The Baby Shift- Wyoming Read online

  “Sure thing, sweetie,” she said, smiling with a watery grin. Nicky looked at his mom skeptically, then turned to Andy.

  “So. Mr. Andy. Did you know you have the same name as my dad?” he said, jumping up and down on the vinyl seat below him. Andy felt like this was a leading question, and this was confirmed when he looked into Nicky’s face and saw the kid staring back at him with a raised eyebrow and a suspicious glint in his eye.

  Andy looked at Addie. She had told him they should wait until they had their food to tell the kid, thinking that the pancakes might distract him slightly from the monumental news, but clearly, that plan wasn’t going to work. It was time to go all in.

  “Funny thing about that, Nicky,” he started, leaning forward across the table. Nicky did the same, that little bit of hair still curling over his brown forehead, his hazel eyes staring at Andy in a mix of trepidation and anticipation. “I am your dad.”

  * * *

  Chapter Five, three months later

  “And then Tommy got taken to the principal’s office for sticking gum in Celia’s hair again, and then I went to math class, and we had a test in long division which I totally aced because I studied real hard, and then I went to art club and now I’m here!” Nicky said, out of breath from telling Andy the minute-by-minute details of his day. This was one of Andy’s favorite things about Nicky. He was the most talkative kid he’d ever met and seemed to delight in nothing more than telling people the minutiae of his daily life. And Andy loved hearing about it.

  He loved hearing Nicky talk, period. His excited voice never failed to put a smile on Andy’s face, and his favorite days of the week were the ones when he picked Nicky up from school and took him back to the ice cream shop for an afternoon snack and homework. Nicky would regal him with tails from fifth grade the whole twenty-five-minute drive and would only pause in speech to pick out his snack for the day from the fridge or baked goods cabinet. Then, once he had the snack in hand, he’d keep right on gabbing.

  Initially, Andy had suggested taking Nicky to a park or library after school, but Nicky had quickly nixed that idea.

  “No way! I want to go to the shop, Andy. Please? It’s so nice in there. The couches are comfy and there’s ice cream. The park and library don’t have ice cream.”

  Andy couldn’t argue with either of those points, and it warmed his heart knowing his son was interested in his business, even if his interest only extended to the comfort of its couches.

  But over the last few months, Nicky had gradually taken an interest in the shop’s wares, too. He’d started to ask questions about how the ice cream was made, and Andy had begun teaching him how to make it himself. Nicky turned out to be unnaturally good at it, understanding the chemistry better than even some of Andy’s long-term employees were able to. Nicky had recently started helping him come up with the monthly special flavors, making the truly inspired suggestion to add Oreo mud pie to the menu last month, which had become their best-selling flavor of all time. It wasn’t something Andy would have ever thought of, but that was kids for you. They were surprisingly creative like that.

  In short, everything was going well between the two of them. How things were going between Addie and him, however, was another matter entirely.

  Addie was polite when he came to pick up Nicky or drop him off, but their strained relationship had grown no easier in the last hundred and three days, not that Andy was counting. She avoided eye contact, spoke only when necessary, shrugged off any compliments or affection he tried to dole out, and generally acted like Andy was a disease she really wanted to be rid of.

  It sucked, because while Andy was so happy with Nicky in his life, that crippling loneliness he so often felt hadn’t gone away. It had gotten worse, because of Addie. Andy knew he wouldn’t feel truly happy or fulfilled until Addie was his again, but he had no idea how to make that happen. Every conversation he tried to start with her ended in mumbles and averted eye contact on her side. The few times he’d brought her gifts—pints of vanilla fudge ripple, which he remembered was her favorite ice cream, a bouquet of her favorite colored roses and once, a copy of a mixed CD she’d made for him in college—she’d looked so stunned and awkward Andy had wanted to melt into the earth and disappear completely.

