satisfy this unquenchable thirst to be fucked.
It scared me so much, in fact, that I called Dr. Abbey’s office and spoke to my midwife.
I was so desperate for help I couldn’t even find it in myself to be embarrassed.
She assured me that there is nothing wrong with me.
The hormonal changes in my body are causing an increase in arousal, and it’s okay.
She also promised that it shouldn’t last the entire duration of my pregnancy, and will likely subside in the third trimester.
I let out a long exhale, hearing the deep-voiced narrator of the erotic audio app I’ve downloaded command me to relax and spread my thighs. I’m listening to this nameless man, but there is only one face I see behind my closed lids.
One person at the center of every fantasy.
I see those deep blue eyes hovering above me, flaring when I make a sound he likes. I feel his hands when I slide my own up my stomach and palm my breast. His tongue moving over my center, drawing all the pleasure I have to offer.
“Mmm.” I low hum crawls from my throat.
It’s good. It’s what I needed. After finals and two full-day shifts this week, I’m exhausted. This warmth flooding my stomach, hot desire filling my core, the release soon to barrel through me—I need it.
A muffled creak, a hard slam, a roaring “Allie? You here?” knocks the wind right out of my very aroused sails, and my eyes fly open.
I throw my toy in the drawer, scrambling to pause my audio before I lift out of bed and pull my panties up my legs.
I’m still wearing a T-shirt, but no bra, and I don’t bother adorning my body in anything else before I’m stomping into the living room to see what the fuck is going on.
I freeze when I round the corner to find those same blue eyes at the epicenter of my fantasies just moments ago, staring back at me from the entryway—wide and assessing.
My tummy tips when Archer makes his perusal of me, gaze starting at my bare legs, running the length of my body, snagging on the ever-growing swell of my belly before lingering at my rounded breasts, and finally reaching my face.
He sucks in a sharp inhale when our eyes clash. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I say, breathless. My clit is fucking throbbing.
Not only did I not find the release I was desperately looking for, but now he’s here.
Well and truly here. In front of me. No longer a fantasy.
He’s looking like he could eat me alive, and the vivid memories of just how good he is at doing so are assaulting every one of my senses.
God, I’m probably radiating with arousal. I bet he can smell it from over there.
“I was able to fly out a few days early. I came straight here.”
“Oh.”
I don’t know what else to say, I’m still stuck in a lust-hazed fog and my instinct is to respond with, Great to see you, could you maybe come put it in me?
I don’t think Archer and I are in a place right now where such a question would be appropriate.
“Is that…” He blinks. “Is that okay? That I’m here?”
“Yeah.” I sigh, searching for my composure. “Yeah. It’s okay. I’m sorry, I’m just flustered. I wasn’t expecting you.”
I close the distance between us, meeting him at the front door. I lift onto my toes and throw my arms around his neck. Hesitantly, he wraps his around my waist. “I’m happy you’re home.”
“I’m happy I’m home too,” he murmurs in my hair.
As I pull away, his hands drift from my back, but linger on my belly. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.” Horny. His gaze snaps to mine, etched with concern. “We’re both fine. I promise.”
“Okay,” he breathes. “Good. Okay. Um… Well.” He shakes his head, like he feels as fucking awkward as I do. How did we get here? “Can you sit with me for a minute? Talk?”
He gestures toward the couch, and I nod before we both patter across the room to my pink couch. I curl up in the corner of it, pulling my legs beneath me as he sits beside me.
“You know the season is over,” he starts, and I respond with another nod. “So, I’ll be home through the holidays. Lou was able to connect me with a trainer and cohort in San Diego that’s preparing for the draft together.” He lets out a low laugh, scratching his jaw. “Hudson is coming along too.”
A smile lifts my lips. I’ve grown to have a lot of love for Colton Hudson, and the kind of friend he is to Archer. I know the odds of them continuing to play for the same team in the future are incredibly low, so it makes me happy that they’ll get to go through the draft journey together.
“Anyway…I’ll be based here for the foreseeable future, but I’ll begin team visits in January. Then the professional combine is at the end of February in Vegas. So, unfortunately, I’ll still be traveling a lot, but I’ll be here when the baby is born.”
His gaze bores through me, branded with concern.
“Hey.” I place my hand on his lap, leaning into him. “I’m really glad you’re doing this. I’m glad you’re going to be home more often, and I’m proud you didn’t give up.” I splay my free hand over my stomach. “We are going to be just fine.”
His eyes crinkle with the kind of smile he’s always reserved just for me, and I wonder if a new one will bloom on his face the first time he holds our child in his arms. If it’ll become permanently imprinted on his mouth, blossoming every time he looks at them for the rest of forever.
“I thought, if it’s okay with you, I could stay here? If not, I’ll sleep at my parents’ house.”
Hope flourishes inside me, kicking up from my depths with a newfound fervor.
“Yeah. Of course you can stay here,” I respond with a smile just as he adds, “I’ll sleep on the couch, obviously.”
“Oh.” I blink, rearing back. Obviously?
Why the fuck would he sleep on the couch at all, let alone it be an obvious decision?
That flourishing hope plummets, crashing into a plume of despair.
