17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

“How did you like your surprise?” Mel asked the next day as we sat in lounge chairs by the lake. The kids were playing around in the shallow beach area that was roped off to keep the swimmers separated from the boaters.

“Which surprise?”

Mel twisted to look at me. “Well, now I’m curious about how many surprises there were.”

“Coming to Juniper Lake was the first. The cabin we’re staying in all week was next. My mother is here with a nurse, which is an amazing accomplishment. You and the kids are here as well.” I sighed and turned to stare into my friend’s eyes, but they were growing blurry with tears. “It’s all so much.” I managed to mumble out despite the emotions that suddenly overwhelmed me. “And he told me he loved me, too.” I blubbered as Mel “Awed” and got up to come sit beside me. She wrapped me up in her arms and held on. “He shows me in all the best ways, so I should have known, but I didn’t trust myself anymore, Mel. There’s this part of me that feels like I don’t deserve good things, especially with you here.”

“Aw, honey, you make me want to murder Rich in more creative ways than I’ve imagined. I hate the damage he’s done to you.”

“No, it’s worse for you, maybe I should be the one to commit the murder, so you don’t have blood on your hands.” Even my murder plot included blubbered emotional words.

Mel giggled as Braxton moved in behind me and pulled me back into his chest. “I don’t think either one of you are in any condition to carry out a murder, so how about you tell me what your plans are, and I’ll do the heavy lifting while you sit back and dictate how it should go.”

“I see what you mean, Avi. That’s definitely love, right there.”

Brax’s arms tightened around me before releasing so he could pull a towel from my bag. He used it to wipe my face before handing me a napkin that I could blow my snotty nose into. “Seriously, what’s all this about?”

I couldn’t answer since I was too busy being unattractive while I honked all the slime from my nose.

“She was telling me about all the surprises yesterday. I didn’t realize you managed to get her mom to come along. That was incredible, Brax,” Mel informed him. “Avi just needed a reminder that she deserved all the love you’re showing her and that I am all for it. It makes me incredibly happy to know that you two have one another.”

“But, you don’t…” I cut myself off because I didn’t know how to finish that sentence and not sound like an asshole.

Mel giggled. “I have two of the best friends a person could ask for and two children who keep me wildly entertained with a third on the way. Trust me, I have my hands full with exactly the kind of love and support that I need right now. If there’s someone out there waiting for me in the future, then I’ll embrace that when the dust has settled, I’m officially divorced, and I’m not a walking zombie from all the sleepless nights with a new baby.”

“I hadn’t thought about the sleepless nights that are coming soon,” I admitted before turning to look over my shoulder at Brax. “You sure you want to saddle yourself with me, considering?”

“Aviva, I knew exactly what I was signing up for. I was there for more nights with Gwen when she was a baby than Rich was.”

That caused one of my eyebrows to go up.

“I had the baby blues and Rich was always working. Brax would come over after work and give me a few hours to take a nap because he knew Rich wasn’t helping with any of the nighttime stuff. I was basically going nonstop all day and night, getting no rest, and the baby blues made it all feel a million times worse. I went through all the same things with Gavin when he was a baby, but without the baby blues, it felt manageable even if I was perpetually exhausted.”

“Well, we can share Brax on daddy duty, so you still get some help, too.”

“You wouldn’t mind?” Brax asked.

“Of course not. Someone has to help Mel. She has two other children to take care of, too.”

“See what I mean about having my two best friends as a support system?” Mel mentioned. “Never doubt your worth to me, Avi. You’re incredible and I am one lucky lady that my soon-to-be ex-husband decided to have an affair with you. Sucks that you got dragged into it, but I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome, all things considered.”

“I guess, in a weird way, he did us both a favor by bringing us together,” I admitted.

“We’re not giving that asshole any credit, ladies. Fuck him!”

“Fuck him!” We both echoed Brax’s sentiment.

After spending a few hours together down on the beach, Brax and I made our way back to the cabin for a mid-afternoon nap while Amelia played what seemed to be an exhilarating round of Bridge with my mother. Mom gave me a salacious wink on my way that had me blushing from the roots of my hair down to my bare feet.

“Are you okay to climb these stairs, or do you need me to carry you?”

I gave Brax a side-eye as I started up the stairs. “Even if I was worn out, I wouldn’t want you to carry me up a set of stairs.”

“Why? You don’t think I can do it?” He flexed his biceps, then made a show of kissing each one to show that he was teasing me. I rolled my eyes at his antics.

“I have no doubts that you could take care of me in all the ways, but I have plans for you when we get up there and I don’t need you throwing your back out before we get to the good stuff.”

“And here I thought we were just coming in to take an innocent little nap.” His voice dropped to a lower register that held a hint of lusty gravel in it.

“Brax, I’m pregnant. The sun was shining on me for hours giving me a much-needed boost of serotonin. Those two things in combination have made me very horny.”

“So, what I’m hearing is that I have to keep you knocked up and stocked with sunblock so that we can fuck like bunnies for the rest of our lives.”

“Sure, yeah, you heard that correctly,” I laughed.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Brax said as he wrapped his arm around my upper body and then lifted while wrapping the other beneath the bend in my legs. The last bit of stairs we had to climb went by in a flash as he nearly ran us to the bedroom and slammed the door shut behind us with a swift kick of his foot.

