Baby Buddies: A BWWM Pregnancy Romance Read Free

about that cute blonde guy you spend so much time with?” Hannah asked. “Owen, isn’t it? You two have always seemed close.”
    “We’re really close,” Anaya nodded. “We’ve just never looked at each other in that way.”
    “Why not?” Hannah pressed. “He seems to have his act together. He’s handsome and seems very sweet. You’re always telling me about all the nice things he does for you. For every bad thing you have to say about Jakob, you have a hundred nice things to say about Owen.”
    Anaya blushed at her words. It was not the first time that someone had asked her why she had never dated Owen and it was always hard for her to answer.
    “Owen’s great, but we’ve known each other too long,” she explained. “He’s like a brother to me. It’s hard to look romantically at the guy who held back your hair when you were puking after your first night drinking or whom you’ve told every embarrassing detail of your life to. Some things are meant to be kept hidden. You want a man to look at you and see perfection. Owen has seen way too much of me when I’m a mess. No, being with Owen would just be too weird.”

Chapter2
     
    Nothing romantic had ever happened between Anaya and Owen and she wouldn’t have had it any other way. Men were trouble when sex was involved, and Anaya was grateful that there was a man in her life who was constant and sure. Owen was always there for her when she needed him and she valued that greatly. She valued it far too much to ever risk dating him and losing that security of a sure friend, although she’d never looked at Owen in that way anyway.
    “Maybe at first you want to keep some things hidden, like puking for example, but eventually what you want in life is a guy who takes you warts and all. I think it would be a huge relief to know that a guy had already seen the worst in me and was still interested,” Hannah commented.
    “Owen’s not interested in me like that,” Anaya assured her. “We’re just friends.”
    In fact, Owen had offered to take her out that night for her birthday, but for once Jakob had stepped in with a romantic gesture and had told her that he was going to take her for dinner and then dancing. Jakob’s offer had made Anaya smile. One of the first dates they’d ever shared had been dinner and dancing. It had been the college’s winter ball and Jakob had taken her to dinner before they’d arrived together at the dance. That had been back when Jakob was a satisfied man; satisfied with his own accomplishments and satisfied with her. They had danced all night to the sound of a live band and she’d felt like she was the only person Jakob could see that night. She’d felt beautiful.
    It had been such a long time since Jakob had last looked at her with that kind of affection and appreciation and Anaya was hopeful that a night that would remind him of that winter’s ball would help him to see her as he had then and they would dance the night away. It saddened her every time that she considered how far they had drifted off course.
    “Well, I think that you should think about him again,” Hannah advised. “A lot of girls would kill to have a guy treat them as kindly as Owen treats you.”
    “I’m with Jakob,” Anaya reminded her. “I love Jakob.”
    She was surprised to hear the doubt in her own voice and scolded herself inwardly for thinking even for a moment that she didn’t love Jakob. It wasn’t that long ago when they had loved each other above everything else and had been enthralled by one another. Anaya couldn’t pinpoint the precise moment that Jakob had begun to grow frustrated with her more often than he was enamored with her. It had been more of a gradual process than any one particular fight or disagreement that had made them disconnect. Anaya was aware that they were disconnecting, but she had come to accept that a constant to-ing and fro-ing was just the way that a relationship with Jakob was always going to be. She knew