Egotistically Yours by Hayley Faiman

Chapter Nine

BETHANIE

I overestimatedmy ability to not only cook but take care of a newborn and cook in a new kitchen all at the same time. I’m really not made for this kind of life, at least it feels that way. I’m overwhelmed as I watch the pot boil.

How hard can spaghetti be? Seriously, I thought it would be the best thing to make. Everyone likes it, right? Plus, a salad and bread, easy? Except it’s not.

The pot is boiling over, the one with the sauce is splattering everywhere and Tucker is screaming his head off all at the same time.

I had it timed perfectly. Everything was going to be ready by the time Laurent walked through the door. Except it’s not and then I smell burning bread.

“Oh shit,” I scream just as the front door opens. I look over to the oven just in time to see the bread ignite.

I’m holding Tucker, but I can’t dash into the kitchen, that place is a war zone right now. I turned my back for just a second to change him and then I was going to put him in his bouncer, but poop was everywhere, he had his first blow out and I thought I had time to give him a quick bath.

I didn’t have the time.

“Oh fuck,” Laurent shouts as his smile dies and he dashes into the kitchen.

“Stay with him, let me handle this.”

I watch from the other side of the bar as he turns off all of the boiling-over pots, then turns the oven off. He doesn’t open the oven door, which is the first thing that I would have done.

Instead, he just turns it off and deals with the other fires in the kitchen. I watch as the oven fire dies, my heart starts slamming against my chest, and Tucker calms down almost immediately when I do.

Licking my lips, I stare at Laurent in awe. I’ve never seen him work in the kitchen before, and right now all he’s doing is kind of piling things up, turning things off, and shifting them around, but he doesn’t look uncomfortable at all.

He stops, turning his head to look back at me. His lips curve up into a small smile and his gaze darkens.

“Want to go out to eat?” he asks.

“Out?” I breathe, looking down at my unkempt self, then back up to meet his gaze.

“Want me to order in, we can eat outside, enjoy the evening?”

Pressing my lips together, I roll them a few times as I nod my head. “Yeah, that sounds good,” I whisper.

He winks, then turns back to the kitchen before wiping off his hands and walking out of the room and straight toward me. He scoops Tucker out of my arms, dipping his chin and touches his lips to my temple.

“Think about what you want, maybe go take a bath? We’ll clean all this up while we wait for the food.”

“You worked all day,” I murmur.

He chuckles. “I sat behind a desk and talked during meetings all day. It’s not physically taxing. What do you want, baby?”

A thrill shimmies up my spine the way that he says baby and I want nothing more than to lick his entire body. I want him so freaking badly right now, and my body has jokes because I don’t have the all clear from the doctor to do anything like that yet.

I suggest Chinese, considering I just ruined spaghetti and I don’t think I could mentally cope with ordering Italian food after what I just did to what I was attempting to make. I tell Laurent as much and all he does is smile down at me.

He’s not even mad, I don’t understand why. If I walked into my house after a long day of work and saw what he did, I would probably be furious. He just tells me to go and relax for an hour or so and he’ll get me when the food is delivered.

Laurent pretty much kicks me out of the bottom half of the penthouse and I start to make my way upstairs but stop and look behind my shoulder at him. He is watching me, Tucker safely sleeping in his arms and I don’t know how he does it, but he has become a father and he’s done it effortlessly so.

“Go on, now,” he calls out as I stare at the two of them together.

Nodding, I turn around and continue making my way upstairs. Once I’m in the bedroom, I close the door, but I don’t lock it in case Laurent needs me, or more importantly, in case Tucker needs me.

Gathering my bath things, I make my way into the bathroom and sigh. I don’t know who designed this place, but it’s pretty perfect.

Walking over to the freestanding tub, I turn the water on hot and wait for it to warm up. Pushing the drain stop down, I add in some Epsom salt and let the tub fill. Stripping out of my clothes, I wrinkle my nose at the sight of them.

I showered and dressed in clean clothes this morning, but you can’t tell. I have spit-up and other stains all over them. I don’t want to know what they are exactly, so I don’t investigate much further into the whole thing, I just put them in a pile to add to the laundry basket when I’m finished.

Stepping over the edge of the tub, I moan as soon as I lower myself down into the warm water. Letting out a sigh, I wonder how this could get any better? A book. I haven’t read a book since Tucker was born.

Reaching for my phone that’s on the tile floor, I find the eReader app and click on it. Searching through my library, I smile at a few of the romance books that I read right before Tucker was born, lots of sexy aliens. Tons of them, actually. I find the one that I left off on and start to read as the warm water relaxes my body.

LAURENT

After holding Tucker,talking softly to him for a while, I strap him in his little bouncy thing, turn on some low music, and start to clean up the kitchen. I laugh at the burned-to-a-crisp bread as I throw it in the trash.