  Worse still was that Nicky was beginning to notice something was off between them. The kid was incredibly perceptive, and more than once, he’d asked Andy why he and “Mom aren’t friends” or why “Mom doesn’t smile when you’re around.” Andy knew he needed to talk to her, but every time he texted her to meet for a chat, she came up with some excuse: a private client, a workshop to teach, paperwork to complete. How the hell was he ever going to get through to her? She should be taking time off now that she had a little free time, but instead, she’d seemed to cram her schedule so full that, according to Nicky, she was at the studio more than she was at home.

  “Dad? Can I have my snack now? You’ve been standing with it in your hands and staring into space for like five minutes, and it’s really weird,” Nicky said, snapping Andy out of his trance. He looked down at the apple crumble he’d baked especially for his son earlier that day and handed the plate, which was topped with vanilla yogurt ice cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon, along with a cup of iced peach tea, Nicky’s favorite.

  The smell of cinnamon tricked something in his brain, and suddenly, Andy knew exactly what to do to finally convince Addie to take him seriously. To take his love seriously.

  “Are you okay, Dad?” Nicky asked, tilting his head and looking at Andy curiously.

  “Uh, yeah,” he said distractedly, before looking closely at Nicky. His son was smiling back at him, a smile he recognized because it was the same one he could feel lifting his cheeks now.

  “Yeah, I’m okay, Nicky. But I’m gonna need your help on something.”

  He spent the next ten minutes laying out the plan to his son, during which Nicky got more and more excited until he was practically bouncing off his chair.

  “She’s gonna love it!” he shouted when Andy had finished.

  “You think so?” he asked. But he knew in his heart that the kid was right.

  “Thanks, Addie! See you next week!” Charlotte Stein, one of Addie’s regular students, yelled as she walked out the door and into the afternoon sun. Addie waved back before collapsing into the seat behind the front desk. She was exhausted. Rather than taking the opportunity to relax and chill out now that she had more time to herself, Addie had only started working herself harder, taking on more clients, covering more classes, accepting more guest spots and workshop training positions in studios around the city.

  She had just finished her fifth day of four back-to-back classes, and she could feel the tension building up in her shoulders and lower back. Ironic that a yoga teacher would feel tenser after doing yoga than less, but sometimes, Addie found that the exact thing she had first turned to relieve her stress was, in fact, the thing that most stressed her out.

  Yoga had come into her life when her shifting was at its worst. She and her parents had tried everything to calm her system down, but Reiki, acupuncture, swimming, jogging, even playing with puppies, had done little to help her. Then, in a last-ditch effort, she decided to try a yoga class at the local YMCA. Yoga wasn’t popular back then, was barely even a thing in her small Western town in Idaho, but she’d dutifully donned her spandex, borrowed a mat from the gym and walked into the studio. By the time savasana was over, she had felt calmer than she had since she was a child, back when she’d never shifted before, never even realized she was a werewolf. Addie had known from that day forward that she was going to make yoga her life’s work.

  And most of the time, it was work she loved. She loved helping her students learn to appreciate both the strengths and limitations of their bodies. She loved creating interesting flows, experimenting with lesser-known poses and meditations that helped her students get out of their own heads. The Lotus Flower was her baby, her sanctuary, her home, but right now, it also felt l
ike her own personal hell.

  She was pinning herself to this place, working herself to the bone, to avoid thinking about Andy. She was self-aware enough to realize this, to recognize her patterns of behavior that apparently hadn’t changed after a decade. When she and Andy had first broken up, she’d thrown herself into her yoga training, then into having the most perfect birth, and then she’d focused so hard on being a good working mother, striking the ideal balance between time with Nicky and time at the studio, that she’d been able to tamp down those feelings of loneliness, of missing Andy, for years. But now they were rearing their ugly heads again, and Addie knew she couldn’t fight them much longer, no matter how many classes she covered, how late she stayed doing paperwork and thinking up new routines. She wanted him, and sooner or later she was going to need to actually deal with that.

