Ember“Have you felt it move yet?” Kaden asked, dragging his chair around to my side of the table so he would be next to me instead of across from me. “And should we be eating Mexican? Isn’t it too spicy?”“I ordered it mild,” I reminded him. “But I don’t think eating Mexican is a problem. Sushi is probably a no-no for me until the baby comes, though.”He nodded, and I could practically see him adding the information to some kind of mental checklist. “So, you didn’t tell me if you’d felt it move yet.”“Not yet,” I said honestly. “I would have told you immediately if I had.”That much was true. Despite my misgivings about his reaction, I wouldn’t have kept him from anything involving his child. Something as major as feeling it move for the first time especially.“When do you think you’ll feel it?” he asked, cocking his head and shifting back on his chair to make space for him to get his phone out of his pocket.I lifted my shoulders, shaking my head. “No idea, but it will probably be s
KADEN“Everything is looking good so far,” Doctor Kruger told us, holding the ultrasound wand still on Ember’s growing stomach. She was really starting to show now and thought she looked more and more like a whale every day. I couldn’t disagree with her more. “The baby is growing well, and everything looks the way it should at around twenty-four weeks.”Doctor Kruger was the gynecologist Ember chose. She came highly recommended by the girls at the office. She looked a little bit like Gollum from Lord of the Rings, with hair so thin you could see most of her scalp, but there was a whole wall of awards in her office speaking to her ability.Ember smiled up at her, squeezing my hand tightly. Her eyes were glued to the screen beside her though, as were mine. It was hard to believe the black and white smudges we saw was an actual baby growing in Ember, but now and then, we could make out a hand or a foot or something that drove the point home.The doctor moved the wand higher, squeezing ou
KadenAs an adult, I’d always been too busy to spend too much time on hypotheticals like if I wanted to settle down and have a family someday. I used protection religiously to avoid conceiving a child with a woman I didn’t really know in my younger days, and after that, I kind of gave up on ever finding a woman I could imagine myself spending the rest of my life and having kids with.Until Ember.Everything I used to want, worry about, think, or believe changed the day she walked back into my life. She still teased me some about my previous life of being a jerk as a kid or a player, but I could hardly remember what that was like either. Just like with my apartment, those were vague memories I didn’t care to recall.All my life, I’d heard people say you couldn’t change. I was living proof those people were wrong. To be fair, I’d started making changes before I even met Ember, but the guy I used to be wouldn’t have taken the whole day off work to go to the doctor and then to stock up on
KADENThere was no place better to be during the fall season than New York City. I’d experienced fall at Harvard, in Texas, and in too many other states and countries to bother mentioning. Growing up as the son of a Fortune 250 company owner, I had traveled a lot.The traveling made me uniquely qualified to make the sweeping statement that there was no place better to experience the season than right here in the city I’d called home for the last five years, and planned to call home for the next fifty—at least.Once the next fifty years were done and I was seventy-seven, then perhaps the allure of retiring to Florida would become too much for me to handle, and I’d move. But for now? New York was stuck with me.Whatever arguments could be made for any other city in the world during fall, New York kicked their ass. The weather was cool enough to drink proper beer again, not that watered-down shit I hosed my insides with during summer. I could drink whiskey neat without it being warm and
KadenBeing out on the street energized me, recharged me. All morning, I’d been dealing with shit and screw-ups. My office was a sanctuary in this building, but the events of the morning had tainted it.My one occasional concession to my “I’m actually only twenty-seven” side was a walk along the sidewalk, blending in and becoming anonymous. It allowed me to breath and regroup before coming back to the firm I was being groomed to take over when the time came.Not that my dad was anywhere near turning over the reins. The man would probably come back to the office to check on a few last things before his own damn funeral. He was a machine.John, however, wasn’t. And he was starting to eat into the few minutes I would have for my walk before my next round of meetings this afternoon. Hooking my hands into my pockets, I turned back to him. “Well?”He glowered at me, his eyes narrowed. “I’m a good worker, and you know it. That’s why you should keep me on. My mistakes aren’t that bad in compa
EMBERWith a beer in one hand and a roll of packing tape in the other, I carefully made my way across the hardwood floors of my small student apartment in Cambridge. Those floors had heard me laughing, crying, and had me sleeping on them from time to time over the past three years.Tomorrow, I was leaving behind my sweet little apartment on Harvard’s campus and heading for New York City. How I was going to fit all the boxes scattered around my apartment into my car, I had no idea.At least I wasn’t going alone. My best friend Gracie was coming with me. Surely between our two cars, we would be able to fit all this crap. I toed one of the smaller boxes out of my way and flopped onto my gray couch one last time, lifting the tepid beer to my lips.Drinking beer on my couch wasn’t going to help me get done packing any sooner, but since I was leaving student life behind and hadn’t indulged nearly as much or as often as some of my friends, I figured I’d better make the best of my last twenty
EmberBut I’d decided against it. I was who I was, and I was fine with it. Happy, even.Gracie eyed me as she took another sip of her beer. She climbed up on my kitchen counter where her legs dangled while she contemplated whatever she wanted to say. I waited it out, knowing she would tell me when she was good and ready.While I waited for her, I checked all the cabinets in the kitchen to make sure they were empty. Eventually, Gracie said, “Cambridge has been our home for three years. Do you honestly expect me to believe you’re not in the least bit nervous about moving away?”I shrugged, closing the last cabinet door and checking the kitchen off my mental to-do list. “I’m excited. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous at all, but it’s more nervous excitement than plain old nerves.”“How are you so calm about this?” she asked, frowning into her beer. “I wish I was more like that. You’re so confident about everything. This move is looming ahead of me like a big, black hole, and yo
KADENThank God it was fucking Friday. If there wasn’t already a song written about it, and if I could carry a tune to save my life, I might have written a song about it to celebrate.Fridays were usually a joyous occasion in my life, but today was even happier than usual since this week had sucked balls. As I’d promised myself I would, I got my work and John’s work done.But it had been five days of hell. The guy’s files were a mess, even more so than I had expected. It took me hours before I could tell elbow from ass of what was going on with those clients.Since my life was also most decidedly not a musical, singing and songwriting to celebrate was out of the question. Drinks after work with my best friend, however, was just what the doctor ordered.I triumphantly hit print one last time and stapled the papers of my proposal together. Opening the file in question, I dropped the proposal inside and added it to my pile of work completed for the week.It was more of a tower than a pil