Love Is Louder by Antoinette Candela, Paige Maroney Read Free Book Online Page A

sucks. I was hoping to catch up and talk about the old days. You know how you were such an arrogant asshole, and it looks like that hasn’t changed.” I wink at him.
    “Fuck you, Mason.” His eyes hold mine with a sharp, challenging look.
    Lisa’s eyes bulge out of her head, and she takes James’ insult as her cue to depart quickly and quietly back to her co-worker without a word so that we can finish our discussion.
    “Listen, I’m single, so if you can’t handle two, I can take one of them off your hands,” I chide, leaning my elbows onto the bar.
    “I don’t have time for this shit. I’m out having a few drinks. Nothing wrong with that. You need to fucking worry about the people standing around waiting for their drinks and stop worrying about me and who I’m fucking with.”
    “‘Fucking with.’ Yeah, that’s about right.” I give off a snort.
    “Fuck, this isn’t high school,” James growls.
    He whirls around, bumping into a patron and spilling his drink on the front of his white dress shirt.
    “Oh, and by the way, I prefer brunettes!” I yell at his retreating back as the next act on stage sings “Hanging by a Moment” by Lifehouse.
    He glances over his shoulder, and his eyes meet mine in a cold dead stare before he turns away and returns to his friends. I laugh.
    I know yelling at a customer is bad for business, but I don’t care. James won’t do shit about it, and everyone knows me here. I greet my next customer with the biggest shit-eating grin. Even after thirteen years, it still feels good to put that asshole in his place.

I’ve always been a dreamer. I was the kind of girl who’d fantasize about the man who’d come into my life and sweep me off my feet. It came true, and then it seemed my dream was fading, the mirror cracking, but now James wants to mend it. This is an olive branch. Reconciliation.
    I don’t know what has happened in the past week. James came home somewhat early last Friday night while I was in the bedroom going through proofs from several photo shoots. He told me he wanted to make it work, that he would change. His icy walls melted, the ones that had frozen over the past few months. It’s what I’ve been secretly lamenting and stressing over for weeks. Upon reflection, I probably should have asked him more questions about why the distance so we can avoid it happening again. But in the shock of the moment, I yielded to my desires, because I missed how we used to be.
    My dream somehow resurrected from the ashes overnight. I fell asleep with his strong capable arms wrapped around me, but the thought still niggled in my mind, as I lay awake in his arms.
    Why the change of heart?
    Don’t question it, Brie. Take this as a good sign.
    I can’t help but run every possible scenario in my head. My brain never stops these days.
    Our mutual friends are not going through this. James’ high school friend got married three weeks after we did on the Fourth of July four years ago. They have a two-year-old boy and are expecting their second child sometime this fall. I feel empty, incomplete, and cheated. We haven’t talked about having kids since we moved here. His job has sucked up most of his time, and I see the toll it’s taking on him. Regardless, I thought I would be pregnant with my first child or at least be trying. We talked about it before we got married, and it was something we both wanted, but now he’s hesitant.
    He’s not ready, but I am. Doesn’t that matter?
    I have thought about coming off birth control, but I would hate to think that if I did get pregnant, he would ask me to do the unspeakable, and I couldn’t do that. I would leave him then and raise the baby myself.
    My eyes float over the images of a one-month-old infant that I just completed a photo shoot for earlier today. Her name is April, and she’s chubby with pale, porcelain skin, blue eyes, and wisps of blonde hair. I wonder what our baby would look like.
    Would the baby have James’ blue eyes