Sugar Daddies (56 page)

“I was going to tell you,” Carl said. “I would have bought it myself, but your father wouldn’t budge on it.” He paused. “I wanted to let him tell you, when you were ready to hear it. Ready to see him.”

“But why? How did he?” I stared, and he met my eyes, just one short glance before he pulled the car onto the main road, and I knew. “How much did you tell him?”

“Enough.”

“I see.” I smiled. “Did you tell him about my cruddy music taste? About my silly rabbit slippers?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “I told him the lot. I told him how you eat your eggs in the morning, how you’ll only watch horror if you can watch kids’ TV straight after, how you insist on leaping three stairs at a time when you’re in a rush in the morning.”

“Not anymore.”

“You will again. You’ve just got to believe it.” He reached out for my hand. “Oh, and I told him how you read the backs of shampoo bottles when you’re about to take a dump.”

“You didn’t!” I could feel my cheeks burning.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t, but it would have been funny.”

“You do know he’s ruined your little
get to know Dad
plans,” Rick said from the back seat. “He’s already told him everything. There’ll be nothing left to say.
Boring
.”

I laughed. “I’ll have to come up with some new material then, won’t I? Keep him on his toes.”

And I did.

I did come up with new material. Brand new dreams.

It was slow. Like roots taking hold under the soil. So slow I didn’t feel them, those dreams growing in my mind.

Woolhope was there for keeps, whenever I wanted it, Dad made that perfectly clear as he handed over the paperwork.

I’ve never hugged anyone so awkwardly for so long, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Jack was staying on to mind the place, keeping the farmhouse and work units on low rent until his business was back on its feet, and the rest of it waited for me, with a bit of livery income from the other horses on the yard.

It would take some time. A lot of time.

It took an age before I was even allowed on crutches, and even then I could do virtually nothing, not without spare hands.

Luckily there was Rick, my constant companion, and actually my stupid
Kat-rick
thing wasn’t so crazy after all. Rick let me shadow what he was doing, giving me an outlet to replace the marketing internship I’d had to leave behind, and I loved it. I loved working with him, loved throwing ideas around and watching them take shape before my eyes.

Some of them were shit, and some of them looked so much better in my head than they ever looked in reality, and I know Rick was humouring me through a lot of it. But even so, some of them were alright. Some of my ideas were even good. And I was smiling, enjoying it. Happy.

Crutches made it easier to see Samson, easier to do everything, especially as my broken leg became more weight-bearing. Ten percent at first, then twenty. Fifty seemed to take an age, and then one day I was back up to full capacity. I could stand.

Only then I had to learn to walk again, and it was harder than you’d think. So much harder.

Learning to fuck again came a lot more organically.

I don’t think my muscles ever let me forget that.

Even when my leg was still useless, back when I’d be propped up in bed with no inclination to move, even then, in my darkest moments, when everything felt like shit, I still wanted those beautiful guys.

I couldn’t have them, but I wanted them.

I just had to make do with watching them have each other.

Such hardship. Such terrible hardship. Life sure sucks sometimes, right?

There’s one real thing that struck me most about the whole sorry reality of my accident, through all of it — all the pain and the humiliation of being unable to do anything for myself — those two incredible men didn’t once falter, didn’t once grumble or snap, or call time out.

They didn’t once look at me as though I was anything less than the girl they’d fallen in love with.

They didn’t love me any less, they didn’t want me any less.

And they didn’t take me any less. Not once I was up to it. Slowly, very slowly, but surely.

And maybe that’s what began to change everything for me.

We were into winter when I first felt the reluctance to pop my contraceptive pill in the morning. I tossed the thought aside and took it anyway, figured it was a stupid hormonal blip and the urge would pass right by again.

But it didn’t.

It really didn’t.

Maybe it was largely circumstantial. A hole in the timeline of my dreams. An enforced hiatus while I got better and Samson took his pasture rest. I mean, I had no interest in filling my yard with new horses, no interest in replacing Samson with another, even if I could have. My dreams for a riding school were strong, but far away, just for the time being, and maybe
that
had something to do with the reason I first thought seriously about babies.

Maybe it had a little to do with my changing relationships with my own family. My own thoughts about family, and how it could have been for me under different circumstances. What life could have been like. What life was becoming like with both a mum and dad I could believe in, without any lies festering under the surface. With a sister and two brothers that I was coming to know just a little, just a tiny bit better every day.

But mainly I think it had everything to do with Carl and Rick.

To do with the way they were there for me, the way they loved me, and cared for me, and came through for me when I needed them.

Maybe it was to do with the way they always put me before themselves, my schedule before their own.

Maybe it was the way
they were so strong. The way Carl had come through for Samson when I couldn’t, stayed at his side when I couldn’t, the way Rick had held my hand so tight in the ambulance and hadn’t let go, not once.

Maybe it was because Carl’s birthday was looming, and I knew, I knew how much he wanted a family, knew how badly the clock inside was ticking for him. Knew how much it meant to him.

I’m certain it was to do with the way he held me tight when his birthday finally arrived, told me I meant more than any of it and had done for some time, more than his dream, more than being a dad at forty, and being young enough to enjoy all the things that younger dads do.

The way he told me we were in it for the long haul, the three of us, baby or no.

Me
before his dream.

He put
me
before his dream.

It made it so easy to want to put him before the tattered remnants of mine.

