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Post by Brandon Finn on Sept 12, 2015 3:09:58 GMT
It hadn't been quite as easy to wrap up everything at work as he had hoped it would be. He had tried to finish answering all of the emails in his inbox marked urgent, postpone all of the meeting that were scheduled for late into the day, and had tried to sign off on any paperwork on his desk that needed to be submitted as quickly as possible. After Cassidy had left, he had assumed that he would try and get everything wrapped up within an hour or so, but he had ultimately found it to take a little longer than that, meaning that instead of getting home early, he had gotten home at what should have been a normal hour. Admittedly, it was kind of nice to work until a somewhat regular hour, but he still felt as though there was more that he should have gotten done. Brandon reminded himself to try and make sure that he worked on delegating more of his workload to other people within the company. Or at least hire a more well-rounded secretary.
He had finally gotten to the Penthouse, pleased to have finally been able to spend a little bit of time with Amber. "Hi," he greeted her with a smile.
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Sept 12, 2015 3:24:24 GMT
Amber had left work early that day because she needed the time to herself. Earlier that morning, she'd been told about a Fashion Editor position with the Paris office for Vogue that had just opened up and it had been expressed by the people at Conde Nast that if she were interested, it was as good as hers. Maybe a year or so ago, it would have been something she would have jumped at the opportunity for. She would be eating croissants and teaching Cassidy more French, buying them both ridiculous berets to wear to celebrate over champagne. But now things were different - she was living in New York, which was frankly where she hoped to stay to continue to grow her career, she was living with Brandon - and after a call the other week from her doctor, it seemed even more was going to be changing. She just wasn't sure how news of that change was going to be received.
She looked up at Brandon even as her glasses slipped down her nose a bit and smiled at him, dropping the book to the side. "I wasn't expecting you home until later," she admitted, shifting on the couch to sit up a bit straighter. She chewed on her lip for a minute before tilting her head. "How was work?" The truth was, she admittedly should have told him everything - but she wasn't sure how. Every night when he came home exhausted from work, she didn't want to pile more things on top of him.
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Post by Brandon Finn on Sept 12, 2015 3:35:41 GMT
He couldn't help but continue to smile at her, wondering again how he had gotten to this point. It was one thing to spend all day in the office just thinking about her, how she made him feel, how important she had become to him, how much he loved her, but it was something else entirely to have her in front of him. Even with her glasses on and her nose buried in a book, he reflected on how beautiful, smart, and caring she was. It was because of that that he had assumed that her comment about not expecting him so soon seemed to have stung more than he had expected.
"Work was fine," he said, crossing over to the couch and sitting next to her. He placed his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him, enjoying the moment more than he had probably anticipated. He had been too busy with work to realize how much he actually missed being around and spending time with her, just curled up on the couch like this. It probably seemed ridiculously sappy, but had missed just being with her. The truth was he probably should have gone and changed out of his suit, but he wasn't sure he could really pry himself away from her at the moment. "How was your day?"
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Sept 12, 2015 3:50:33 GMT
Amber let out a content sigh when he sat beside her and pulled her in. It was easy for her to wind her arms around him and bury her face in his neck and breathe in the scent of him. She told herself that it was all just an adjustment - that once he got the hang of his new position at work, it would slow down again. But she wasn't really sure. And she thought about what he'd told her the night he'd told her that his ex-fiance might have had a child that was his - that he wanted everything with her but didn't know if it would be fair when work took over a substantial part of his life to promise her those things. Her chest ached a little bit thinking of it now. She almost wished he hadn't asked her about her day, that he'd just taken her to bed or stayed there on the couch holding her for a while longer. "My day was okay," she muttered. "I came home from work early."
Chewing on her lip, her fingers found his tie and toyed with it idly. "I actually need to talk to you about a couple of things," she admitted, her brow furrowing.
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Post by Brandon Finn on Sept 12, 2015 4:02:06 GMT
When Cassidy had stopped by his office earlier in the day, she had implied that there might have been a good reason for him to go home. He had assumed that she had meant that he just needed to start spending less time in the office and more time at home, but she had made it relatively clear that it was more than just that. Brandon wasn't sure if that knowledge has made him more curious or concerned for her well-being, particularly when she informed him that she had come home from work early. On top of the fact that she mentioned that she had a couple of things that she wanted to talk to him about.
Frowning a little, he started wondering what would have happened had his father decided to just stick it out a little longer, at least long enough for him to have been in a place where he was more comfortable spending ridiculously long hours at the office. It wasn't that he didn't want the job, or that he didn't actually enjoy it so far, but he just wished that there was an easier way to divide his time fairly. "Is everything okay?" he repeated the same question that he had asked Cassidy earlier in the day.
