After allowing his old friend to become his surrogate, he learns of the real risks.

"Quinn, you were supposed to narrow them down," I argued, swiping through the list of women. "She wasn't there before."

Quinn took the tablet from me. "She had a great diet plan."

Mercedes joined us in the living room. "What's going on?"

Quinn and I had decided to have a baby. We love Beth, but we weren't ready back then. Now, we're married, have a home, great jobs, and hoping for a family. We were looking for a surrogate to carry the baby.

Mercedes nodded as she listened to our process. When we got quiet, she shrugged. "Why can't I do it?"

"As nice as your offer is," Quinn started, "we can't let you do that. Having a baby is a lot of pressure."

"I know. You lived with me when you were pregnant, and I was there when you gave birth," she reminded. "You deserve a baby. I can do all the tests and scans. I live with you, so you can watch the growth… I want to help."

At that point, Mercedes had been living with us for three weeks. She left LA after a fight with her boyfriend. She didn't give us details, and we didn't need them. She had done so much for us in the past, and it was our chance to help her. Our friend was welcomed into our home.

It took hours of convincing, but we agreed. We wanted Mercedes to carry our baby.

I chose not to be a part of the process at the beginning. To me, it all sounded too big: hormone injections, embryos, IVF. I trusted that Quinn and Mercedes would do everything that was needed. Months later, when I was told that one of Quinn's fertilized eggs were put into Mercedes, I thought Mercedes was, without a doubt, pregnant.

Everything seemed fine with Mercedes until one random week where she started to act differently. Her clothes were fitted. She started to wear her sweetest perfume everyday. She did her hair and makeup. She had the right to look good, but she was mostly at home with just me; Quinn worked late, researching for her cases.

I sunk into my seat after a day of work. I was bothered by the silence from my friend at the other end of the couch. "What's wrong, Momma?" I expected her to start going on about one of her songs.

She stopped scribbling in her notebook. "I was thinking," she admitted. She put her supplies down and looked at me. "What do you think of me?"

I didn't hesitate. "You're cool," I answered. "Smart. You always do the right thing."

She bit into her bottom lip as she processed my answer. "Sophomore year, when we dated, you didn't even make a move." She really wanted to know if I thought she was hot.

"We both knew what that was." I needed cred, and she was a cheerleader. "And you weren't going to give it up after a week, were you?" I just wanted to hear a strong 'hell no,' but she just looked on for a minute.

"Can I tell you a secret?" After getting a nod, Mercedes scooted to sit beside me. "I've been thinking about you- fantasizing."

I went deaf to everything she said after. I couldn't believe that Momma was brave enough to say that. I didn't know how to tell her no. I just left and wrote it off as a "pregnant thing."

By the next week, Mercedes was back to normal. She put more focus into her music than her looks. She walked around the house humming songs only she knew. She had gotten everything off her chest and didn't give them anymore attention, but the feelings that she had abandoned had become my burden.

I thought about Mercedes in ways that I shouldn't have more than I should have. I couldn't see her as my old friend. I was attracted to her, and it came out of nowhere and hit me like a brick.

Mercedes was tucked into bed by six; that was normal for some pregnant women, right? When I stood over her to wake her, she looked at peace. She was beautiful when she wasn't trying.

I called her name as I sat beside her. I reached out and felt the soft brown skin of her arm. "Mercedes," I called, and her eyes opened and drew me in. Without a single thought, I leaned down and pecked her full lips.

Mercedes and I got comfortable in bed together. Our lips were locked. Hands grabbing the other's clothes, and our minds lusting after the body that was underneath them. We had no sense of time, but things advanced quickly. We first separated to get her out of her top.

I laid her back on the bed and my lips attached to the side of her neck. I had every intention of kissing and tasting everything inch of skin that I had been fantasizing over. I let my hands roam her smooth skin, working upwards.

She huffed at the first touch to her breasts. Because of the fertility drugs, she was sensitive. She took my hand and coached me on how she needed to be touched: slow.

I massaged her full breast. I could feel her melting as I nibbled at the start of her shoulder. I licked along the valley of her chest before latching onto her breast. I circled her stiff nipple, but out of habit, I flicked my tongue over it; she felt so much pleasure that she didn't complain of the pain.

