Hardheaded hubby, p.1
Hardheaded Hubby, page 1
Copyright © 2020 by Mandy Harbin
HARDHEADED HUBBY
ISBN: 978-1-941467-39-8
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Copyedited by Katie Kenyhercz
This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any existing means without written permission from Mandy Harbin, M.W. Muse, Penning Princess Publishing, or Mandolin Park, LLC.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The characters are products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
Also by Mandy Harbin
About the Author
Chapter One
“That’s it, I give,” Brindle said as she slumped onto the stool at the pub table the girls were all sitting at.
It hadn’t started out like this. Oh no, at the beginning of football season, Sophie and the girls sat with their guys at this neighborhood sports bar. But as the season stretched on, the men congregated closer to the widescreen while the women stayed back. Frankly, if Sophie went through the trouble of getting her sister, Lily, to babysit once a week, she’d rather Sawyer take her out for a romantic evening, rather than a date-night consisting of hot wings and heartburn.
And barely speaking to her husband.
She’d laugh if it wasn’t pathetic. She was probably the only one of the women here tonight that had to practically beg her significant other to engage in quality alone time … especially of the naked kind. And she was the only one who was married! Hannah and Lucas were engaged, but that didn’t count. Morgan and Cooper had been together for years, but if Sophie had to guess, she was pretty sure Morgan was against the whole institution of marriage since they hadn’t even moved in together—officially—so Morgan didn’t have to worry about Cooper seeing her at her worst. Taylor and Bryson were still in that new phase where they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Reagan was Skylar’s girlfriend and had been for a record-breaking eight months. Normally when things got too involved, Skylar jumped ship, but Reagan was obviously doing something right with him … and was probably getting screwed six ways ’till Sunday.
Nope, Sophie was the only one here tonight whose sex life was on the back-burner. Hell, it wasn’t even on the stove.
Well, maybe not the only one since Brindle was officially unattached to anyone and was currently glaring at every person with a penis. Sophie sipped her cocktail and waited for her friend to finish her verbal explosion. Maybe she’d finally have someone to commiserate with.
“What is it now?” Morgan asked, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow. If Sophie didn’t love her like a sister, she’d be crazy jealous of Morgan’s raven black hair and model-worthy body. Okay, maybe she was a little jealous. Sophie glanced to the side and pulled the loose T-shirt away from her belly just in case it was showcasing any bulges she’d won playing the game of pregnancy. She loved her little man very much, but she was still getting used to the changes in her body. Stretch marks and saggy skin had been expected, but not welcomed. The reality, however, of big, dark mom-nipples was a joke of the cruelest kind. She was sure if girls were taught this in school, teen pregnancy would plummet. Districts should display posters of mom boobs as their next PSA. What sixteen-year-old girl wanted mom boobs? Hell, what twenty-four-year-old mom wanted mom boobs?
“That prick Trent,” Brindle huffed. “Have I said lately how crappy it is working with an ex?”
“I mean, technically, you’re his boss,” Hannah said before she took a sip of the one skinny cosmo she allowed herself each week. As her wedding got closer, she was becoming obsessed with having the perfect body. The woman was in great shape, but Sophie had done her a solid and warned her about the nipple metamorphosis she was doomed to endure when she and Lucas decided to procreate. Hannah hadn’t believed it at first, thinking it happened with age and not creating new life. Until Sophie had shown her the evidence. Hannah had done a crappy job of schooling her horrified expression. Yeah, life was a bitch like that.
“I never liked him anyway,” Reagan muttered as she snatched a chicken wing from the middle of the table. “You could’ve done so much better than that asshat.”
“Reagan,” Taylor squeaked. Then she looked at Brindle. “What happened this time?”
Brindle waved to the server who waited on them each week, indicating she wanted a drink. Marcie nodded at her in understanding. She knew what everybody ordered. “Let’s see. Second guessing my decisions in front of ranch hands. Deliberately going against orders. Flirting with the veterinarian’s assistant. Trying to get in the pants of anybody with boobs while on the clock. He’s making my life a living Hell. If I ever try dating a guy I work with again, someone please bitch slap me immediately.”
“Done,” Morgan said and raised her drink.
“Hannah’s right, “Reagan said. “You’re the boss now. Mr. Winthrop promoted you, not him.”
“Tell me you at least junk-punched him back when you had the chance.”
“Twice,” Brindle said, glaring into the room, not really looking at anyone.
Sophie chuckled. “Don’t let your next boyfriend know that.”
“Next?” She harrumphed. “I’m done with men. I’ll stick to my horses. I’d rather shovel manure all day than go through that again.”
“Um, you do clean horseshit,” Hannah whispered, leaning in.
“Jeez, not all day. If you’d drink more than one calorie-lacking cocktail, you could keep up,” Brindle grumbled. “Ahh, here’s my tea,” she said, finally smiling as Marcie approached.
“Straight from Long Island.”
“I should totally move there,” Brindle said to the waitress right before she rushed away to serve another table. “I bet the men there are happier.” She took a big gulp of her drink.
“I don’t think they have ranches up there,” Hannah said, frowning at her. “You love being a cowgirl.”
