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A Dozen
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Related chapters
Getting Lucky Ultrasound
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
Getting Lucky Gender Reveal
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
Getting Lucky Fired
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
Getting Lucky The Old Man
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
Getting Lucky Packing Up
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
Getting Lucky We'll Do Great Things
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
Getting Lucky Catching Up with Ryan
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
Getting Lucky Typical Woman
Kaden“The usual.” I didn’t bother fighting the urge to roll my eyes. Ryan knew me better than most. He knew about my history with my dad, too. “To shit on me for nothing, just because he can. I fired a douchebag on Monday, but Dad thought I was being an idiot for not waiting until today to do it. He made me do the guy’s work to prove his point.”“Harsh,” Ryan commented, but he didn’t look surprised. Dad was nothing if not predictable when it came to how he treated me. “How’d you get it all done? You’re already busy as fuck. I would’ve told my boss to go fuck himself if he tried passing off someone else’s work on me.”“Telling Dad to go fuck himself wouldn’t end well.” Antagonizing my dad was a surefire way to have to spend even more time with him, since he was like a dog with a bone. He wouldn’t let it go. He would keep me there, berating me until kingdom came. I didn’t have time for that shit.Ryan shrugged, pursing his lips. “That’s family, I guess. Telling them to go fuck themselv
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Getting Lucky Gender Reveal
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
Getting Lucky Ultrasound
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
Getting Lucky A Dozen
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
Getting Lucky Four Months
EMBERFor four weeks, I had been waiting to find the right time to talk to Kaden about this. There just never seemed to be enough time. Though we were practically living together and had adjoining offices now, we were also busy and running around for work.My heart hammered against my ribcage so hard it was almost painful as I leaned forward, forcing myself to look into Kaden’s eyes. I had no idea how he was going to take this news. We had so much on our plates as it was, and we’d never even come close to talking about anything like this.Every word I knew suddenly disappeared from my brain as I looked into his gorgeous eyes, questions darkening them while he waited for me to tell him what I’d been waiting for the right time to talk to him about.Grasping for words, any words at this point, I ended up just blurting it out. “I’m four months pregnant.”Kaden paled, his eyes going huge. His jaw loosened, and his throat worked. Oh crap.This was exactly the reaction I’d been afraid of. Me
Getting Lucky Home
KadenA faint line appeared between Carol’s eyebrows before she schooled her expression, shaking my free hand again. “We’ll be in touch soon, I assume? If you could email the paperwork to my assistant, the same one who set up this meeting, I’ll have the lawyers look it over and send it right back.”“It will be in your inbox before the end of the day tomorrow,” Ember promised. If I knew her, she was already planning on firing off a text to Scotty as soon as we were out of Carol’s sight.Ember and I were sharing Scotty as our main assistant now. We each had a second assistant working under Scotty, but he was our go-to guy and the one who organized our respective second assistants. It was a system that was working really well for us.Once we were settled in my car, I glanced at her before putting my hand on her headrest and backing out of the parking space. “Did you ask Scotty to send her the documents yet?”She smiled, holding up her phone to show me the text she was typing. “Just about
Getting Lucky How Far Along?
KADEN“If you consider we only started putting this together for you last week, I think you’ll appreciate the growth you would already have seen if we’d started making these moves only a few days ago.” I was speaking to our new potential client, an older woman with her dyed black hair pulled back in a severe bun.She was the CEO of a hotel group that was starting to pop up everywhere. The company was only a few years old, but they were expanding at an impressive rate, and Ember and I both really wanted to sign her.“We can do great things together, Carol,” Ember added, clicking a button on the remote in her hand to move onto the next slide we had prepared for her. “Both our companies have shown exponential growth over the last six months, and together, I think we can keep that trajectory going.”I could feel Ember’s excitement coming off her in waves from where she was sitting next to me at a mahogany conference table at one of Carol’s group’s hotels. The group had two new boutique ho
Getting Lucky Together Again
EMBERWhen Kaden’s lips crashed into mine, it was with such passion and fervor that a fresh wave of tears welled up behind my eyes. Different tears this time, happy tears. I couldn’t believe he was here, that he was in my arms and kissing me the way he was.An hour ago, I was convinced our relationship was toast. When I didn’t hear from Ryan, I thought the worst. I thought Kaden was so mad at me, he’d convinced Ryan he was right, and I was wrong. I thought Ryan wasn’t going to speak to me ever again either.I thought so many things, all of which were apparently wrong. It was hard to have faith in people when you felt as guilty and as badly as I did, though. In my defense, those weren’t feelings I had much experience with, and now that I’d felt them in their fullest glory, I had no intention of ever finding myself in a position like that ever again.From now on, I was going back to honesty. I still regretted the way I handled things with Mr. Marx, but I’d also learned from it. With Kad
Getting Lucky Big Brother Talk
KadenShit. I even made her promise to stop avoiding me. I shoved her even deeper into the impossible corner she was already in. I made her look me in the eyes and sleep in my bed, even when she couldn’t do it, and now I was pissed at her for doing exactly that?I groaned out loud, bringing my forehead to my desk.As if Ryan could tell what I was thinking, he said, “She loves you, Kaden. She loves you more than anything in the world. You’re everything to her. Trust me when I tell you she never meant to hurt you. She was stuck in purgatory about this for weeks.”Lifting my head only enough to catch a glimpse of his eyes, I frowned. “Is this a big brother talk? Because I don’t think I can stomach one of those right now.”I really couldn’t bear to hear him tell me how much she loved me after the way I acted. Sure, I was shocked, and she shouldn’t have done what she did, but I honestly didn’t know what else I could have expected her to do under the circumstances.Even if she did, would sh
Getting Lucky You Don't Listen
KADENMy head was spinning. I felt nauseous, my stomach twisting and turning as I tried to focus on the screen in front of me. I was trying to get everything with Ember out of my head and get some work done, but it was proving to be harder than I thought it would be.Despite everything, I still didn’t want to let my dad down. Sure, he told my girl he was dying and not me, but—“Fuck,” I muttered, dragging my hands through my hair. Again. I shuddered to think what I looked like by now. At least no one was bothering me.Scotty was keeping his distance, and most people would probably be leaving soon. They were giving me the day to get settled in, which was a fucking blessing since I had no idea how I would be able to handle meetings or making any big decisions today.I’d been so damn optimistic just this morning, determined to make this work no matter what. I was so damn sure I had this under control, that I was going to walk in as CEO and things would just fall in place.I was prepared