Mercedes stopped my hands from traveling lower than the dip of her bellybutton. She knew what she wanted and didn't want to wait any longer for it. She ordered me to take off my clothes. While I did without a second thought, she did the same. She pulled me back on the bed and onto my back. She climbed over me and returned for a hearty kiss. Her hips curved, and her breasts rested against my skin; it was a turn on. She swayed her hips until my member was deep in her heat. She straightened with a look of bliss on her face.

She rested her hands on my chest as she began to thrust forward and back. She moved slowly at first, but increased her intensity later, riding me for all she was worth. Her breasts bounced, and all of her thick parts jiggled.

I ran my hands all over her body, adoring the feel of her. I looked between us to watch my dick being swallowed up by Mercedes' swollen lips before reappearing slick with her juice. Giving her control, I felt the pressure building up inside of me. When I was on the edge of bursting, I warned her.

Mercedes' moans turned into cries that bristled my skin. "Please, Puck," she begged. "Please don't make me stop. You make me feel so good." She said everything I needed to hear to take my breath away and light fireworks in my head, and she didn't last long after being filled with my spunk. Her little hand clenched into a fist. She released her entire being in orgasm. Her body scratched and contorted with only my hands to support her.

After a moment, she regained enough energy to crawl off from over me. "That was the most amazing feeling," she huffed. She stared up, glowing with a sheen of sweat.

We were nearly silent except for her uneven breaths. After a few minutes, when the adrenaline stopped pumping, we knew how wrong we were. A weird connection we had let us know when it was safe to look at each other. Hazel eyes looking into brown, we made a silent pledge that we'd never hook up again and Quinn would never know.

Mercedes put off the first ultrasound for as long as she could. She always changed the date to call some music person back in LA. By the time we got her to the doctor's office, she should have been 15 weeks along.

My son. He was like a rockstar with all eyes on him. He had a head, body and legs. His arms were tiny, but he had two. The outline was fuzzy, but I thought he was perfect; he was me and Quinn's perfect baby that was growing inside of our friend.

The doctor shifted the piece over Mercedes' stomach. He studied the screen until he was sure of what he was seeing. "What I'm going to say is nothing to worry over," he warned in advance. "The baby is a little small for this far along. It's not a dramatic difference, but diet is important to keeping growth at a proper pace. Mercedes, I will give you a list of foods full of the nutrients you need."

Of course Quinn worried. Her best friend and her baby would be harmed if something went wrong. She wanted to be there, whether Mercedes liked it or not.

Even before the pregnancy, I would wake up in the night, and my wife would be missing from beside me. I always found her with Mercedes. I stood back and listened a few times. I wanted to know what they talked about when they thought they were alone.

Mercedes politely smiled when the plated grapefruit was put in front of her. "I could have cut it myself, but thank you." She began to eat as Quinn sat beside her at the kitchen table.

"I want to help you like you helped me."

"This is a midnight snack," she argued. "You wanted a meal at three in the morning on a school night." She laughed at the high school memory.

When the good times settled, Quinn took it upon herself to fill the silence. She asked, "Are you scared?" She brushed against Mercedes' stomach as she reached for her hand in her lap.

"Not for the reasons you'd think," she vaguely answered. She wanted to end the conversation before it started. "I'm going to eat and watch a little TV. You should get to bed. You have to work tomorrow."

Over the next two months, everything was downhill for Mercedes, and Quinn was desperately chasing after her. Mercedes would lock herself in her room until she was dragged out to go shopping. She always ate, but Quinn called to check. They would get into arguments that neither of them know how it started. The final straw was when we found her book of songs in the trash; she had thrown away her most prized possession, and we couldn't ignore it.

"Two hours, and Mercedes hasn't said anything to me," Quinn announced as she entered the kitchen. She wasn't planning on giving up; she was just taking her break. "Your turn."

I crept into Mercedes' room. I watched as she laid in bed with her eyes closed and listened as she took deep breath after deep breath. "You okay?" I asked, unsure if she was sleeping.

