The Favor

Title: The Favor
Series: Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Impregnation/Conception
Published by: Anissa Palleson
Release Date: April 27, 2018
Pages: 45
Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Smashwords, Google Play

When Amber's biological clock starts ticking too loud, she decides that artificial insemination is the best way for her to have a baby and she knows the perfect donor: her longtime best friend, Shane. But Shane isn't interested in being a donor. If Amber wants to have his child, he wants the conception to be much more hands-on. And he knows just how to convince her to do things his way...

Excerpt:
Shane waved a hand toward the counter, which was covered with several of his favorite foods. I had also bought him a large bottle of his favorite whiskey. “The only time you do something like this, it means you have a favor to ask me. And that usually means trouble.”

“Oh, come on.” He had come a little too close to the truth, but I still tried to laugh it off. “Now you’re just being paranoid.”

He gave me an arch look. “Am I?”

I sighed. I should have known that he would see right through me. That was definitely one of the pitfalls of knowing someone for more than twenty years—ever since our freshman year in high school. “No.”

“Then maybe you should get me a glass.” He cracked open the seal on the bottle of alcohol. “I’m sure whatever you’re going to ask me will sound a lot better once I’ve had a few drinks.”

“You could say no.” I expected him to say no.

After all, I had asked him a lot of things over the years, but never anything like this. It had taken me months to even work up to this point. To decide to broach the subject with him.

Shane sighed. “You know I won’t. You’ll give me the sad look, pouting as if I’d ripped the head off your favorite doll, and I’ll agree to anything you want. Even when I know better.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or groan at his choice of analogy. “You make it sound like we’re still little kids.”

No reply.

I silently filled a glass with ice, poured in a quantity of his whiskey, and topped it off with cola. Handed it to him.

He gave me another of those looks. “You’re not drinking?”

I wanted to. I wished I could use alcohol to take some of the edge off my nervousness, but if he agreed to what I wanted to ask him, then I would have to get used to not relying on booze for anything.

At least, for the next— “And you’re not eating. I thought you liked my cooking.”

“I do. I’m just waiting for whatever you’re going to spring on me first.”

“I think it will be easier after. You’re grouchy when you’re hungry.”

Shane smirked. “Just because I don’t agree to everything you ask of me, that doesn’t make me a grouch.”

“Shane.”

“Fine.” His stomach made an audible grumble, pretty much proving at least one of my points. He made a plate and so did I, and we sat down at the coffee table in my living room.

The meal passed in relative silence. Since we talked on the phone almost every day, there wasn’t a whole lot about each other’s lives that we didn’t immediately know about. Though there was that one secret I was keeping from him… “Dessert?”

“No.” He patted his stomach. “I’m stuffed. And you’re stalling again.”

I sighed.

He was right. I knew he was right.

I stared at my glass of ice water, running my finger along the condensation on the side of the container. “You know we’re getting older.”

“Not me. I’m still a kid.”

I shot him a glare. “Not now, alright?”

“Sorry.” He gave me a tentative smile and I wondered if some of my nervousness had finally transferred over to him. “You’re not sick or anything, are you?”

“No. It’s nothing like that.”

He exhaled sharply. “Good.”

I rose and began to pace around the room. “You know I’ve never had the best luck in relationships.”

“More like you have rotten taste in men, Amber. None of them deserved you.”

Despite myself, I smiled. Shane had never liked any of the men that I’d dated, and I’m pretty sure most of them hadn’t liked him in return. Several had actually been jealous of him, convinced that there was no way that men and women could ever be in a strictly platonic relationship. “That’s very sweet of you to say, but that isn’t the point.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Thanks.” I took a deep breath, knowing I had to find a way to continue now, or else I would completely lose my nerve. “And you know I’ve always wanted kids.”

“True. But what does that have to do with me?”

For a smart guy, Shane could be really dense sometimes. Probably on purpose, in this case. I inhaled sharply a few more times, and blurted out: “I want you to get me pregnant.”

“What?”

My face burned. “That didn’t come out right.” I showed him the brochure I had collected, for the clinics that I had researched. “I could do an anonymous donor, but then I feel like I’ll never be certain that what I was told about the guy was the absolute truth. And I know you better than just about anyone, so…”

“So, you want me to jerk off into a jar for you? Is that it?”