  Glancing down at the clock on her phone, Addie realized it was almost time to pick Nicky up from the shop. He loved spending afternoons with his dad, hanging out on the couches by the windows and occasionally helping in the kitchen. Addie loved listening to Nicky’s stories of what he and Andy got up to, but they pained her as well. Andy had turned out to be such a good dad, which was no surprise really, but it made her want him even more.

  Andy was even more perfect than he’d been ten years ago. He was sensitive, generous, funny, a great father, and even hotter than when she’d first met him. The long-haired hippy with the mustache and cowboy boots was long gone, and in his place was an older Andy with short hair that emphasized his striking green eyes, lean muscles cording his arms and legs, and glasses that looked a little quirky and a lot sexy.

  He was, in short, the whole package, and Addie knew she was an absolute idiot for continuously refusing his very obvious invitations. But she still couldn’t get past that memory of the day ten years ago when she’d shifted in front of him and nearly killed him. She might love the wolf in her for the strong protective instincts it gave her towards Nicky, and her heightened strength and healing abilities, but she would forever begrudge it for endangering the person she had most loved in the world. She couldn’t put Andy’s life in danger again, but neither could she ever fully trust herself not to hurt him. So, they had to stay apart. It was for their own good, really. Or at least, that’s what she told herself.

  Chapter 5

  “I really hope this works, Dad,” Nicky said, plugging in the last of the strings of lights in the shop. Andy loved hearing Nicky call him that. He’d only started doing so last month, out of the blue, and it was one of the highlights of Andy’s life, the moment that one-syllable word slipped from his son’s mouth. It calmed him, now, even as he was about to do the single riskiest thing of his life.

  “Me too, Nicky. Me too,” Andy said, grabbing his son by the waist and lifting him up. He twirled him around for a while, something Nicky only let him do when they were alone because it was apparently “only for little kids” normally, and the spinning and Nicky’s laughter was so loud and consumed Andy so much that he didn’t hear the swoosh of the door as it opened behind them.

  But he sensed her. The moment Addie walked into the shop, he knew it. He felt her presence on the surface of his skin, a cool kiss of air that gave him goosebumps and a shiver down his spine.

  Andy put Nicky down and the kid promptly scattered off into the back of the shop, wisely surmising that Andy and Addie were going to need some privacy for what came next. It would either be tears or yelling, and both of those could indicate either happiness or sadness. Andy was feeling so buzzed, so totally out of his body, that he felt like anything could happen.

  Addie looked flustered, her face flushed, her ponytail askew as she slowly walked into the shop. She’d come straight from work and was still wearing her yoga clothes, her pink leggings clinging to the tight muscles of her quads and the rounded slope of her hips. Andy loved her in leggings. Hell, he loved her in anything, and especially nothing, but right now, she looked gorgeous, even as freaked out as she clearly seemed.

  “Why does it smell like garlic?” she asked, looking around the shop and noticing the pot laid out on one of the tables in front of the windows. On it, Andy had placed a pot of Sunday sauce, the recipe for which he memorized back when he and Addie were still together. Making it that day with Nicky had brought back so many good memories, of him and Addie stealing kisses in the kitchen, cuddling on the couch with huge bowls of pasta in their laps and a PBS historical drama on the TV. He told Nicky the PG-rated memories, of the first time his mom had made the sauce for him, and her superintendent had knocked on the door and begged for a serving, saying it smelled exactly like the stuff his grandma used to make for him as a kid.

  “It’s that good?” Nicky had exclaimed, looking skeptically at the pot, which he claimed looked exactly like the “yucky” spaghetti sauce they always served at school.

  “Oh yeah. It’s life-changing,” Andy said, hoping that statement proved true. And the moment had come to find out.

  “It smells like garlic because I made—” Andy started, but Addie interrupted him, rushing to the table and covering her mouth in surprise as she looked at him. “Oh my god! Is that Sunday sauce? I haven’t had that since—”

  “We broke up? Yeah, I kinda figured. I went off the stuff myself for a while, but it’s too good to resist. Much like you, really,” he said, scrubbing at the back of his neck nervously.

