The Real(98)

“God you’re beautiful,” he said across our tables. I lifted my hot cocoa in my cup of choice that read MILF.

Cameron laughed as I puffed out air and blew the bangs I cut in a hormone rage out of my eyes. I looked at the darkening sky outside as I tried to swallow my emotion.

With every day that passed, I was fighting the Olympics of tamping down my random rotation of emotions. I had hurdled the first few months of my pregnancy hormones, but the last few had proved just as hard on me.

“I don’t want to cry, so don’t be nice. Piss me off or something.”

My chin wobbled, and Cameron caught it. The way he caught everything, because he was good at it.

“Baby, don’t you get it yet?” He stared at me across the space. “I don’t care what you say, as long as you’re talking to me. I’d give in to any demand you made, as long as it was of me. All you have to do is reach for me and I’ll give you what you need. I don’t need to be courted by my wife, who I’m obsessed with by the way. I’ll follow your lead, always.”

And here come the waterworks.

I took in his five o’clock shadow and his longer hair—a new part of his appearance I’d grown to love. He’d made it a point to have his own slob days of the week and I loved every second of them.

I wiped a tear of fear away showing him the truth. “Promise? Because I’m kind of sad we didn’t get more time alone and I know I said I was okay with being second, but maybe I’m a little jealous. I don’t want us to change.”

“Come on. I want to show you something.” Cameron stood and walked over to me, pulled my hand and gathered our things before we made our way outside. The instant we set foot on the cement, snow began to drift down around us.

“I wish I could take credit for this,” he whispered pulling me into his arms and pressing his lips to mine. His kiss became urgent, more frantic, reminding me of the first one we shared the previous winter, except this kiss wasn’t mixed with fear and what if’s. It was filled with certainty and a new kind of longing. It wasn’t rehearsed, but it was comforting. When he pulled away I saw the life we lived unfold as snowflakes dotted his lashes.

“A year ago, I kissed you for the first time in this same spot.”

Just as I thought it, he verbalized it.

“And it felt different then. It was new. Things change. But we’ve changed too, Abbie Bledsoe, and we can’t stop it. And with you, I don’t want to stop it. I want to go through all those changes. I’m not afraid of them,” he assured as he rubbed my face with his palms.

“Let’s go home, okay? I have a feeling my wife needs a little attention.”

“Okay.”

We walked home hand in hand as the snow drifted silently to the sidewalk. Cameron held me tightly to his side as I tried to make a quick excuse for my crazy.

“I blame the latest outburst on the penis growing inside me. Do you have any idea how weird that is?”

“I didn’t even think about it that way, but now it’s weird,” he said with a chuckle. I nudged him as I wrapped as much of my arm around him as I could. “I was thinking about a name today.”

“Oh, no,” he looked at me full of objection and shaking his head. “I don’t want to fight, okay? I think it’s cool you want to name our kid something unique, but I will not be naming our baby a direction or something that’s found in the produce aisle. Seriously, this new celebrity stalking is getting out of control. I never thought I’d see the day I wished to watch another serial killer documentary, but I do.”

“Hey,” I defended. “The only reason I started watching those celebrity miracle workers was to see how quick I could bounce back from pear-shaped to something a little more banana like. And then, I don’t know . . . it was like a vortex and I got sucked in. I’ll snap out of it eventually. I’m over the serial killer phase. Besides, I was thinking of a word that describes his father, not a direction or a fruit.”

Cameron turned to me in the snow drift and looked down with curious eyes.

“Noble.”

His brows drew together. “That’s the word you would use to describe me?”

I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him to me while I ran my fingers through the thick hair at the base of it.

“Absolutely.”

Stunned, I could see the emotion building in his eyes as he leaned in and took my lips in the gentlest kiss we’d ever shared. He pulled away, his eyes searching mine as he stroked my face.

Noble it is.

“Abbie, you make me feel so high,” he said as he wrapped me in his hold and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Come on, I need to go stretch for the sex you demanded.”

I playfully slapped his chest. It took me a few minutes of walking to realize I’d done it and neither of us was affected by it. I felt another lump form in my throat as I looked over to Cameron and squeezed his arm.

“Don’t be a smartass but what word would you use to describe me?”

“I’ve got several,” he said with a wink.

After a few seconds, I paused our walk. “Well, aren’t you going to tell me?” I asked.

He gripped my freezing hands warming them up in his with his scorn.

“You forgot your gloves.”

“Cameron,” I said in warning. “You can’t think of one word to describe me?”