- GAGE -
“Maybe it’s the travelling,” I said as I held Pip’s hair back as she puked in an airport bathroom for the second time in a few weeks. “The baby could be allergic to aeroplanes.”
“Or maybe it’s morning sickness. Seriously, why do women do this to themselves?”
I scoffed. “Pretty sure it takes two people to make a baby. Unless my sex ed lessons were all wrong.”
“Hey, this baby took a sperm donor, an egg donor, a surrogate, and an entire team of doctors. Think that means this baby took, like, a rugby team to make.”
“Totally sounds like you were banged by a rugby team.” My attempt at making the mood lighter was barely working, but I kept trying. “Can’t say I like that idea, but it could be fun to watch.”
Pip spluttered and then spat into the toilet. “Could you maybe not make me choke on my own spew?”
“When did we become the romantic couple? Spew, gangbangs … fun times.”
She raised her head and glared at me, but I figured joking about the baby was better than grumbling about it.
“Come on,” I said, “we only have one more leg of our journey left. We can make it.”
Pip groaned and pulled herself off the floor. “I hate you.”
“No, you hate Garrett and Blair. It’s their baby who’s making you sick. Not mine.”
Pip tensed. “You’re getting better at hiding your resentment, but only slightly.”
“Hey, I’m trying.”
She wrapped her arms around my waist. “I want you to know that I didn’t do this out of spite. Yeah, I was mad at you, but I was just trying to get my life back together after you left me. It really fucking hurt, and I saw this baby as a way to escape my pain.”
“How’s that working out for ya?” I gestured around the bathroom and pointed out the fact she’d been sounding like a demon as she hurled up her breakfast.
“Ironically, doing something selfless to make me feel better is actually kinda selfish on my part.”
With a sigh, I rubbed her back. “I want this to be the last time we talk about my issues with the baby. I know they’re my issues, and I even know they’re irrational. If anything, it was my fault for not telling you all sooner about my past. If you knew, you would’ve been on a plane with me to go see my dads on that very first day I found out.”
“So, no more baby issues?”
“None that you have to be worried about. I’m not going anywhere.”
***
Work was a mess when we got the call from Tony telling us our vacation was over. We’d been home a total of five hours when he claimed mayday. Garrett was still in the States with Blair, I hadn’t seen my office in six months, and Pip was still jetlagged and vomiting.
Yet the very next day, Pip and I were back in the office, fixing all the mistakes the guys in Sydney made and picking up the slack from being four men down for a week.
My plan to show Pip how committed I was went out the window, along with sleep, watching TV, and eating proper meals. I told myself it’d only be a few days before we could get on top of things.
That turned into a week.
Then two.
Even when Garrett came home from his honeymoon, we couldn’t catch up.
Pip and I had decided to be a couple, but we weren’t spending couple time together. We worked side by side as we always did, but there was no romance in working twelve-hour—sometimes fifteen-hour—days. The most we could get was a stolen kiss or a quick side hug. It was if we’d gone back to being friends. Working on different projects, we often finished work at different times, so even though we worked twenty feet from each other, it felt like I hadn’t seen her at all.
Weekends? We didn’t know what they were.
We were wiped.
Which was why my uncle found me practically asleep on my desk. He cleared his throat, and I almost jumped out of my skin.
“I’m awake. I’m awake.” Holy fuck, I so wasn’t awake. I blinked, trying to clear my vision.
“Go home. Get some sleep. And then tomorrow, take the day off.”
“Can’t,” I said through a yawn. “Too much to do.”
“I know you’re going through a lot right now, so work might be a distraction, but you’ve been in here the last fourteen days straight. Take the day. The work is still going to be there when you come back. We’re slowly getting on top of things.”
“We said that last week, and then you put in a bid for a new client.”
“In my defence, I didn’t think he’d take my offer. I way overcharged.”
I laughed, but even that had no energy behind it. Tony was right that the work had been good at keeping me distracted from thinking about Dad, and the idea of having nothing to do tomorrow scared me, because I’d have nothing else to do but think about Dad. Unless I could somehow score Pip the day off too …
“Go home, Gage,” Tony said again.
“Okay.”
“And take Pip with you.”
Great minds think alike.
“That’s the plan,” I said.
“I was stupid enough to try her first. Should’ve known you’d be the one to cave.”
“I’m so tired I don’t even have the energy to give you the finger right now, Uncle Tony.”
“There’s my nephew.”
I made my tired feet pass the empty assistants’ cubicles and go into Pip’s office. “Home time.”
She didn’t look away from her computer. “Did you get the proofs done for that cleaning company?”
Shit. “Uh, I’ll do it on Wednesday.”
She still didn’t glance my way. “Why not tomorrow?”
“Tony ordered us both to have a day off. He also told me to come here and drag you home too.”
“Can’t. Too busy.”
I laughed. “That’s what I said. Didn’t work.” Approaching her around the back of her desk, I reached for her shoulders and started massaging. “Come on, darlin’. Let’s get out of here.” I leant in and kissed her cheek and lingered longer than a friend would. I was reminding her that we were more than that. Always would be. “I’ve missed you.”