Archer’s eyes widen, lips parting before snapping shut. His gaze flicks around the room, anywhere but on me as he says, “I… I just mean—”
“It’s fine,” I murmur. “That’s fine.”
“Depending on the schedule of training, I may crash with Colton some days at the condo he’s renting in San Diego, but my priority will be here.”
Out of obligation or desire?
“Cool.” I pick at my nails. “And once you’re drafted? What then?”
He flattens his lips, gaze cast to the floor as he lifts his shoulders to his ears. “I move to whatever city the team I’m picked for is located.”
“And what about us? Do we move with you? Will you sleep on the couch there too?”
His lashes flutter as he takes a shaky breath. “I don’t know,” Archer admits softly. “I know that’s not what you want. To follow me.”
“Stop telling me what I want,” I snap, standing from the couch. “Stop deciding for me! You’ve been doing this to me for years, and I am so fucking tired, Archer.”
“Do you want that, then?” he asks, jaw set and tense as he studies me with a discontented stare.
“What I don’t want is this.” I wave my finger between us.
“Whatever we’ve become. This lack of trust. You acting as if I’m some groupie you got saddled with against your fucking will.
” My voice breaks, fractured and cracked with my next words.
“I love you, and I want to be with you. I’d follow you anywhere, I always would’ve, and you won’t let me. ”
“I do not think that,” he rasps, tone rugged. “I can’t believe that you could ever feel that way.” Archer blinks, eyes misting over as he drops his gaze to the floor. “But it’s not your dream to follow me. It’s your dream to be here.”
“Dreams can change.”
I think mine are. Yes, I planned on attending grad school, studying pastry arts in Europe.
France. Spain. Another trip to Italy, maybe.
Someday I still hope to own Dahlia’s bakery.
I want a house on the beach right here in Pacific Shores.
I want a slow, quiet life. It’s a soft, simple fantasy, and it’s so different than the world Archer is just now stepping into, but I trust him enough to know that even if my future doesn’t pan out exactly how I’d imagined, he’ll hold my hand as we navigate new dreams together—find different ways to achieve what both of us have always wanted.
He doesn’t trust me enough to have faith in that.
And I think that’s where we’ve become lost.
“Years ago, I chose football,” he whispers, eyes still fixed at his feet, hands trembling in his lap.
“I was terrified that if you chose me, if you followed me, you’d one day resent me for it.
That I’d get to have you for a time, and then I’d lose you entirely.
So I wanted you to choose yourself.” He lifts his gaze, and the conviction there burns straight through me.
“This time, I would’ve chosen you, Allie, and you didn’t even give me the chance to show you that.
And now…I don’t want to imagine a future where you’re going to begrudge us both. ”
I don’t know if by both he means him and me, or he and the baby, but my heart breaks each way.
“I don’t resent you for having dreams bigger than mine, but I will resent you if you continue treating me like a goddamn stranger.”
His eyes dip to my stomach when he asks, “Is this what you want? Is this what you would’ve chosen?”
Just as the words leave his lips—thick with emotion, rough and tender at the same time—a twitch erupts in my stomach. Like floating bubbles with a fluster of pops, the movement is like a rapid flap of butterfly wings.
“Oof.” The burst of flutters jars me, hand falling to my stomach as I sway on my feet.
“What?” Archer asks, panicked. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I breathe. The baby moves again, a tickling sensation that causes a burst of giggles to leave my mouth. “They’re moving around. Caught me off guard.”
“Ca-Can I feel?” Archer slides from the couch and to his knees, hesitantly reaching toward my bump.
“I don’t know if you’ll be able to feel it from the outside, but you can touch me. Of course.”
He frowns, as if missing out on something essential, before slowly extending his hand to my stomach, lifting my shirt and flattening his palm against my bare skin.
“You can talk to them too, remember?” I whisper.
He nods, his gaze transfixed on the way his hand slides across my belly—caressing.
“Do you think it was me? My voice? That’s making them move so much?”
I think it’s likely far too early for that, but his tone is so desperate that I say, “I’m sure it was.”
“Hi,” he whispers. “I can’t wait to find out what you are. I can’t wait to see you someday soon.” Archer’s full lips form a smile—it’s awestruck and ethereal. An expression I’ve never seen on him before. I think it’s perhaps the one. The smile that’ll belong to our child. “I’m your dad.”
I’m your dad.
That sentence filters through my being, permanently weaving itself into the threads of my soul. It’s unexpected, the way the words hit me so thoroughly, the way I become so hyperaware of where we’ve arrived in life—but it rattles my foundation.
It’s him and me. It’s always been him and me. Through every version of ourselves we’ve grown in and out of, for every heartache and obstacle, perhaps we were preparing to end up exactly right here.
My senses zero in on the realization that I’ll be tied to him for eternity through this soul we created together, and that for all the fear I’m still harboring, I wouldn’t want to be scared with anyone else.
“I would’ve chosen this,” I whisper, running my fingers through his hair. “If we could go back, and I was given the option, I would have picked this one.”
Archer lifts his head, peering up at me through raging ocean eyes. “Me too. I would choose this too.”
I want to believe him. With every piece of me, I want to believe him.
I just don’t know if I can.