The Commitment (5 page)

“Okay,” I say, smiling slightly at his concern. “What about steak? We can get that from room service.”

“You’re not going to like that,” he argues. “You’ve got to have it cooked well done and you like it medium.”

“I guess ordering a pizza is out of the question, then.”

“Yeah,” he starts quietly. “Sorry Baby Momma, no pizza, either.”

“Well, Baby,” I sigh. “What the hell am I supposed to eat? There are a million rules and apparently I don’t know any of them.”

“We’ll find something,” he grins, kissing me on the temple and finding his way to a parking spot.

Once we’re upstairs, Chase scours the menu until he finally finds something he’ll let me eat and sends me to soak in the bath.

After enjoying a very bland supper and a movie with JT, I tuck him in and make my way to our room. Slipping under the covers behind me, Chase gently pulls my back against his front and slips his hand between my legs. Once he’s made me come more times than I can count, I turn to face him and for the second night in a row, he lures me to sleep without sex, blaming my tiredness.

By the end of week two, I feel like I’m going insane.

Chase

As I listen to the sigh that leaves her, she sounds miserable. Her back is to my chest, heaving slightly from the orgasm that I can still taste on my tongue. She hasn’t said more than two words to me since she put JT to bed and the frustration rolling off of her is palpable. Reaching for her hand, she lets out another sigh but otherwise remains silent.

“Are you alright?” I ask her, concern filling my voice.

“I’m fine,” she whispers.

“Are you sure? It feels like you’re pissed off.”

“Why would I be pissed off?”

“I don’t know, Baby, you just…”

“I mean, you’re perfect, Chase,” she cuts me off, shrugging in annoyance as she turns in my arms to face me. “You’ve been helping me take care of JT, you make sure I eat right, you couldn’t be happier about the baby. You’re reading baby books which I didn’t even know men did. You’re constantly saying all the right things to me. What right could I possibly have to be pissed off at you?”

“What…”

“You’ve even stopped drinking beer and switched to decaf. Which I have to be honest,” she cuts me off again. “I know we’ve been through a lot as a couple, but I’m pretty sure your doing that was when I knew you really loved me. I don’t think I could have done that if I were you. I hate the shit. I’m switching to smoothies or something because I can’t take another thirty-three weeks of that crap,” she continues her rant, her words causing me to smirk slightly. “You’re constantly confirming what I already knew. You’re going to be the best husband and father on the planet. There is nothing else you could do to be more perfect.”

“Do you really feel that way?” I start in a soft voice when I hear her begin to sniff quietly. Slowly, she begins to nod her answer. “Then why are you crying, Baby?”

“Why won’t you have sex with me?”

Chase

“Is me being pregnant turning you off or something?” she continues as she swipes the tears away from her cheeks.

“Sophie,” I say, unable to stop myself from shaking my head. “No. No, Baby. I don’t even know why you would think that. I haven’t been able to keep my hands off of you…”

“Yes, you’re hands, your mouth,” she cuts me off. “It’s all great, but you won’t have sex with me. I don’t get it, Baby. You’ve gone down on me like fifty times this week so I know I don’t really have a right to bitch about this but what the hell?”

“Do you want me to stop?” I ask, not sure what else to say.

“No, Chase,” she groans in frustration. “I want you to want to fuck me!”

“I
do
want to fuck you,” I say immediately, resting my forehead against hers. “You would not believe how bad I want…”

“Then why do you keep shooting me down?” she cuts me off again. “I’ve been practically begging you and you just keep telling me to go to sleep.”

“Baby,” I start, letting out a low sigh before finally speaking again. “I don’t know if it’s safe.”

“Why?”

“What if we do something to hurt the baby?”

“Chase…”

“I’m not willing to chance it, Sophie. I know you don’t want to either,” I tell her. “I’ll make you come as many times as you want, but we have to be careful, Sweetheart. I don’t want us having sex to cause you to have any complications.”

“So what are you saying, Chase? We’re just not going to have sex anymore?”

“No…”

“In addition to the eight weeks after I deliver, which I was already freaking out about, you’re not going to have sex with me while I’m pregnant either?” she asks, her eyes full of a mixture of shock and disbelief.

“I’m saying…”

“Do you realize how long that is?” she cuts me off, pulling away from my chest. “Do you know that you’re telling me you don’t want to have sex with me for a
year
? You’re telling me you’re going to wait a year to fuck me? Are you crazy?”

“Sophie…”

“That’s longer than we’ve even been together, Chase!”

“Why are you freaking out on me? I just want to talk to the doctor first!”

“Fine,” she says, sitting up to reach for her phone and thrusting it into my chest. “Call her.”