  “When did you make this? It smells amazing,” Addie said reverently, putting her purse down and taking a seat at the table.

  “With Nicky after school today. My staff gave us a few weird looks—not much savory cooking goes on in that kitchen back there,” he said, nodding his head toward the back of the shop. “But it was worth it. For you.”

  “For me?” Addie asked. “You made this for me?”

  “Yes,” Andy said, walking toward the table and taking a seat across from her. He reached for her hands, taking them in his.

  “Addie, I know things are complicated. You’re a werewolf, we have a kid, we live in different cities. But I want to make this work between us. I love you. I’ve never stopped, really. And while you might look back at that Sunday ten years ago as one of the worst you’ve ever had, that’s not how I see it,” he said, squeezing her hands when he saw her wince at the mention of that day.

  “How do you see it?” she whispered, looking at him reservedly.

  “I see it as a blessing,” he told her. “Because I got to see a different side to you. And yes, I’ll admit I was shocked at first, but I wasn’t scared. I know you thought that, but it wasn’t true, not then and not now. I’m was and am in awe of you. Of your strength, of your courage. Of the amazing way you’ve raised our son. And I want us to be a family, a real one. One that makes Sunday sauce and loves each other like we deserve to be loved. I know I can love you that way. Do you think you can do the same for me?”

  Andy looked across him and saw Addie’s eyes shining with tears. And she was nodding. And mouthing the words yes. It didn’t take much more for him to leap across the table and gather her into his arms, spinning her around in circles as he sprinkled her face with kisses.

  “Did she say yes?” Nicky called, his head peeking out from behind the wall that separated the back-counter area from the hallway beyond.

  “I sure did!” Addie called, laughing as she slid back down to the floor.

  “Wooo!” Nicky yelled, running toward them and squeezing between them. Addie and Andy were both laughing as they lifted their son up into a group hug, dancing around the empty ice cream shop, tears of joy leaking out of more than one pair of eyes.

  After settling down, they sat together to a meal, their first as a family. And the Sunday sauce tasted even better than it had when it had been just Andy and Addie.

  * * *

  Epilogue: six months later

  “Hurry, Nicky will be home soon,” Addie breathed, her voice squeaking as Andy licked a slow trail up her belly from where his head had been nestled in her curls.

  Her chest wa
s still heaving from her third orgasm in as many minutes. Pregnancy had made her so much more sensitive. It often took barely a few licks from Andy’s expert tongue before she was coming, and today was no different.

  Addie felt fulfilled, satiated, which meant she could now turn her attention to Andy and his pleasure.

  “Come here,” she whispered, bringing his head down for a scorching kiss as she positioned him at her entrance. His thick cock slid against her folds like a homing beacon, like it instinctively knew where it belonged.

  “God you’re wet,” he rasped against her lips, moaning as he pressed his tip inside her.

  Addie pulled at his back, dragging her all the way into him until she was deliciously filled.

  “You feel so good, Addie. Fuck, you have no idea how good you feel,” he told her as he began moving inside her.

  His pelvis brushed against her rounded belly as he moved, pulling almost all the way out before diving back into her, hitting her g-spot every single time.

  In the ten years that they’d been apart, Addie had managed to convince herself that the sex hadn’t really been that good. Her first night with Andy had proved just how right she was. It wasn’t that good—it was better than anything she remembered, anything she could have ever dreamed of. She’d had a few hookups and one-night stands in the time since they’d broken up, but nothing, no one, had given her near the amount of bliss and pleasure she was able to glean from his body wrapping itself around her now, his cock thrusting into her again and again.

  Sex with Andy was cosmic, transporting her to another place and time, a parallel universe where everything was gratifying pleasure. The climax was like nirvana, her mind wiping clean of its worries and allowing her to exist for a few precious moments in a time and space where all she felt was ecstasy.