“I don’t know … alcohol does tend to make men cheery, no matter what city they’re in. Just look at the group over there.” Taylor nodded to the section of tables where their escorts were sitting with a bunch of other men boozing it up, cheering at the game.
“Congregating in their natural habitat,” Brindle said with a chuckle.
“Sometimes guys need to hang out with their buddies,” Sophie said, casually.
“And sometimes they need to spend more time with their women. You’d think it’d be second nature, but it’s surprisingly not,” Morgan said, eyeing Sophie, probably giving her the strength to talk about what she’d planned on. Now that she was here around the girls, she’d lost the nerve.
“Oh, I don’t know. Lucas is pretty attentive,” Hannah said.
“Wait until he’s finished buying the cow,” Brindle said, raising an eyebrow.
“Are you calling me fat?”
Everyone at the table reassured her she wasn’t fat. The notion was simply ridiculous. If anyone could be called that it was Sophie. She was the only one at the table sporting leftover baby weight. Brindle was muscular from working on the ranch, so size-wise Sophie was probably close to her, although their body types were vastly different. But Hannah? No way.
“Eat. A. Cheeseburger. Already,” Brindle said. “Your body is literally eating your braincells to stay alive, and it’s making you go dumb-dumb.”
“We are all beautiful,” Morgan stressed, again looking at Sophie.
Sophie hadn’t gone into detail when she’d called her, so she felt Morgan was doing her lawyer thing by assessing the situation and narrowing down possible reasons why Sophie needed help from her friends.
“What’s going on here?” Taylor asked Morgan. “You’ve been giving Sophie pointed looks all night.
Morgan looked like she was going to wave off the question, but the expression of a hardened attorney morphed slowly across her face.
Crap.
But this was why she’d called Morgan and not one of the others.
“Have your lady balls dropped, yet?” she asked.
“Maybe one,” Sophie said with a playful wince. “All right. Fine.” She groaned, her head dropped back as she gathered the strength. When she looked at the ladies at the table again, every eye was intently on her.
“We’re not having sex,” Sophie said slowly. She’d hoped their getaway to Cassie’s wedding would ignite something. Nope. Not even a fizzle.
“Good. Girls aren’t really my thing,” Brindle said, but it was obvious she—and everyone else—knew exactly what Sophie meant by that.
“What?” Hannah asked, ignoring Brindle’s remark.
Was that a look of concern, or worse? Mortification. Sophie wanted to slink under the table. Was her face getting red? She suddenly felt very hot. She took a swig of her drink, stalling. “It’s hard with the baby.”
“I call bullshit,” Taylor said. “I mean, I know it must be difficult to have alone time, but that baby loves to sleep. It doesn’t take five minutes for a quickie.”
“Five minutes?” Reagan asked with a look of horror on her face.
“Oh, shut it,” Hannah said, finally putting down the drink she’d been nursing. “When you’ve been with Skylar for years and realiz e the value of a few stolen minutes, then you’ll get it.”
“If you say so,” Reagan muttered into her drink.
“Sweetie, is everything else okay?” Morgan asked, reaching across the table and grabbing one of Sophie’s hands.
Why did she feel the need to control her tear ducts all of a sudden? She blinked a few times and finally nodded. “Yes. We’re fine. Good. Great. He’s just really tired, and— ”
“I still call bullshit,” Taylor said.
“Knock it off,” Morgan barked at her.
“No, she’s right,” Brindle said. “Men are douche bags. It’s all about them. I mean look!” She pointed toward the table where the crowd of men were hooping and hollering about a touchdown. “They are supposed to be out on dates with us…I mean, y’all. Are they over here being all kissy-face with their lovers? That’d be a negative.”
“It’s the playoffs,” Hannah said, rolling her eyes. “Wouldn’t matter if there was a stripper convention in the party room, they’d still be glued to the T.V.”
“Again. Bullshit,” Taylor said with a chuckle. “Naked women trump guys in tights. Just sayin’.”
Sophie doubted that.
“No way,” Morgan said. “I love Cooper, but he totally zones out if sports are on.” Then she glanced at Sophie, smiling sadly at her. “But he makes it up to me after the game…or before the game…hell, even during halftime. What’s going on, really? You haven’t been yourself since the baby was born.”
Sophie gnawed on her lip as she looked at each of the women staring back at her. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Alexander’s our first baby. I’m not sure if there is anything wrong.” But even she knew that wasn’t entirely true.
“How long has it been?” Reagan asked.
Sophie gaped at her. Sure all these women were her friends, but Reagan was the newest in the group. Skylar didn’t bring his ladies into the circle very often, so none of them had met her until they’d been dating around four months. If anybody was going to ask Sophie that, she figured it’d have been one of the others.
Then again, maybe they knew better than to ask her something like that in front of everybody else.
“Come on. The baby wasn’t even two months old when I met you. You were probably just cleared by your doctor to start having sex again around that time, if I’m remembering correctly from when my sister gave birth.”
“Reagan,” Hannah whispered heatedly. Then she looked at Sophie. “Don’t answer that. It’s none of our business how long it’s been.”