“Baby, it’s almost eleven thirty. The office is closed.”

“There’s an after-hours number,” she argues.

I think she’s kidding until I meet her eyes.

“You want me to call your doctor and wake her up to ask her if it’s safe for me to fuck you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t care,” she shrugs, holding my eyes as she looks down at me.

“Baby,” I start. “I’m sorry, but we can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because Sophie,” I say, my face surely holding the same surprise as my voice. “Baby, it’s for emergencies. We can’t just call her this late on a Friday night because we have a question.”

As she holds my eyes, I can see the combination of rejection and pure irritation flooding her features.

“Fine,” she sighs, taking her phone from my hand and tossing it back onto the nightstand beside her before laying back down, her back to me.

When I reach to pull her closer, she doesn’t budge. Instead, she reaches for my hand and gently sets it on the mattress behind her.

“Sophie,” I whisper, the fact that I’ve obviously hurt her breaking my heart.

“Goodnight, Chase.”

“Baby, please don’t be like this.”

“I’m not being like anything,” she says quietly. “You want me to sleep, right? Well, you’re getting your way. I’m going to sleep.”

Lying beside her in the silence, I can feel the hurt and frustration rolling off of her. Within minutes, I know sleep will elude me for the rest of the night at this rate.

“Baby,” I whisper, letting out a slight sigh when she pulls away from my touch.
“Sophie, there’s no way I’m going to be able to fall asleep like this.”

“You’re the only one who can resolve that,” she counters. “You’ll get what you want when I get what I want.”

Ana

Since we’d all been cooped up in our hotel rooms and the office for nearly two weeks, we decided to go out and enjoy the day together. There was a lot to do in Houston and we’d all been so bogged down, we’d not been able to enjoy any of it. After spending the afternoon taking JT to the Museum of Natural Science, we’d found a nice little Italian restaurant. As we’re being taken our seats, I can feel tension rolling from my best friend. It’s the same tension I’ve felt coming off of her all day.

“What the hell is going on with them?” I ask Drake when they leave to visit the bathroom, taking JT to wash up for supper.

“I don’t know, Love,” he admits, looking over the menu and resting his hand on my thigh beneath the table.

“He’s in the doghouse,” Jack smirks from his spot on my left.

“What?” I ask.

“The Sophie Ryan freeze-out,” he chuckles. “And I don’t know what he did to piss her off, but he is
not
gonna win.”

“Are you sure?” I ask. “I mean, yeah, I can tell something’s wrong but she’s been really nice all day.”

“Yeah, she’s being nice to
us
. We didn’t piss her off,” he laughs. “I’m telling you, Ana. I’ve been the victim of it enough times to know it when I see it. If he’s smart, he’ll just give her what she wants and walk away.”

“That’s not really how he rolls,” Drake chuckles, causing me to smile.

“Well then he’s fucked,” Jack laughs.

“Maybe not,” I say, watching them emerge from the bathroom, seemingly calm. “They usually get along really well.”

“Yeah, well, so did we, but that girl froze me out for over a month once without even batting an eyelash. Trust me, Ana,” he says, shaking his head. “He’s gonna cave before she does.”

Once we’re all seated and eating, I begin to see exactly what he means. While Sophie’s been her usual sweet self to us, every time Chase reaches for her hand, she politely moves away.

“So your appointment is in the morning?” I ask after a few slightly awkward minutes and am met with a nod.

“I’m going to try and sweet talk her into an ultrasound this time,” she smiles. “She wanted to do one last time, but since everything else checked out and the machine was being used, she said we’d wait until this appointment.”

“That’s so exciting,” I smile at her. “Are you going with her, Chase?”

“Yes,” he smiles at me before glancing over at Drake. “We’re probably going to be gone a couple hours. On top of the regular visit and hopefully an ultrasound, we have a lot of questions for the doctor.”

“Really?” Sophie asks in a saccharin sweet tone, shooting him a sarcastic smile before taking a sip from her water. “I only have a couple.”

“That’s okay, Sweetheart. That’ll just give us more time to go over all of my questions, because I’ve got enough for the both of us,” he winks back over at her, the gentle smirk he gives her causing her to glower. “I just hope we don’t have to wait until your next visit.”

“Two weeks is a long time, Babe. You’re not going to want to put those questions off for too much longer. Trust me,” she snips, the smile slowly returning her lips. “The last thing you need is a hormonal girlfriend and no answers. Especially since you refuse to call the office for
anything
…”

“Well, Baby, we can’t just call any time we feel like it…”

“Then why do you think they gave us the number,
Sweetie
?”