"Cramps," she answered with her eyes still closed. She took another deep breath before deciding to be honest with me. She hopped out of bed and closed the door so we could be alone. "No, I'm not okay. I can't hold it anymore."

"You have to. It's just a couple of more months."

She shook her head and demanded that I just listen to prevent confusion. "This might not be Quinn's baby," she admitted in a low voice. She was ready to lay it all out for me. "I took a pregnancy test ten days after the egg was inserted, and it was negative. The doctor told me to come in for a proper test- an accurate test. I made the appointment, and then me and you did what we did. I was too scared to go to the appointment."

I largely doubted it, but there was a part of my brain that would let me ignore the chances that I might be having a kid with Mercedes. After talking about it for a few minutes, I still wanted to make my wife happy. I asked if Mercedes would consider giving the baby up. I tried to talk her into a decision… just like she did me back in high school.

She quickly turned on me. "Regardless of if you or Finn was the father, that baby was still white. Think sometimes!"

"That's not what I meant," I argued. "Let Quinn adopt the baby. She would love it just the same. You can do your music back in California and visit anyti-"

"Hell no!" she interrupted. She started for the door. From over her shoulder, she swore, "I will never give up my baby." She opened the door, and to our horror, Quinn was on the other side. Mercedes looked back at me, unsure of what Quinn heard.

"What do you mean that you're not giving up the baby?" Quinn asked. She only heard the last words and thought Mercedes was planning to run. "You have to give me my baby."

Mercedes cradled her stomach and gave another breath. She calmly said, "We need to talk." She took Quinn's hand and led her to the living room.

I sat between the two. I felt that I had to be the one to tell Quinn what happened between me and Mercedes. I tried to break the news as gently as possible, but there was no way that she wasn't going to be hurt.

Mercedes tried to take heat off of me. "It's my fault. It was all my fault." She grunted feeling the pain from her cramps. She wasn't going to let anything stop her from trying to make things right. "I had to take the hormones, and I stopped taking the antidepressants. I spent weeks in a blur. I-"

I had to ask, "What were you doing with antidepressants?"

"Tank," she huffed. "He knew every one of my buttons, and he would wind me up. I swear he gets a thrill of arguing. One of our last arguments, I was eight weeks pregnant. I miscarried with our baby before I could even tell him that I was pregnant. I was told that arguing and stress had little to do with it. I knew that I couldn't stay in a relationship with Tank, but it took me months to leave."

There were a lot of things that we were hearing for the first time. If we had know about the antidepressants or her miscarriage, then we wouldn't have allowed Mercedes to be our surrogate. It would have been too dangerous for her.

"When I wasn't making music, I felt-" She stopped to think of the correct word. "I felt numb, and I was so desperate to feel anything else. I was stupid for throwing myself at Puck. I wasn't trying to be malicious. Quinn, I'm sorry."

Quinn wasn't swayed. "Get out of my house," she ordered, "both of you."

Mercedes called after her as she stormed through the house. "We have to talk about this. Please, come- Ouch!" She was knocked off her feet by her cramps.

I took Mercedes to the hospital. I refused to let her ignore the pain. After hours of waiting, I knew she was safe and went home.

Quinn sat straight in bed. "How is Mercedes?" She was mad at her, but that didn't mean she didn't care.

"She's fine,"I answered. I sat at the edge of the bed and started taking my shoes off. "The baby too. Doctors wanted to keep her overnight, and when she's released, she's on bed rest."

"Why aren't you at the hospital?"

"Mercedes has doctors. I need to be here with you."

When I turned to her, she refused to look at me. "Another apology is not going to fix this." She didn't want an apology, but the conversation still had to happen. "We wanted to start a family… and you're doing that with Mercedes."

There was a chance that Mercedes and I were having a kid. We weren't a family. I would love her just as much as I did before, but I'm not married to her.

"Why?"

I couldn't explain it to myself, so I had no way to tell Quinn why I cheated. I needed her to know that "why" was not her. It wasn't Mercedes' fault either. "Why" was me, and I was going to take care of all the problems I caused.

I know that I've been gone for a while, but I can explain. I had my son. He's a little angel, but baby brain is a bitch. I couldn't speak a full sentence. Writing was out of question. I'm back now and would love to know what you think.