But despite all of this, all this pondering, all the reasons that could have contributed to why, I think it was really quite simple when it came down to it.

I have a body and a heart and a mind, and at least two of the three of those overruled my decision to avoid babies my entire life.

At least two of those three wanted Carl’s baby. Rick’s, too, and the other part, my stickler of a mind? Well, that came round, too.

My ovaries began to combust every time they’d walk in the room, every time they’d smile and laugh, and tell me this was it, that we were it. For keeps.

Forever.

I’d feel an ache in my belly at the thought of holding their baby in my arms,
my
baby. Our baby.

At the thought of being a family of our very own.

So one day I didn’t pop that contraceptive pill in the morning. I put it right back in the box, and I didn’t take one again.

I kept an eye on my periods and plotted one of those fertility planners out on my phone, and kept quiet until I was ready to talk about it.

Until my leg was up to it, to taking them both, at just the right time.

I slapped Rick’s hand aside as he tried to help me upstairs.

“I can do it,” I said, and poked my tongue out. “I’m back on my feet now.”

“Busted,” he said. “It was just an excuse to grab a feel, you know that.”

“Sure it was.”

Carl was already in the en suite, already naked for bed, his cock already at half-mast as we stepped into the bedroom. He gave us a smile as he brushed his teeth, and my belly did a weird little flutter. I joined him in the bathroom, and so did Rick, washing up happily in silence as the tension thrummed between us.

I cast aside my clothes, and raised my leg carefully, examined the fading scar as I did every evening.

But Rick and Carl weren’t looking at that, they were looking at me, their eyes all over me.

“How are you feeling?” Carl asked, and it was pointed.

I smiled. “I’m good. I’m
well
. Same as I’ve been
well
enough the last twenty times you’ve asked me.”

“Just wanting to be sure,” he said. He washed his face and towelled dry, and I was waiting, my hands on his waist as he turned.

“Both of you,” I said. I looked at Rick, at his easy grin. “I want both of you, at once. Like we used to do.”

“Used to do?” Rick said. “I thought we’d been doing plenty of that.”

I shook my head. “Not one by one, not turns, both at once.”

“You’re sure you’re up to that?” Carl asked.

“I’m sure.” I took them by the hand, both of them, led them through to the bedroom where I grabbed my phone. I called up my app and my palms were clammy, heart racing.

I held up my calendar, and it took them a moment. Carl looked at me, and then at Rick, reached out for the handset and stared at my little notes on screen.

“You mean you…”

“A baby,” I said. “I want a baby.”

I thought he’d faint, thought they’d both faint. A beautiful moment of shock as the realisation set in.

Carl sat down on the bed, pulled me down next to him, and I knew what was coming.

“You don’t have to do this, Katie, like we said. This isn’t a condition, we’re past all that.
I’m
past all that.”

I shook my head. “This isn’t just about you,” I said. “It’s about me, too. It’s what
I
want.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You want this?”

I nodded. “I’ve thought it through, for ages and ages, this isn’t some whim… I’m sure, I made sure I was sure, definitely sure, before I said anything…”

“You want to have a baby, for real?” Rick asked, and he was grinning. “We’re really gonna do this?”

“Really,” I said. “Really really.
Really
really really.”

“I don’t know what to say…” Carl said.

“So don’t.” I kissed him. “Don’t say anything.” I smiled. “Just give me a baby.”

I hitched myself up carefully, making sure not to jolt my leg, and the two of them just stared awhile, long enough to make me blush and giggle.

“Come on,” I laughed. “I’m only fertile for like three days tops, I’m never going to get pregnant if you two just gawp at me.”

Carl looked at Rick, and Rick shrugged. He came to my side, and he was already hard. His gorgeous pierced cock was against my hip, his mouth hot against my neck as he slipped his fingers between my thighs.

“She’s not joking,” he said to Carl. “Believe me, she’s all in. Pussy doesn’t lie, and this one’s absolutely beautifully fucking sopping.” He pulled my pussy lips apart, slipped two fingers inside, and I moaned for him, looked right at Carl as Rick hooked his fingers and found the spot.

“Please,” I said. “Come on, Carl.”

He moved slowly, until his eyes focused, snapped into life as they fixed on mine. “I won’t need asking again,” he said.

He took position on my other side, pressing himself so carefully against me, so tenderly against my leg, but I was fine, I hooked my knee over him, pulled him closer.

I took a cock in each hand, worked them slowly, loving the way they felt, loving the way they moved back at me, the way they thrust in my grip.

I was smiling as they kissed me, one by one, wet kisses, until they were blurred, all three of us together, hot mouths and breath as Carl’s fingers joined Rick’s in my pussy.

It made me groan, made me work those dicks harder, faster, made the bed creak under us as we all shunted for more.

Carl pulled his fingers from me, and they were wet. He squeezed my tit, flicked at the nipple, then lowered his head and sucked me in.

“Fuck yeah,” Rick said, and took Carl’s hair in his hand, and then he whispered, he whispered such filthy words. “Suck and imagine those big milky tits she’s gonna have, won’t that really be something? That’ll be fucking something, Carl.” He climbed down the bed, until his breath was against my pussy. “Gonna fill you up,” he hissed and his voice was so filthy. “Gonna put a baby in your belly, Katie. Gonna watch you get all swollen and big, and you’ll be so beautiful, you’ll be so fucking beautiful. Everything we ever wanted.”