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“Better you than me,” I murmur under my breath as I watch him do something ungodly inside this poor pregnant mother sheep’s body. “I thought you had to feel inside to reposition the baby lamb.”
“Not this.” He pulls his arm out, and the shoulder-length plastic glove he’s wearing is covered in stuff. “The part where you have sex with the guy who knocked you up.”
I frown at the man who was literally just fisting a sheep. “It seems kind of logical to me.”
“Tris, don’t be dense. You’re smarter than that.” Avery eyes me sternly as he yanks the glove off and checks his hand for any remnants.
Gross.
He moves over to his clipboard on the corner of the pen and makes a quick note before putting on his stethoscope and walking back over to the ewe to listen to her heartbeat.
I wait for him to finish before I reply, “We have an end date,” I say, pointing at my belly. “The boundaries couldn’t be clearer.”
“And what about feelings?” Avery asks, resting his hands on top of the sheep’s back and staring over her at me.
“I’m a cow, baby!” I exclaim and gently mirror his pose, patting my farm animal compadre’s back, who’s taking this labor like a pro. I move over to her head and pet her wet nose before I add, “The fact that this guy’s biggest dream in life is to become a dad is exactly why I know I won’t catch feelings. I’m not about the family life. And I can detach with the best of them.”
“But what if he catches feelings for you? I’ve seen how he looks at you.”
The blood in my veins hums as a flash of Wyatt’s smoldering eyes on my body outside the barn the other day hits me. Ever since the chicken coop fiasco, we’ve kind of fallen off the every-other-sundown routine. This past week, it’s become a…whenever-the-mood-strikes sort of thing. And I can’t even place the blame on him. It was me who attacked him that morning outside the barn. And the other morning, after I woke up from a sex dream, I knocked on his door at 6:00 a.m. to demand satisfaction.
He was so hot in his gym shorts, no shirt, and rumpled bed hair. We couldn’t kiss because he hadn’t brushed his teeth, and it was just this perfect kind of dirty, hot quickie that I was looking for. So much better than my vibrator.
His big dick has ruined me.
I clear my throat and shrug at Avery. “He’s just weird like that. Possessive or something. But that’s not like actual feelings. Guys like him don’t fall for girls like me. They just randomly fuck girls like me.”
“He chose you to have his baby,” Avery says loudly, and I shush him because the farm owner is literally somewhere in this barn located outside of Littleton. He narrows his eyes and adds a bit more quietly, “He clearly liked you enough for that.”
“But that’s just because I’m a cow,” I repeat, and as if on cue, the ewe’s head swings over and butts me in the hip, clearly feeling left out of my barn animal analogy. “Once I have this baby, he’ll be over me and busy being a single dad. This really is just sex.”
“And a baby shower with his entire family,” Avery huffs and shakeshis head. “Look, Trista, I’ve known you a long time, and you don’t let people get close to you. Anytime I try to ask about your past, you clam up tighter than Dolly’s butthole on my arm.”
“Nice.” I frown sympathetically at my fellow farm animal.
He shrugs. “I just worry about you.”
Avery’s eyes soften on me, and I feel myself doing the butthole clam-up thing. Probably telling him about my sexuationship with Wyatt was a bad idea. But it’s getting harder these days to just constantly live in my own head. I feel myself yearning for a bit more connection. Not enough to call my crazy sister, but I wouldn’t mind a gal pal I could talk to about my life. My twenties up until this point have been boring, nose-to-the-grind work work work. What I’m doing on Fletcher Mountain…the surrogacy thing, the sex thing, the animals…it all feels so much heavier and important.
And while I appreciate Avery’s concern, he really is off base. Wyatt and I are totally surface level. Our only true connection is sex and this baby. Next week is the anatomy scan, which will serve to refocus us back on what our relationship is. A surrogate and her intended parent.
“Okay, I think Dolly is ready to have this lamb,” Avery says as the ewe begins shifting in the stall. “You ready to help?”
“I was born ready.”
It’s dark out by the time I park in front of the big red barn. I’m bone-tired and smell like a sheep and homemade pot roast the farm owners forced Avery and me to come in and eat after we delivered a healthy baby lamb. I need a shower in the worst way, and I’m even too tired to say good night to Reginald and Handsome.
Which is why I don’t even notice Wyatt’s brother Calder sitting at the bottom of my steps. “Oh my God!” I jump, my hands flying to my chest as I nearly step on top of him.
“Sorry,” Calder exclaims, standing up and holding his hands out to steady me. “Are you okay? I was saying your name, but you didn’t hear me.”
“You were?” My chest heaves as my heart tries to reset itself back to a normal rhythm.
“Yeah, you must have been deep in your thoughts.” He looks down at me with apprehension in his eye that seems unlikely for this Fletcher brother. Granted, I haven’t spent a lot of time with him, but he doesn’t strike me as someone who’s overly concerned about the well-being of others. He grips the back of his neck and looks nervous for a moment before he stammers, “I was just wondering how, um…I was thinking maybe I could see Fuzz.”
“Fuzz?” I frown curiously.
“The kitten?” His eyes widen. “Is she gone already? Did you already take her to the shelter?”