“Your skin is so damn warm,” Braxton hummed against my neck as he set me back down on my feet and ran his fingers over my flesh while removing my bathing suit coverup from my body. “This had me so hard on the beach,” he stated as those same fingers trailed back over the exposed parts of my breasts, down my sides, over my belly, and to the little bows tied on the side of my bikini bottoms. Brax gave a tug on both sides at my hips and allowed the material to drop away from my body like it had never been there. The appreciative hum that followed sent tingles through my body and caused my core to clench in anticipation.

“I love your body, Avi.” The giggle that left me was met by a firm smack on my ass. “It’s not a laughing matter, sweetheart. I could worship you all day long.”

“What are you going to do when I’m no longer pregnant and everything isn’t as tight and voluptuous as it is now?” I asked.

“I’m going to worship your body any way I can get it, but then I’m going to get you pregnant again and we’re going to have so much fun with me showing you just how much I love every inch of you at every stage of pregnancy and whatever comes after.”

“I don’t know why you were never snatched up by some lucky woman before you met me, but I’m so thankful to have you all to myself.”

“Told you before, I was waiting for you. The right woman at the right time. Perfect. Avi, you’re perfect for me.” As if Brax had to prove his words, he continued to do what he said and paid homage to every part of my body he could get his greedy mouth on before he put me on all fours and sank inside my body. It felt like coming home having him buried deep inside me with his body draped across mine. The pillows he put beneath my belly to help take the pressure off tilted the scales toward Braxton being the perfect man. He wasn’t just seeing to my needs, he was tending to my daughter in a weird way, too. Making sure I was comfortable with the way I carried her and nothing we did upset either of us.

Once we were both sated and laying on our sides facing one another, I drew my finger across the bow of his upper lip that was often lost to all the stubble or the close-cropped beard he favored. “I don’t think it’s going to be easy to go back after this.”

“It won’t be easy for me either, sweetheart. That’s something we’re going to have to talk about sooner than later.”

“What? We can’t stay in a vacation rental permanently, no matter how much we wish we could.”

He laughed and then leaned in to nip at my nose. “Smartass.” He pulled me as close as I could get with my belly in the way and kept his arm wrapped around me. “Did you feel that?” Brax asked with wide-eyed surprise as my little Janine decided to kick him for more room.

“Of course, I did.”

The beautiful man immediately slid down and started talking to my belly. “Hey little princess, you’re going to have to get used to me loving on your mom, but I promise to shower you with just as much attention and love when you’re here with us, too. You’ll never be left out, I promise.” As if to seal the deal they’d just made, my daughter stuck her foot straight into my abdomen and Brax touched the imprint of it with his fingers so gently and reverently that it brought more tears to my eyes. He wasn’t immune to the wow factor of the moment. Brax’s eyes drifted to meet mine and then quickly looked back down and watched that foot until it disappeared again. “Thanks baby girl. I appreciate that gift you just gave us.” He kissed where her foot had just been and then slowly slid back up, so we were face-to-face once more.

“I love you. I love her and she isn’t even here yet.” He shook that thought off. “That’s not true. Baby girl just proved she is most definitely with us on this journey.”

“She sure did,” I managed to choke out.

“We have three houses between us.”

“Three?” I questioned.

“Yep. Figure you’re not going to want to be far from your mom, so that’s where we’ll end up. I want to start working toward that. We can discuss what that means later. Mine can go on the market because it’s too small for all of us anyway. If you want to keep yours as a safety net, I’ll understand.”

“Brax,” I whispered his name. “I don’t need a safety net from you.”

“I appreciate you saying that, but after what that asshole put you through, I want you to be sure…”

“I’m sure about you. If there was ever a doubt, you erased it by including my mom in our family plan. Her house, my family, it all means something to you. That was a red flag I ignored for far too long with Rich. He wanted me to leave her behind, sell everything, give up my whole life for him. You’re sitting here telling me you’ll sell your place, we can move in with my mom, keep my place, or whatever will make me comfortable. I love you so much for that, but I also don’t want to be the Rich in this situation. I don’t want you to have to give up everything. If you want to get something new that belongs to us, I’ll understand that, too.”

Brax shook his head before I could even finish. “Nope. I want this for you. I want it for Janine and any other little ones we have. They should have that tie to their family, the house their mom grew up in is the one I want for them, for us. It’s a bonus that it is also what your mom wants. She probably won’t ever tell you that, because she wants you to be happy wherever you are, but I think it would give her peace to know that your happiness was found in the same place where she spent living a lifetime of wonderful moments with you and your dad.”

“We’ll talk to my mom about it soon and start working toward making that happen.”

“Good, because this week is going to spoil me, and I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep at night without you kicking the shit out of me every thirty minutes or so.”

I grabbed my belly as I started to laugh. “Stop!” It was too late. “Oh my God, Brax, you made me pee on myself!” My face flamed red in mortification as I awkwardly wobbled out of bed and onto my feet before making a mad penguin-dash to the bathroom so I could empty the rest of my bladder.

Braxton’s laughter followed behind me. “It was just a little bit.”

“Shut up!” I yelled back amidst my own laughter.

“I’ll change the sheets while you let the floodgates loose.”

“Oh my God!” I yelled as he continued to laugh.

“I love you, even if you did wet the bed!”

“Stop it!” I yelled. I couldn’t stop laughing, and despite the humiliation, it was the best feeling in the world. I had a man who had my back even when I accidentally peed in the bed we shared. He wanted to move in with me eventually and have more babies. Life had turned a corner after a strange and bumpy ride. I wasn’t silly enough to think we’d never have hard times, but I had hope that we’d make it through them together the way my parents had.