Running out, I throw the trash into the chute and hurry back into the penthouse. Immediately, I check on Tucker, imagining that me being gone for a total of five seconds he’s somehow gotten hurt or something. But he’s still passed out asleep, his arms straight backward and his hands balled into little fists.

I stare at him for longer than I probably should, but he’s a miracle to me, one that I don’t know I’ll ever get tired of looking at or watching. The phone rings and I jump, rushing over to answer it.

The front desk asks if I’ve ordered anything and I confirm that I have. They send the delivery up and I go in search of Bethie. It’s not hard to find her, she’s exactly where I told her to go, soaking in the tub.

Opening the door, she doesn’t even look up as I watch her. She’s leaning over the tub’s edge, her phone in hand as she stares at it intently. I clear my throat, curious as to what she’s looking at, but she doesn’t move.

“Bethie?” I call out.

She jumps, her eyes flying up to meet mine and a look of pure panic crosses her features.

“You scared the shit out of me,” she exhales.

“What were you doing?” I ask.

She looks at her phone, then lifts her gaze up to meet mine again, her cheeks tinting pink when she does. “Reading,” she mumbles.

“Reading?” I ask. “Reading what?”

She shakes her head, licking her lips. “A book.”

I hear the bell ring and I know that the food is here. “Dinnertime,” I say, watching her for another moment. Turning around, I leave her there and jog downstairs, reaching into my pocket for the tip.

Opening the door, I thank the delivery guy, giving him the money and taking the food. Making my way into the kitchen, I check on Tucker again and see that he’s still fast asleep. Then I start to plate the food and get it ready to take outside to enjoy on the balcony.

There’s a noise and I look up just in time to see Bethie walking down the stairs. She’s in a pair of lounge pants and an oversized tank top. She looks beautiful. Her hair is up in a messy knot on top of her head, but she is calmer and more relaxed. She doesn’t look as stressed out as she did when I walked into the house tonight.

“That smells amazing,” she calls out as soon as she’s at the bottom of the stairs.

She doesn’t walk directly toward me though, much like me, she detours over to Tucker who is still sleeping peacefully.

“We’ll leave the screen open so that we can hear him wake,” I offer.

“The music is nice,” she sighs.

I hum, picking up the plates and make my way toward the balcony door. She opens it for me and I walk past her, setting the plates down, I hold out her chair for her, then situate the screen door in place and walk over to the empty chair and sink down.

“Thank you, I feel really bad,” she says, her voice too small.

She sounds almost meek and I hate it. Bethie should never feel meek. She is amazing and strong. She is beautiful and she has put up with far too much shit from me.

“Don’t ever feel bad. Not about this, not about anything,” I say, my tone harsher than I intend it to be.

She’s quiet for a moment and eats her food. I do the same, enjoying the Texas sunset right in front of us. Then I decide to ask her a question, one that has been bothering me for a few minutes.

“What was the book about?” I ask.

She coughs and I look over, watching to make sure she’s okay while I wait for her to answer. She shakes her head as she swallows her food, then reaches for the water that I brought out for her and takes a long drink.

“Nothing,” she rasps. “It was about nothing.”

“Don’t lie, I know it was about something, otherwise you wouldn’t have been so involved in it.”

She chews on her bottom lip, then lets out a heavy sigh. “It was about aliens,” she says.

I arch a brow, silently begging her to go on, as this sounds very interesting. “Red aliens with gigantic, well, everything.”

I can’t help it, I burst out laughing. My entire body shakes and I can’t stop myself. She’s reading alien porn and while I’m not opposed to porn on any level whatsoever, I find it hilarious because I never would have imagined Bethie, my sweet little Bethie, reading stuff like that.

“Oh stop. I won’t be ashamed,” she snaps.

Forcing myself to stop, I look at her, taking her in and I can tell that she’s embarrassed. Reaching across the table, I take her hand in mine. “Baby, don’t be embarrassed. I think it’s cute, I just never thought you’d read that stuff.”

“Reading is sexy and classy,” she announces, squaring her shoulders.

Squeezing her hand, I nod my head. “It is, extremely so.”

“But you laughed,” she says.

Squeezing her hand again, I wait for her to make eye contact with me. It takes a moment, but she finally does and I give her a smile.

“I didn’t expect it, Bethie. I’ve known you for over two years and I feel like I don’t know you. It’s not like we’ve had a lot of in-depth conversations together, we’re learning new things every day about one another. This is one I wasn’t expecting, but I think it’s cute as hell.”

“I’m sure,” she mumbles.

Lifting my hand, I release my hold on her and cup her cheek. “Trust me, baby. It’s cute.”

Dropping my hand, I go back to eating my food and she does the same. The conversation is dropped and eventually we begin talking about work. I tell her about my day, about my meetings, omitting Cory and his conversation about cheating on his wife. And we finish just in time for Tucker to wake up and demand his own dinner.

It’s the single most perfect evening of my entire life and I wonder if this is what my future holds, if every night is like this, I could get used to this.