The Love of Lies

Young

Ashton's POV

After telling my parents what happened, not my mother, but my father started making calls, and by the end of the day, the 'counselor' Cori and I saw was sending numerous apology texts.

Cori is a sweet girl by nature, so she didn't want the woman to lose her career, saying that everyone makes mistakes, but she was also unwilling to talk to the woman, letting me know that she's genuinely bothered by what happened.

Fortunately for me, today's episode gave me an excuse to pamper Cori like a queen, complete with a warm bubble bath and massage that left me wanting for more, but I've made a promise to myself that I can't and won't break.

"Ashton," Cori whispers, looking away from the novel she was reading as I gently stroke her hair.

I love when she has it down, which is rare, but tonight she allowed me to undo her braid while I massaged her scalp, and I've been taking advantage of it since.

"Want me to stop?" I whisper back, thinking that the feeling of my fingers lifting random locks of her hair has begun to get annoying to her, but that's not what Cori wanted to say.

"How come you haven't tried to touch me?" I touch the woman often, so I know what she's asking, but I still choose to act dumb. "Is it my belly?"

If I told Cori that I'm more attracted to her now that she's pregnant, I know she'll think I'm weird, but at the same time, I don't want her to think that I'm denying her without reason.

"I've been avoiding it because I don't want our relationship to be rooted in s*x; your belly has nothing to do with it."

There's a long silence before Cori asks another question, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't beginning to have second thoughts.

"But our friendship didn't begin with s*x. It started with a conversation." I move abruptly, hovering over the woman as best I can without putting any pressure on her baby bump.

"Cori, what are you trying to tell me?" Balancing on one arm, I push a section of the woman's hair behind her ear and wait for her response.

"I just…" Cori lifts her head and kisses me so gently that I feel hypnotized by her. "I like being with you." That statement alone reminds me of why I don't want to have s*x with her right now, so I will myself to calm down and go back to laying by her side.

"Do you like being with me or do you feel like you have to be with me?" Cori turns her body to face me with a bewildered expression on her face.

"What kind of question is that?" Feeling like I might have assumed incorrectly, I try to change the subject, but Cori forces herself into the sitting position, absentmindedly rubbing her belly as she waits for an explanation.

"Don't get mad at me… I was only trying to be considerate."

"What are you not telling me?" I cover my face in shame, hating that the evil counselor's words are being brought forth in my mind.

I could lie to her, adding to the lies I'm already telling, or I could tell the truth, and fight for her forgiveness later.

In fact, gauging how serious her reaction might be could help me when I tell her about everything else I'm hiding

"So, when I found out that you grew up in a not so loving environment, I did some research and… Cori, promise you won't get mad."

"No, I'm not promising anything I won't mean. Tell me what you researched."

"The book said…" I repeat what I read to Cori, making the woman pull a long face before she quietly gets up, and practically waddles away.

She's been walking funny lately, but now isn't the time to point it out or laugh.

I know that I hurt her feelings, but I honestly meant to be helpful, so I wordlessly follow the woman into the kitchen.

"Cori?"

"Ashton?"

"Are you mad?"

"Are you?"

"Please don't do this. We already had a bad day."

“Do you think I wasn’t there?" Here we go again.

I honestly want to just walk away and forget all about everything, but Cori shocks me by walking up to and stopping inches away from my face.

"I know the difference between love and s*x, Ashton, and just because I have some bad habits from my past doesn't mean that I’ll have them all." Cori moves away, picks up an orange, puts it down, picks up an apple, puts it down, then picks up a banana and puts it down.

"Are you looking for something?" I timidly ask, knowing that the woman is struggling not to shut me out, and because I feel like I physically can see her inner turmoil, I decide that telling her the other things isn't a priority, at least until the twins are born.

"There's nothing to eat because YOU stole my car." That's not actually true, but I've learned from watching Chris and Pauline that truth and correlation are the same thing when a pregnant woman is angry.

"Do you want ice cream?" I specifically went out and bought dozens of flavors of ice cream for Cori, but she doesn’t seem interested.

"I don’t know which one of your girlfriends you bought that for, so I’ll pass.”

“Cori… I don’t have any other ‘girlfriends,’ and I bought that stuff for you.

“I don’t even like ice cream, so whoever you bought that for, wasn’t me.” I’m trying my hardest not to become annoyed by the woman, but she’s right, I bought ice cream with another woman in mind, but not in the way she’s thinking.

“I bought that stuff for you as a gift because you don’t tell me what you like.”

“I don’t know Ashton. I read that promiscuous men tend to buy gifts out of guilt, and-...”

