“Ew.”
“What I mean is…Bash knows this ain’t a sure thing. He’s told me a dozen times it could take a hundred years for him to put a baby in you. Which is weird because you two would be excessively old to have a kid at that age, but whatever. Sometimes it’s hard for shifters to have kids, just like sometimes it’s hard for humans. Give it time. You’ll get the cub you’re supposed to raise.”
Emerson sat there utterly shocked as Clinton shoved the door open and got out.
“Oh,” he said, ducking back into the doorway. “If you tell anyone I picked you that flower, I’ll plant sticker burrs in Bash’s new yard, burn all his pizza rolls, key your car, tell everyone you wet the bed, and I’ll spit in every beer you ever drink from here until the day you die.” He gave her an empty grin, slammed the car door, and then sauntered under the entrance sign.
Well, okay then. Pursing her lips, Emerson shoved her car into drive and coasted into the park. Clinton was hammering new framework on his trailer when she walked around the front of Bash’s house, and when he looked up from his work, she waved. Clinton flipped her off, but at least he did it with a smile, so that was something.
She climbed the porch stairs, and then, stalling, straightened the rocking chairs before making her way into his trailer. Bash had music playing in his office, so he must’ve been doing finance stuff. He liked to do math to Metallica for some reason. Emerson couldn’t help her smile when she saw him, nodding his head to the hard beat, his back to her, sitting in his office chair going over a complicated spreadsheet that he’d probably memorized by now. He was scary good with numbers. Which baffled her for the hundredth time on why he thought he wasn’t a smart man. He said things differently, sure, and he wanted simple things out of life, but that didn’t have anything to do with his intelligence. Not in her eyes. She hoped their future cub, or cubs if they were lucky, would be like him.
She had to tell him quick so she could stop feeling so queasy.
“Bash Bear?”
He turned in his chair, smile ready on his lips, a baseball cap on backward covering his black hair. The short, dark stubble on his jaw made his green eyes look even more captivating, and today, he was wearing a tight, long-sleeved charcoal shirt that hugged his muscles and stunned her once again that a man like him was interested in making a life with a girl like her.
The smile dipped from his face when he looked in her eyes. “It’s okay,” he said immediately, “I got you something.”
“Bash, I don’t want any presents today.” I don’t deserve them.
“I got you flowers because I thought you might be sad about not getting a baby this month.”
She frowned as he passed her by and jogged toward the kitchen. She followed slowly and teared up as he pulled store-bought red roses from the fridge.
“I bought you the fancy ones from a florist in town because it’s not your Friday flowers. I also searched the Internet for girl period stuff, and I got you a heating pad, pain killers, and chocolate, but I accidentally ate most of that on the way home. I think there is one piece left.”
She huffed a thick, surprised laugh. “You’re not mad?”
Bash flinched back as though he’d been punched. “Mad?” He set the flowers down too rough on the counter. One of the petals fell off, but that was just Bash.
He stomped over to her and went soft millimeters before he touched her skin. He brushed his knuckle over the streak of wetness on her cheek, then stared at the smear of moisture on his hand with an upset furrow to his dark brows. “I’m sad you think I would be mad. Even if we never made a baby, you would still be the best part of me. Are you mad at me?”
She slid her arms around his neck. “Of course not.”
“Okay, good, because I don’t want you to leave. And now we get to keep trying. We’ve been having fun trying, right?”
She giggled and nodded. “The most fun.”
“This is the exciting part. The what-if every month. And having to wait will make it even better when we finally get our cub.” Bash hugged her tight and rested his cheek against the top of her head. “My mom and Bill wanted a baby together real bad. Real bad. It didn’t ever happen for them, but he still touches her butt all the time.”
A million pounds of pressure lifted from her chest with the long sigh she let off. She should’ve known Bash would make her feel better instead of worse. He was a good teammate. A good partner.
“Look,” he murmured, easing back to cup her cheeks. “I’ll go turn off my computer, we’ll go visit Audrey up at Moosey’s and eat tons of barbecue, and then we’ll come back and fuck like rabbits.”