Authors: Jack Gunthridge
I was single and pregnant. Jack was still seeing Kristin, even if their relationship was rocky. He made sure I knew that, even though he was there for me throughout the pregnancy. He would go with me to doctor’s appointments and other things. When the doctor or the nurse would think he was the father, he would tell them he was just a friend. When they left the room, he would turn to me and say, “’Friend’ sounds a lot better than “the man who is sleeping with my best friend.”
When I was six months pregnant, I attended a wedding alone. Rick and I had broken up by this point. He apparently didn’t like a woman who was gaining weight from carrying his child.
Jack was there with Kristin, but they were quickly becoming a couple in name only. Everybody knew they were breaking up, even if they hadn’t made it official yet. Whether it was to escape being with a woman he no longer loved, or to be with me, he asked me to dance. He didn’t just ask me to dance. He came over to me and held out his hand for me to take. He kissed it and said, “May I have the honor of dancing with the most beautiful woman in the room?”
“I’m the most bloated woman in the room and could possibly be the fattest woman in the room.”
“Yes, but you’re still the only natural woman in this place, which I will take any day over implants and liposuction.”
His smile and eyes were dazzling.
I got up and started dancing with him. He held me close to him, but he held me and danced with me like he was doing the waltz while everybody else was just slow dancing.
“I’m already knocked up, Jack. We don’t need to dance and bring attention to ourselves.”
He leaned in close to me and whispered, “I hate to tell you this, but we lost our reputations a long time ago with our actions with our most recent companions. Don’t you know I’m the Genius Gigolo?”
“And I’m the Socialite Slut.”
“If we weren’t destined for each other, then true love is just a horrible myth we grow up believing in.” He said it with his typical playful smile, where you can never tell if he is telling the truth or making fun of the world we’re living in.
I wanted him. It was not that he was just kind and funny and handsome. He was charming and graceful. He was the last of a breed of men who could be called a gentleman. Something I had never really seen in the social scene in New York. And I don’t think he had seen it either. He just grew up believing in an ideal he was excluded from being a part of because of the family he was born into. When he started to become rich and successful, he wanted rich people to be like he imagined them to be and not how they really are.
“If I hadn’t been with Rick the night you met Kristin, would you have chosen me over her?” I asked it with the courage I had been lacking the past few months. The risk of losing him was now less than the chances I could actually be with him.
“Well, now, Miss Catherine! That is a loaded question. If I didn’t know you any better, I would say your hormones are out of balance. Is it true the female sex drive increases during pregnancy?” He smiled at me as if he was playing dumb to any feelings he might have for me.
“Word on the street is you two are breaking up.”
“Lies. They’re all lies. We have no intention of breaking up, especially since we officially broke up last night. But don’t let that get out. We are at one of the biggest weddings of the year. News of the break-up and now my dancing with you would overshadow this glorious event. Anyway, what would people say about me?”
“Probably that you have a sick, sexual desire to make love to a pregnant woman.”
“At least they can’t claim I got you drunk to take advantage of you and to advance my career.”
“No, you wouldn’t be taking advantage of me.”
I look him in the eyes. He looks back at mine. He chooses his words carefully.
“I’ve already destroyed one beautiful woman by dancing with her at a wedding. I’m not going to take this opportunity to do the same to her best friend.”
“Even if it would be a chance to correct your poor life choices during the first dance?”
“I’ve got rules, Cathy. I won’t date the best friend of one of the women I’ve dated. It’s bad enough having women discuss my performance in bed with their best friends. I don’t need women comparing their experiences.”
“But you can be my friend and draw attention to us by asking me to dance?”
He smiled. “If the pregnant woman would rather sit alone at a table and prove to the world she is a social outcast, I can take my humanitarian efforts elsewhere.”
Even though I knew he was joking, there was a truth behind his eyes. I gave up on him being a substitute father to my unborn child, or at least on us being a couple.
“No, I would rather have you stay.”
He kissed me on the forehead. “Good. You truly are the most beautiful woman in the room. I don’t think I could put up with everybody else’s attitude tonight.”
We continued to dance, but we talked less. We were enjoying the feeling of being able to touch each other and what could have been if we had made other choices in life.
My son will be five this year. Jack has always been there for me and my son. He has taught him to play catch and to pee standing up. He has been closest thing my son has ever had to a father. He’s changed dirty diapers and given me breaks when I needed to sleep or just relax from taking care of somebody else. He was also there for adult conversations when baby talk started to take its toll on me.
I pointed that out to Jack one time. He said, “You’re my best friend. I help you take care of your child. And we don’t have sex. That might sound like marriage to you, but I see no reason to make it legal and get the government involved in our lives. It will just screw up everything.”
