Chapter 41

I transferred the rent to Barnett and moved out the next day. Since he had helped me before when my old apartment didn’t work out, I asked Barnett if he could help me move my stuff into the new house. He just said he was busy and hastily closed his apartment door on me.

I got Lily to help me instead, but I couldn’t keep my mind off Barnett the entire day. As we moved boxes and bags, my mind drifted to Barnett helping me with the back support belt, his strong arms wrapped around me as he strapped on the Velcro. I couldn’t help but think about his perfect form as he lifted the boxes, and I wondered why he didn’t want to help this time.

After all, we did seem to have such fun moving me in to the other apartment…

“Hello? Earth to Anna!” Lily said as she waved her hand in front of my face.

I shook my head. I hadn’t realized that I had spaced out thinking about Barnett. I blushed.

“What were you saying?” I asked.

“I was asking where you wanted this,” Lily said, motioning to a box of books she had set at my feet.

“Oh, first bedroom is fine.”

“Okay,” Lily said as she lifted the box and headed for the first room on the right. “Maybe you can tell me what you were so deep in thought about.”

I rubbed the back of my neck.

“It was nothing, really.”

“Then you won’t mind telling me about it.”

I didn’t have a good answer by the time Lily came back into the room. By the smirk on her face, she knew it.

“I…well…” I decided to change the subject with a half-truth. “I was wondering if Barnett was mad at me or something.”

Lily’s brows furrowed.

“Mad at you? No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“He’s barely talked to me since yesterday, and when I asked him if he could help with the move, he said he was ‘busy.’”

“Maybe he is busy. He’s a busy man, you know.”

“I don’t know. I just have this weird feeling.”

“Well, don’t. Trust me when I say that Barnett is not mad at you.”

I shrugged.

“How do you know?”

“Because I know my uncle.”

Lily gave me that smile that made me feel as though she was about to say that Barnett liked me, again.

Instead, she said, “You need to not worry so much.”

•* *

A few days passed. Barnett never left my mind. I wouldn’t admit it to anyone—especially Lily—but I missed him.

It was hard adjusting to the fact that I couldn’t just walk a few feet and knock on his door. Not that I did that a lot when we did live next to each other, but now that I no longer could, it left a sort of void inside of me, an emptiness that I could not fill with any distraction. I hated to admit it, but I had to see him.

I didn’t dare visit him at his office or his apartment. How pathetic would that have been? To go to my former coach’s/best friend’s uncle’s office or apartment because I missed him?

Secretly, I hoped to run into him at Stand Up. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t like the idea of collaborating with him on another video, no matter what kinds of rumors it might spark. Anything to get to talk to him again, to be close to him again.

Still, even with me trying to go every day, I didn’t see him. I talked to the staff, and they hadn’t seen him recently, either. By the fourth day, I decided it wasn’t worth trying so hard.

But it wasn’t that easy to stop thinking about him.

That night, I dreamt of Barnett massaging me. I lay naked beneath him as his thumbs rubbed the oil into my skin in slow, circular motions. It felt so good that I was practically purring like a kitten.

Barnett leaned forward and nuzzled the back of my head with his nose. His erection lightly brushed against my rear, causing me to tremble.

He kissed me tenderly on the cheek, then the neck. I moaned in pleasure.

He brushed my hair aside and whispered in my ear, “You are so tense. Let me help you relax.”

I was puddy in his hands as he massaged and kissed a trail down my spine to my tailbone. There, he stopped to nip and kiss each of my ass cheeks. He slowly worked his way down and inward.

My groin moistened as I felt his tongue on me and then inside of me.

“Yes,” I whispered, barely able to breathe. “There.”

I clutched at the sheets as he brought me closer and closer to the edge. Suddenly, when I was about to burst, he pulled away. I whimpered and wiggled, trying to find any stimulation to finish myself off.

Then I felt his member at my entrance, and I granted him full access.

I groaned as I filled with him, a sweet, beautiful pain that brought me to the edge of bliss once more. I urged Barnett on as he pounded in and out, begging him to give me that shaking pleasure. Just as the tremors began to fill me—

The dream dissolved. Tremors of pleasure transformed into tremors of agonizing pain. I had felt this pain before, in another dream.

As I looked around, I realized I was in that same Victorian mansion as the last Barnett dream. Newborns once again surrounded me, and I knew immediately that I was giving birth to another.

“Come on, Anna, you can do it,” Barnett said from beside me, two babies cradled in his arms.

I reached out and grasped one of his arms for support. I thought my nails would tear into him with my iron grip, but he just continued to smile at me and encourage me. It made my heart soar.

Knowing that I had done this before somehow eased the pain. The anxiety that had come with the sudden onset of pain calmed as well. I shifted what focus I could gather to the task at hand.

With one last push, the latest baby finally came out.

“Congratulations,” the doctor said, “it’s a boy!”

He handed the baby to me. I was almost afraid to hold him. Yet looking at him, I couldn’t have loved this baby—this little mix of Barnett and me—more.

I stared at this baby for what felt like ages. He had my eyes and nose but Barnett’s charming smile and a tuft of his blonde hair. He was absolutely beautiful.

Tears in my eyes, I turned to ask Barnett about the others.

He was gone. The babies he had held lay on the bed beside me, crying.

“Barnett?” I said, searching for him frantically. “Barnett?”

As everything around me faded, from the house to our newborns, I continued to scream his name.

I woke up in a cold sweat. I looked around, wide-eyed, in the dark for a man I knew wouldn’t be there. My heart sank when I remembered the reality of my situation.

I sighed and fell back on my pillow.

“Oh, Barnett.”