“Cori!” I shout as an interruption, making the woman flinch because, deep down inside, she’s still terrified of being abused by me. “Stop it, okay. I get it; I shouldn’t have assumed based on what I read, and if you want, we can have s*x right now.” As soon as I finish my sentence I regret it, and based on Cori’s expression, it was the absolutely worst thing I could have said.

“I’m shutting you out now,” she says, turning on the TV so that she can tune me out as well.

“This isn’t communicating properly.”

“I don’t feel like communicating right now.”

“Cori.” I step in front of the television and kneel to eye level with the woman.

Some part of me likes that Cori is being combative, but another part of me doesn’t want an already hectic day to end like this.

“I was trying to do the right thing by you. I took a moment away from you that you can never, ever get back, and I just wanted to prepare myself to make it up to you properly.”

“Ashton, you didn’t take anything from me. I gave you that moment, but what’s done is done; you can’t make anything up to me.”

“But-...”

“Ashton… I was prepared to raise these babies without you. I want to hate you, I really do, but it’s not like you did anything wrong. We met by chance, we had s*x by choice, and due to no fault of our own, the condom broke. I’m sure that if you knew you would have told me.” I say nothing.

Cori’s words were like a warning to me because she just inadvertently told me that the only reason she doesn’t hate me is because she views everything between us as an accident, and while I didn’t get her pregnant on purpose, I willingly took the chance without her consent.

“You don’t have to make anything up to me. It makes me feel miserable when you say things like that.”

“But you’re so young,” I reply, trying to cover myself because I know that Cori misread the guilt in my eyes.

“Would you feel better if I were older?”

“No.”

“Then please stop reminding me that you didn’t choose to be a father. I know what it’s like to be unwanted, and every time you-” I press my lips against Cori’s, wanting her to stop talking because I understand what she means, and I don’t want her worried about that.

“Cori, I didn’t choose this, but I want it, okay?” The woman takes a relieved breath, then looks up at me guiltily.

“I can taste the ice cream if you want.” I love the way Cori's trying to immediately go back to neutral ground after our disagreement, so I jump at the opportunity she’s giving me to make this right.

I open my hand to the woman, helping her stand so we can go into the kitchen and choose which flavor sounds most appealing to her.

She picks, I get her a spoonful, and she immediately makes a face.

“Not for you?”

“It kind of tastes like burnt coffee.” I go back into the freezer and choose another for her to taste. “This one is better.” With a sense of what Cori’s looking for, I give her a spoonful of strawberry shortcake, and her smile tells me that she’s pleasantly surprised.

“Good?” Cori hands me the spoon, and I put some in a cup for her, happy that I succeeded in finding something that she likes without a trip to the store. “Ready for bed?”

“Not really, but I can lay down.” This is a good opportunity for me to watch a movie in bed with the woman, so I ask if she’s willing.

“You have a TV in your room?”

“Come to bed and I’ll show you where it’s hidden.” My arms are wrapped around Cori from behind now, and instinctually, I rub her belly before turning her to face me.

As soon as we get back to our room, we snuggle into the bed, and I very theatrically pick up my remote and point it to the ‘painting’ mounted on my wall.

“Stop it,” Cori dramatically says, looking up at me in shock.

We spend a good five minutes talking about just the TV’s functions, and since I can send images from my phone, I choose the first picture Cori and I ever took together and set it as the display.

“Who took that picture?”

“Troy did. He’s had it for a while, but he only just sent it to me last night.” I’m not going to tell Cori that I’m mad at my brother right now, but I do show her all the pictures Troy’s sent me, including the one of us kissing at his engagement dinner.

“I like the first one. We look…”

“Happy.”

“Drunk.” Cori and I laugh because we spoke at the same time, and although she said ‘happy,’ she was being sarcastic.

I put my phone down, and put on a random movie, but about midway through, Cori starts rubbing my abdomen back.

Eventually her hand travels into my shorts, and I respond by turning my head so that I can kiss her.

“Cori… are you sure about this?”

“You might be asking that question a little too late.” As gently as I possibly can, I flip Cori on top of me, crossing my arms behind my head as I wait to see what she does.

Shockingly, the woman starts awkwardly moving downward, making me bite my lip as I wait for what I know she’s planning to do.

I get a good grip on the woman’s hair, fully anticipating a blow job, but Cori only kisses my fully covered, but erect, p***s and nothing else.

“What’s that supposed to be?” Cori shrugs and moves away from me. “Hey?”

“I’m just doing to you what you’ve been doing to me all week.”