Possibly.
With a man who would be there to hold my hair back if I had morning sickness and go to antenatal classes. I would have a partner even if we weren’t together.
“Neva, how do you want to do this? That’s the next question. I mean, I can jerk off into a cup or something, but I’d rather, you know, do it properly.” He rubbed at his hair. “I’m doing this all wrong. I was meant to let you do the talking and I’d just answer the questions and now I can’t shut up.”
“It’s fine, Jude. You answered something without me having to ask. If we have a baby, we have to do things as partners and be consistent. I won’t be able to afford the sorts of things you can, so my suggestion is that we pay into an account what seems fair and everything comes from MumandDad, and not MumorDad. I don’t want your money for me, and if you didn’t want to financially contribute, I could do this on my own, but I get where you’re coming from.”
“Thank you.”
I saw his shoulders relax and his expression settle.
“About the other thing, I think we just go for it. That’s if you want too.” That was something else I’d thought a fuck-ton about last night too. My period had ended which meant I was now starting my frisky phase.
“Hell, yeah, I want to. How many times a day or do you want to wait until it’s the optimum time of the month.” He shook his head, probably at my expression which would’ve shown how entertained I was at him knowing stuff. “I did some reading, alright?”
I laughed now, the waiter coming over to take our orders, although we hadn’t even looked at the menu.
“Chicken Pad Thai for a main, please. Can I have some ribs to start too.” Jude sent me a look that asked for a hall pass for this meal.
“Sure. For yourself?” The waiter looked at me.
“Papaya salad to start and Thai king prawn red curry for a main, with some jasmine rice on the side.” I handed back my menu, waiting for the waiter to go.
Once he was out of earshot I leaned in closer to Jude, catching the scent of his cologne, the same one he’d worn when we were hooking up. “There’s more chance of getting pregnant at certain times of the month – I have an app that tells me when that is. But you can get pregnant at any time. So regular might be better, and it might take a few months. It’s not guaranteed to happen the first month, especially because I’m older.”
“The average age for a woman to have her first baby is thirty, nearly thirty-one.” He said the fact as if he was reading it off a piece of paper. “That’s average. In the middle. So babies when you’re out of your twenties do happen a lot, it seems. Besides,” his grin went cocky. “You’ll have my super sperm. I know it might not happen straight away, but if I’m coming inside you instead of a cup, I’m down for it taking a while.”
I started to laugh, glad to see that Jude was back to his norm. “So do we just hang out? Like we did before?” Would kissing be weird? “Or make dates knowing that we’d be, you know,doing it?”
“That’s a lot of pressure. Do we, just have a couple of drinks and watch something steamy on TV? Or I could try and seduce you?”
He didn’t realise that he’d already done that so many times before.
“Maybe both. I have a few rules.” I braced myself.
“Go on. I think I know what one is.” He sipped at the juice the waiter had brought when he took our order. “No sleeping with anyone else.”
“Definitely. No risk of diseases and no complications.” I waited for his response.
“I would’ve asked the same of you.” Jude abruptly stopped talking when the waiter approached to serve our food. Then he attacked the sweetcorn cake somewhat viciously. He waited until the waiter left before speaking again. “I don’t want you getting attached to someone while I’m trying to put a baby in you.”
I bit my bottom lip. His words were having the sort of effect that shouldn’t be occurring from a woman who liked to be in control the vast majority of the time.
“That won’t happen. I won’t be seeing anyone else. There hasn’t been anyone else I’ve even gone on a third date with. I’d say there was more chance of you meeting someone.” I hated the thought of that. I wouldn’t admit it, of course. Jude didn’t need to know about my jealous streak.
He slowly shook his head. “I’m not going to meet anyone. I’m not looking any further than you, so that’s something you don’t have to worry about. What’re the other rules?”
“We tell people the truth. That we’re not together, but we’re having a baby together – if we get to that stage.”
“We will. Help yourself.” He pushed a plate towards me. “I don’t want to hide this time. I’d rather say that I wasn’t going out with the team because I was going somewhere with you as friends. Have meals out – maybe not in a McDonalds; we can do take out.” He grinned again.
I took a deep breath. I was a private person. I had more control when people didn’t know too much, only Jude was the opposite of this. He wore his heart on his sleeve unashamedly.
“Okay. But please keep the really private stuff to yourself.”
“So you don’t want me to describe to anyone exactly how I fuck you well enough to have you seeing stars and naming them after me? Don’t worry, I’ll be keeping you to myself.”
I clamped my thighs together and wished we’d had this conversation at one of our houses and then I could get him to show me those stars right now.