“Hannah’s right,” Brindle said. Sophie was even more shocked at Brindle agreeing with Hannah than she was at Reagan’s question. “Doesn’t matter how long it’s been. It only matters how fast we can get you laid.”
Ahh, there Brindle was.
“I don’t need your help to get laid by my husband,” Sophie said, picking up her drink. Just the very concept felt foreign. All she’d ever had to do was smile up at Sawyer and he’d be chomping at the bit to get her naked. But that was before the baby. Long gone were the days his heated stare stripped her bare. Hell, even the first night they’d met, he’d been singing karaoke at a frat party, but he’d taken one look at her, and she’d melted under the heat of his gaze. And that had been from across the room. Why didn’t he stare at her like that anymore?
The guys cheering in the background drew all the girls’ attention to them. Sophie sighed as she saw Sawyer high-fiving one of his buddies. His shirt inched up, showing his smooth, taut skin. God, what she would give to have him coming over her with his strong body and fucking her like he used to. Like he was so good at. Like she missed.
“Too bad, you’re gonna get it anyway.”
Sophie jerked back to look at Brindle, but noticed everyone had caught her ogling her spouse. She sighed and took a sip without saying anything. What could she say?
“Looks like we won the game,” Brindle said.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“So we’ll all be back here next week.”
“Looks like it.” What the hell was she getting at? They’d been here every week during conference play. Of course the guys would want to come back since the team was apparently still in the playoffs. They were nothing if not superstitious when it came to winning.
“But next week, you won’t be wearing comfy clothes.”
Sophie narrowed her gaze. “And why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you’re going to whore-it-up. Short skirt, high heels, push-up bra, the works. You need to get Sawyer’s attention and teach him a lesson when every other man in this place is eye-fucking you.”
“Oh no. I think I just needed to vent to y’all. I’m not playing any games.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Morgan said softly.
“Et tu, Brute?” Sophie said, gaping at her oldest friend there.
Taylor snorted. “We’re all in your corner, babe.” Then she smiled brightly. “Hell, why don’t we all do it.”
“Oh, I love that idea!” Reagan said, clapping. “I haven’t worn my Saturday-night-slut clothes in forever. My cousin, Leigh, lives in Miami and has sent me some of the hottest clubbing outfits over the years.”
“I’m not dressing like some skank to prove a point.”
“Technically, she’s a stripper, not a skank.”
Sophie gasped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean her specifically. I just meant—”
“We know, but slut shaming died with the Me Too Movement. We chicks gotta stick together,” Taylor said. “If we wanna wear barely-there duds, it’s our prerogative.
“Yeah,” Sophie said, feeling chastised, and frankly alone. None of these women understood what she was going through. Her doctor had told her it had taken her nine months to gain her pregnancy weight and it’d take that long to lose it. She still had a good three months of workouts before she’d feel comfortable wearing something revealing. And a push-up bra? Ha! Her big mom nipples would probably fall out of the one she had.
Morgan leaned over to her. “Why do I get the feeling the only person you’d be proving a point to is yourself?”
Because it was the truth.
“C’mon. It’ll be fun,” Brindle said. “Let the guys cheer at the game … if they can keep their eyes off us. We’ll dress up and have a girls’ night without them.” She looked at Hannah. “You’re breaking your one-cosmo rule next week. We’re all going to cut loose.”
“It’s not a girls’ night if the guys are technically going to be here,” Taylor said, shaking her head.
“Nope. But giving them a glimpse into a sacred female ritual will serve more than one purpose,” Morgan said, looking at Taylor before staring at Sophie. “What do you say? Let’s go all in. Every one of us will pull out the sexiest thing we own— ”
“Screw that! This calls for shopping,” Reagan said, pumping her fist.
Morgan smiled at her. “Okay, or buy something new.” Then she looked back at Sophie. “And we’ll all show our men what they should never take for granted.”
“I didn’t say— ”
“I know you didn’t, Sophie. And I’m not saying our guys do that either. But sometimes men need to be reminded just how lucky they are to have us. There’s nothing wrong with us all doing that together in a show of support.” For her…but that had been left unsaid.
Sophie glanced at the guys as they were shaking hands and starting to disburse from the horde by the largest television. Sawyer looked over and smiled at her. He even gave her a slight nod of acknowledgment.
She’d rather he rip her clothes off and worship her body. It felt like she didn’t remember what his dick looked like. Maybe it was time to bring in the big guns. God, this was crazy, but desperate times and all that crap…
“Yeah, okay. I’m in.”
Now, was it physically possible to lose fifteen pounds in seven days, so she could maybe fit into her old clothes?
She knew the answer to that before she allowed the errant thought to register.
Chapter Two
“Hey, baby, can you bring me a napkin?” Sawyer asked from the den where he was watching Sunday football. If Saturday college games weren’t bad enough, Sunday and Monday games would make up for them. Sophie liked football. Really she did. But where she’d been only interested in college games before Alexander was born—because she’d attended a D2 school, and the student body lived and breathed SEC sports—Sawyer could watch any level of football games. Didn’t matter who was playing.