“For emergencies, Sophie,” he turns to answer her, rubbing the scruff on his jaw. “That’s why it’s says ‘emergency number’ on the card, Babe.”

“Oh my God,” Jack chuckles quietly. “He’s just diggin’ himself deeper and deeper.”

“This is so awkward,” I groan under my breath in response.             

“Aunt Sophie? What kind is the flyin’ dinosaur?”

“It’s a pterodactyl, Sweet Pea,” she smiles down at him sweetly, brushing his hair away from his eyes before facing Chase. “That doesn’t make any sense, Chase. That’s what the emergency room is for. If we actually have an emergency, we go to the hospital. We don’t call the after-hours number at the freakin’ doctors off-”

“Holy shit,” Drake mutters before interrupting them. “You know what? Why don’t both of you just take the whole day off?”

“Are you sure?” Sophie asks, surprise filling her eyes. “Isn’t it going to be hard for you to do that conference call on your own?”

“It can’t be any harder than watching this,” he says bluntly as he throws back the last of his drink, causing Jack and I both to choke on our stifled laughter. “I’m absolutely positive.”

Chase

As I catch her reflection when she steps out of the shower, I can’t help the way my eyes linger over her skin. The past couple of weeks have been a combination between the happiest and most sexually frustrating of my life.

I have no regrets about telling Sophie I wanted to make sure having sex was safe, but her concern that her getting pregnant was a turn off couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, I’ve never wanted her more. My sanity’s slipping and it’s taking everything inside me to not throw her down on the floor and fuck her senseless.

If I wasn’t
so
concerned about the safety of Sophie and our unborn child, I would have caved the first night. There’s not a single doubt in my mind.

Her eyes find mine still staring at her and I watch her pull the towel around her. Pulling her eyes away from me, she lets out a quiet sigh, moving toward the closet and out of my view. Dressing quickly, we ride to her doctor’s office in near silence.

Once we arrive, we find a quiet spot in the back of the packed waiting room. After a few minutes, Sophie surprises me by reaching for my hand and leaning her head onto my shoulder.

“When everything happened back in Camden the last time, I prayed a lot for the doctor to be wrong,” her voice is so soft as she recalls the painful memory of her lost pregnancy, I have to lean in to hear her. “I’ve never minded working, but a career was never something I really thought very much about when I was growing up. I always just thought I’d find someone I couldn’t live without and have a family. That’s really all I ever wanted,” her voice trails off and wrapping my arm around her, I pull her closer and kiss her hair as she continues. “After Jack and after I lost… Every day since
that
day, it’s been lingering in the back of my mind, Chase. I’ve spent so much time forcing myself to accept that this wasn’t ever going to happen. Now that it has, I’m absolutely terrified it’s going to be taken away again.”

“Sophie,” I whisper, pressing my lips back into her hair. “You can’t think like that, Sweetheart.”

“I know and I’m trying really hard not to,” she admits. “But when you told me you were worried, too, that made it real. The reality in front of us is more than I could have ever hoped for, but it’s also brought up a lot of fears and emotions I’m not really sure how to deal with.”

“I can only imagine.”

“Anyway,” she says, discreetly swiping her cheek clean before facing me. “I’m sorry I was a dick to you all weekend.”

“Hush, Baby,” I whisper, nudging her chin up to face me. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Come here, give me some sugar,” I whisper, bending to kiss her gently and loving how her lips part slightly, granting me access.

Pulling away slightly after a moment, she gives me a chaste kiss and leans against me again.

“It pains me to admit it, but you were right to wait and talk to her,” she admits, playfully nudging me and unleashing my favorite rogue dimples. “You know, I really hate it when you’re right about stuff.”

“I know, Babe,” I chuckle. “Just for the record, I’m losing my shit, too. I don’t think I’ve slept all weekend.”

“I’m sorry,” she starts, resting her hand on my jaw. “I’ve been totally selfish. I was so focused on my own fears I didn’t stop to consider how my behavior would affect you.”

Resting my forehead against hers, I revel in her coconut scent as I hold her eyes.

“You definitely came to fuckin’ play,” I smirk down at her, loving the way the crimson fills her cheeks. “I gotta be honest, Baby. If this was anything else, I would have
maybe
made it to day two.”

“Aww,” she chuckles. “You’re so sweet making up crap just so I’ll feel better.”

“I’m not making it up,” I laugh.

“Whatever, you told me you were going to make me wait a
year
!”

“I know what I said,” I nod, holding her eyes. “And if we walk in there and she says it’s not safe, then I will totally wait a year for you, Sophie. It will be absolute agony and I probably won’t sleep a wink, but you’re worth every single second.”