Page 69 of Pain in the Axe
Celine opened the fridge and started pulling things out. “Sit down,” she ordered. “I’m going to feed you. The first rule of pregnancy is hunger makes you insane and irrational, so you gotta eat.”
When I made no move to sit, she waved a hand at me.
“Stop making that face. And stop overthinking and obsessing. This is unexpected. But it’s also fucking great.”
“Yes,” I said with a slow nod.
“So let’s skip the angst and be happy. There’s a baby in there.” She pointed at my stomach with a spatula. “And you’re going to be an incredible mother.”
“But—”
“Nope,” she bit out, cutting me off. “Not having it. There’s a reason you came back here, and there’s a reason you bought this house. Don’t you see it? This was meant to be.”
“Hardly,” I huffed, my stomach dipping. “What am I going to do? I live in Seattle, and my work takes me around the world. Now I’ve got an unreliable baby daddy in the mix.”
“Unreliable? I think you’re wrong there. He’s responsible and well-respected. And he’s probably grown up a lot in the past twenty years.”
I scoffed. God, why couldn’t Celine just hate the man like I did? Her optimism was tiresome.
“I suspect he might be one of the good ones. Plus, you won’t be complaining when the morning sickness passes.”
“What do you mean?”
“In the second trimester, you’re gonna get super horny. You won’t be complaining about him being around then. You’ll more likely be dry-humping that lumberjack’s leg like a feral dog.”
“Ugh, stop. I can’t sleep with him ever again. This situation needs clear boundaries.”
Celine laughed as she scrambled eggs in a pan.
“You could also just stay here,” she said.
“In Maine?” That was an insane suggestion.
“You own a whole-ass forest. And a lakefront mansion. And a timber company. Somehow, I think you could make it work.”
My stomach churned at the sheer number of issues I’d have to figure out.
“Stop it,” she said, sliding a plate of eggs in front of me. “You’re obsessing again.”
With a roll of my eyes, I picked up my fork. She was right; hunger made the nausea worse. I had so much to learn, not just about pregnancy and babies, but about how to raise a child and protect them from the kind of heartbreak I’d experienced.
Celine refused to let me work for the rest of the day. Instead, she stayed and kept me company. After she made lunch, we sat on the patio. She showed me how to calculate my due date online and suggested insane baby names while we watched the kids play and laugh in the sunlight.
I rested my hand on my still flat stomach. The love I could feel for this tiny person was already activating every protective instinct in me.
With those instincts came a wave of guilt. I’d let things get messy. Not only had I had unprotected sex with my employee-slash-ex-husband, but I’d enjoyed the time I’d spent with him recently.
I’d been letting him creep back into my life, with his grumpy charm and his kind actions.
It was exactly what I’d promised myself I wouldn’t let happen. I swore I’d keep things clean and professional.
Yet here I was, pregnant with the man’s child, making a messy situation even more difficult to navigate. Because I would never, ever let him hurt my child the way he hurt me.
I’d trusted him with my heart once, and I knew better than to trust him again. What if he chose his career over this baby? Or something equally meaningless?
What if he tossed this child aside for something better?
If he let this perfect little person down, then I would actually have to murder him. Just the thought brought all my sadness, anger, and rage back to the surface.