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Sept 12, 2015 4:10:29 GMT
Amber looked up at him when he asked if everything was okay and she realized she didn't have an answer yet. "My bosses at Conde Nast reached out to me, there's an opening as a Fashion Editor that's mine if I want t. But it's for Vogue Paris," she let go of his tie, chewing on her thumb for a moment before she stood up from the couch, pacing slightly. Because the truth was the job offer was easy to bring up, it was the rest that was driving her crazy lately. "They asked me to think about it, but tomorrow I'm going to tell them no and hopefully they'll still think of me when a spot opens at the New York office," she reasoned.
"And," she started, taking a deep breath and wringing her hands nervously. She stopped pacing long enough to look at him, shifting her weight slightly on her feet. "I went to see my doctor the other week, and I'm also pregnant," she admitted softly. And then it was the moment she was dreading, the split second between delivering the news and his reaction where she didn't know what to expect. She glanced away, worrying away at her bottom lip with her teeth.
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Post by Brandon Finn on Sept 12, 2015 4:28:43 GMT
He had barely had time to process what she was saying when she got up from the couch. The thought of her going to Paris had momentarily caused him to worry about what something like that was going to mean for them. Her career had been one of the things that she seemed to have worked so hard at in California, and now that she was back, she had shown him in so many ways that she excelled at it. And this would have been a big promotion, one that was well deserved. However, with his newly established role running Finn Industries, he knew that it wasn't going to be a move he could follow her for. Truthfully, he wasn't sure whether or not they could have made it as a long-distance couple either. But before he had time to really delve too deeply into that thought process, she informed him that she was going to say no and wait for a role in New York.
It had been the second bombshell that had knocked the wind out of him. There were no words to express how he was feeling as he ended up bending forward, placing his elbows on his knees and his chin on his folded hands. He certainly hadn't been expecting this announcement. "Um..." he started to say something but realized he didn't actually know what he was going to say, he just assumed that silence was not going to go over well. "How do you feel about that?" Maybe if she gave him some indication of how she was feeling, then he would have a better understanding of how he felt about it too. It still seemed very unreal, and he wasn't sure how to truly process the fact that their lives were about to change, whether they wanted them to or not.
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Sept 12, 2015 4:38:20 GMT
Amber watched him for a moment and when he asked her how she felt about it, she realized she hadn't really gotten that far yet. "It's unexpected," she pointed out obviously. "i didn't say anything sooner because I wanted to be sure," she explained. "I had a couple of scares back when...before...and I thought it might just be that again. And then after I saw my doctor, I wasn't sure when the right time to tell you was because I didn't know how you'd feel about it and I didn't want to add a lot of pressure on top of everything for you at work. And I know that it's a bad time and I know that with Alayna, you didn't want anything to do with..." She broke off and cleared her throat, looking down at her feet for a moment. "I'm scared. That's how I feel," she admitted. "I haven't gotten past anything except for scared."
"And I'm sorry," she added quickly, running her hand through her hair and trying to take a deep breath.
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Post by Brandon Finn on Sept 12, 2015 15:06:13 GMT
He nodded, unexpected seemed to be just scratching the surface. In his wildest dreams he doubted he could have expected that this was going to be the topic that had been bothering her, and he suddenly felt stupid for assuming that it had just been the fact that he hadn't been around recently. Brandon tried not to fixate on the fact that she said that she had scares in the past, but he was having a hard time processing all of new information he was receiving. There were so many things he wanted to say to her to address everything she was saying, but the thing that he couldn't move past was that she admitted that she was scared, and he could understand that feeling entirely.
"I'm scared too," he confessed, "But you have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing about this is your fault." And while he didn't want her to feel like anything was her fault or she had done something wrong, he couldn't let go of what she said about Alayna. "Amber, this is different than it was with Alayna. It's a completely different circumstance. You're not her and I highly doubt that you're using this as some sort of ploy." There were a hundred of other reasons he had for this feeling different, but he didn't know how to express them to her. When it came down to it, she was his exception to every rule, from long-terms relationships to the way that she made him feel. But the degree to which his life was going to change, he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to fully understand the magnitude of it. "I don't know that there's ever a really great time for something like this. And I don't know that you or I would have ever necessarily planned it, either. But I'm not mad. I honestly don't know what I feel right now. Scared, yes, but only because I have no idea how to do anything that's supposed to come next. And yes, because I have been working a lot and I do want to be here for you."
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Sept 12, 2015 15:37:31 GMT
Amber chewed on her lip and listened to him, she felt a small bit of relief when he explained how he felt. She still felt guilty though, she shook her head slightly. "Brandon," she said gently. "I wanted this one day, you know? The idea of you and me one day having kids and a dog and a house in the Hamptons,"she took a deep breath and frowned. "For the past few weeks, I've just been so worried that maybe you wouldn't want this," she admitted softly. "It's stupid, but I guess I always thought that when this happened - it would maybe be at a point where we could both be happy about it. But I rarely can do things in the right order."