I can’t tell what he wants. Maybe he’s conflicted and wants something that violates his rule. I only know I haven’t dated anybody else. I don’t want to be in a relationship if he should ever change his mind.
Even with the women he has dated, I don’t know what he wants. I haven’t met a woman yet who doesn’t think he should be in a relationship that would lead to marriage. Knowing his independent streak, he could be resisting marriage because it is what everybody else wants for him, or he is waiting to be with somebody he won’t date because of his rules.
I’ve dated bad boys in the past. He is the worst.
Chapter Three
Jack and I have existed in what he has called “The Phantom Friend Zone” for the past few years. We’re more than friends, but we’re not “more than friends.”
On his thirtieth birthday, he got drunk. It’s not just that he got drunk. He got drunk and drunk dialed Kristin. She called me and told me to pick him up.
I had seen him earlier that night. I had gone out to celebrate with him, but I had to leave because being a mother doesn’t really allow me to take a night off. Apparently, that was the case with the rest of his friends, too.
When I found him, he was severely drunk. He wasn’t just celebrating. He had been drinking to forget. I put his arm around my shoulder and helped to walk him out. He pointed out two women at the bar and said, “I could have had a threesome with them, but it seems some woman has poisoned my heart to where I only want her.”
I took him back to my place. I didn’t want to leave him alone like this. I stripped him down to his underwear and tried to put him in bed.
“I need to pee.”
I helped him to the bathroom. He leans over the toilet and is doing the best he can to stand there. I notice his massive erection, which is popping out of the top of his boxer-briefs. I free him from his underwear and point him at the toilet, even though he is fighting against me.
“Don’t tell Cathy you saw me this way.”
He doesn’t know I’m standing beside him. I try to comfort him. “She won’t find out. Just go to the bathroom so I can put you to bed.”
His dick starts to get a little softer as he starts to pee. I flush the toilet, pull his pants back up, and wash our hands. As I’m walking him back to bed, he garbles out, “It’s my birthday. How did I end up alone?”
I lay him down on the bed. “Shhh. Just go to sleep, Jack. It will all be better tomorrow.”
“When I was a kid, I thought my birthday wishes didn’t come true because I didn’t have enough candles. How many candles do you need before your wishes finally come true?”
I start to run my fingers through his hair and caress his chest. “I don’t know. What did you wish for?”
“I wished I had chosen Cathy over you that night, or at least that we hadn’t had sex. Things would be so much easier now.”
As he’s confessing things I’ve longed to hear, he doesn’t know I’m taking care of his drunk body because of how I feel for him. I helped him pee knowing that is how he needed me at that moment, just like he once helped me change diapers, play with a fussing kid while I tried to sleep, or brought me dinner when I was too much of a mess to go out in public from taking care of a baby all day.
As he babbles on about me, I hold him tight. I take in the smell of his skin and am thankful for this one chance to have him like this where he doesn’t have to think about what is right or wrong. I kiss his neck and shoulders and know this is the only time I will ever have to put my arms on his chest or to wrap them around his waist.
He confides in me that he drank vodka tonight knowing it would act the same as Viagra on him. He tells me Kristen (me) is his booty call. He begs me (thinking I’m Kristin) to take advantage of him so he can pretend it is actually me. I refuse him, even though he protests it’s his birthday. He’s entitled to birthday sex.
I hold him even closer as I begin to cry. I’m loving him as I’ve always wanted to and as I’m finding out he is wanting me to, as well. I don’t take advantage of him in this state. Instead, I grant his birthday wish and love him as myself without the sex.
When he woke in the afternoon, he had no memory of what he had said, or even of me being there with him during the night.
Kristin can try to tell me I’m young and deserve a good man in my life. She can tell me she wants me to be happy, or that she had her chance with him and messed it up. I don’t want him to know what all he confessed to me. It would be like betraying a friend, which I can’t do to him. I love him too much. Having him in my life this way is better than not having him at all.
I don’t want to screw up the best thing I’ve never had.
Anyway, he is leaving in a couple of days to go on a business trip to California. It’s not the right time to bring us up again. We seem to have gotten comfortable being more than friends and not having sex.
About This Book
Jack is intending this as the first part of a small series. He has more in mind for Jack and Cathy.
Other Books By Jack Gunthridge
Broken Hearts Damaged Goods
Life Takes You by the Hand
Out of the Blue Nights of Death and Desire
Out of the Blue Whispers in the Dark
Out of the Blue Dying Embers of Love
Table of Contents
His RulesBy Jack Gunthridge© 2014. Jack GunthridgeChapter One