“You see me every day.”
“How many times have I kissed you in the last two weeks?” I asked.
“Countless.”
“Lies. How many times have I kissed you properly?”
She let out a loud breath. “Fine. You win.” She lowered her voice. “I’ve missed you too.”
“Now, shut down your computer. We’re going out for a late dinner.”
Pip moaned as she stood. It was an exhausted, painful moan, but that didn’t stop my traitorous body from responding. “We should order in.” And then she went and said something like that, where the innuendo was non-existent but I heard it anyway.
“Our first official date isn’t going to be takeout on your couch. That’s too …”
“Normal? Excellent-sounding? Gage, I’m wrecked.”
I pulled her in close and cupped the back of her head as she buried it in my chest. I loved the feel of her against me and her citrusy shampoo scent. Having Pip in my arms was truly the only time I felt content.
“We’ll have a quick dinner, and then I’m going home with you.”
“Presumptuous much?” She laughed.
“We don’t have to do anything, but I want to be next to you. Hold you awhile.”
“Work is stupid.”
“Shh, the boss might hear you.”
“Work is stupid!” she yelled.
“Heard that,” Tony called back.
“See, he doesn’t care. He knows I love it here.”
Tony appeared in Pip’s doorway. “What are you two still doing here? Go before I throw more work at you.”
“Are you ready for our first date?” I asked her.
“When you say it like that, I feel like I should be scared.”
“Come on.” I grabbed her hand and led her to the elevators. Like zombies, we ambled our way to the underground carpark. “We’ll go in my car, and I’ll bring you to work on Wednesday.”
“Last time you said that—”
I winced. “Nope. We’re not talking about that tonight. This is you and me doing something we should have done years ago. We’re not Pip and Gage. We’re two people on a first date.”
“Two exhausted people, wearing the same thing we’ve worn all day at work, trying to hold up adult conversation. It’s a tall order. I like to make an effort on a first date. I probably look like I haven’t slept in weeks, my hair isn’t washed, and I’m pretty sure I spilled coffee on my blouse this morning.”
“You’re still as gorgeous as ever. Besides, are you forgetting I’ve seen you at your very worst? Remember the stomach bug of 2015?”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “I blocked those horrible forty-eight hours out.”
“I recall matted hair, pale skin, vomit the colour of—”
She covered her ears. “La, la, la, la, didn’t happen, didn’t happen, didn’t happen.”
“I took care of you then, and I promise to take care of you forever. We’ve let this drag out for too long. It’s our time, Pip. Nothing—and I mean literally nothing—will make me stop loving you.”
There was a ghost of a smile on her lips before her mouth closed over mine, and even though I was one hundred percent telling the truth, I couldn’t help thinking she didn’t buy it.
The scars I carried around from my past had imprinted on her own insecurities. She was waiting for me to bolt, and on some level, I was waiting for her to screw me over. The only thing that kept me from pushing her away was the fact it was Pip. I trusted her more than everyone in my life combined.
“Are you sure you want to go to dinner?” she murmured against my lips.
I forced myself to pull back. “Playing dirty isn’t fair. Yes, we’re going to dinner.”
“Where are we going?” she asked as we got in the car.
“I’m offended you think I don’t know where you take all your first dates.”
“Okay, but if this goes bad, who I am I going to call to come save me?”
“You’re stuck with me.”
“Wow. Bringing that out on a first date? Dunno if that’s the way to get a second.”
“I’ll be getting a second. And a third. And a fourth.”
“Aww, cute, you can count to four without using your fingers.”
Yes! This was what I needed—a dose of normalcy between us, but now with sex. “Are you this sarcastic to all your dates? Because I think we found a reason you’re still single.”
“I thought I wasn’t single anymore?”
Damn right, she wasn’t. “You know what I mean.”
Instead of pulling up to her usual restaurant, I drove by slowly as if looking for a spot to park but with no intention of taking one.
“There’s a spot,” Pip said.
“Yeah, about that. We’re not eating here. I thought about it, because it’s your first-date place, but I’m going to show you that I’m nothing like those dickheads you’ve dated over the years.”
“I would argue, but unfortunately for me, it’s true. They’re all dickheads.”
“Have you tried that new place on the corner yet?” I asked.
“The French restaurant that’s so fancy I feel like I’d have to use my manners and act like a lady? What do you think?”
“I can act like a lady if you can.”
Pip laughed. “I’m underdressed.”
“Not yet, you aren’t,” I mumbled.
“Is this what being in a relationship with you is going to be like?”
“Do you know how many times over the past eight years I’ve bit my tongue from making serious innuendo?”
Her smile dimmed. “I hate you hid that side of you for so long.”
“It wasn’t like I never joked or had fun.”
“True.”
“I just had to make everything as un-sexual as possible. And it was fucking hard.” I waggled my eyebrows. “Get it.”
“This is going to take some getting used to.”
“Sorry. I’ll be a complete gentleman.” I smirked. “Starting with this fancy-ass restaurant.”