She fidgeted a bit, taking off her glasses for a minute and playing with them idly. It was a relief to know he wasn't mad, that he wanted to be there with her, and that it was a different situation than the one with his ex. But now there was a different weight on her shoulders. She didn't know the first thing about being pregnant, let alone having a baby and raising it to be a successful human being. When she thought about her own parents, she realized that she had lived to the ripe age of 30 by pure chance and not at all by their doing. She frowned at the thought.
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Post by Brandon Finn on Sept 12, 2015 21:02:45 GMT
She had an incredibly valid point, they had wanted this some day. They wanted to be the stereotypical couple who progressed through their lives in the same way that everyone else did, but he had thought that they would at least try and do it in order. Admittedly, they had never really done things the way that they were supposed to do them. They were the kids who practically lived with each other in high school, who fell in love before they even knew what that meant, and had tried to have lives without each other only to find their way back to where they had left off. So while part of him knew that this had been an inevitability, he had thought that it was still several years off. For some reason they still seemed significantly too young for all of this, despite the fact that he was having a hard time coming up with the names of anyone they knew that weren't well on their way to getting married and having a family.
But that was the other thing. What was he supposed to do now? Was he supposed to propose and make this all that much more legitimate? "I'm not unhappy," he said, sighing softly. "I just - wasn't expecting this. I'm not really sure how I feel, or how I'm even supposed to feel."
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Sept 12, 2015 21:32:18 GMT
Amber nodded, walking back to the couch and sitting beside him. She leaned her head on his shoulder and took a deep breath. "I think we could be okay," she told him. When she thought about it, if she really stopped to think about it, she liked the idea of having a child with Brandon. The two of them starting a little family. With enough effort and maybe some outside help she thought maybe their future child wouldn't need immense amounts of therapy.
She reached for his hand, lacing her fingers with his. "I'm glad you're not unhappy though." She felt better now that he was there and that he knew. She didn't realize just how much she might have been stressing over the fact that he didn't know. Now that he did, even though she wasn't sure how they were going to handle anything, she felt a bit better.
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Post by Brandon Finn on Sept 12, 2015 23:05:38 GMT
He looked down at their laced hands and nodded. She was right, he knew, they could be okay. In fact, he was certain that they were going to be better than okay, but he couldn't figure out how they were going to get to that point yet. There were a lot of things that he was unsure of now: he wasn't sure of their next steps, he wasn't sure how their relationship would fare, and he wasn't sure if he was even able to comprehend the thought that he was supposed to be someone's father now. Or rather, within the next year.
As he started thinking about what she had said and tried to let it all sink in, he couldn't help but concentrate on what she before. "You had a couple of scares before?"
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Post by Amber Jacobs on Sept 12, 2015 23:44:13 GMT
Amber cleared her throat and nodded, "When we were younger," she admitted. "The first time, I was sixteen and I thought I might be. I went to my mother, because - you know, who is a sixteen year old girl supposed to go to when she misses a period and thinks she might be pregnant? She told me to 'take care of it discreetly,'" she frowned. "I went to go see a doctor, not my normal one - some clinic in Brooklyn. They ran the test and I wasn't pregnant."
She frowned for a moment, fidgeting a bit and letting go of his hand. "The second time, it wasn't really a scare. I wasn't feeling well, I knew something was wrong so I went to see my doctor and they told me I'd been about four or five weeks along and my body rejected..." she pursed her lips for a moment and shook her head. "We were broken up, and I never told anyone."
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Post by Brandon Finn on Sept 12, 2015 23:58:41 GMT
It was probably stupid to think that with the way their sexual appetites had always been that something like this hadn't happened before. Brandon shouldn't have been surprised to hear that there had been possible scares in the past, especially considering how young and stupid they had been at the time. And if he thought he was unprepared for it now, a full-fledged adult, then there was no way that he could have handled it over the course of his teenage years. But it wasn't the fact that he had been responsible for those scares in her life that really bothered him. The fact was that he had to wait fourteen years for her to feel like she could tell him all of this, and even then it had only been because he had asked her directly. He wasn't sure if she ever would have really told him otherwise. And more than that, she had already admitted that she had waited a couple of weeks to tell him this time around too. Considering the time that he had been spending at the office, he wanted to tell her that he understood, but he didn't. A large part of him had wished that she would have told him when she first suspected something so that maybe he would have more time to prepare, to cut back on his workload, to come up with some sort of next step.
He felt like maybe if he hadn't been the way he was in high school, selfish and manipulating, then maybe she would have been more comfortable telling him sooner. But now, he had hoped that he had shown her enough that he had changed, that he deserved to be told the truth or at the very least, not be kept in the dark. "Amber, you should have told me. About all of it. Regardless of what was happening with us or in my life or your life, I think I deserved to know."
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