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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

❝I BEG TO DIFFER, YOU'RE PRETTY AMAZING IN MY BOOK.❞

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"Justin, have you seen my rose gold watch?"

Iris looked around her room as Justin sat on the edge of her bed and watched a football game on her large flat screen and shook his head.

"Why do you need that one? Don't you have a wall of watches in your closet, baby?"

"Justin, that watch is important to me, it's my good luck charm."

Justin snickered. "I thought I was your good luck charm."

Iris rolled her eyes playfully and walked back over to her closet and past Justin, but before she could reach her closet, Justin pulled her by her waist and onto his lap.

"Justin, I don't have time for this! I have a meeting!"

"Hey. . .seriously, look at me, what's so important about that watch, huh?"

Iris pursed her lips and looked down at her lap as Justin creased his eyebrows and raised his hand up to her face and pushed her dark brown locks out of her face.

"It was my mother's. . .she gave it to me before she left for Paris. . .and never came back, she died in the plane taking her to Paris."

"Iris, you never told me."

"Guess you don't really know me, huh?"

Justin was about to speak, but he stopped when Iris jumped off Justin's lap and headed to her closet and searched for her watch again.

After a few seconds, she found it after it fell down from its spot on the wall, she sighed softly and slipped it on her wrist and headed out of her closet and walked over to the bed to grab her purse, phone, and keys.

Justin watched her head for the door of her bedroom and look back at him one last time. "You can let yourself out, Justin."

With that, Iris opened the door and made her way out of her bedroom and left Justin alone to the football game making him huff and turn the game off and hop up from the bed.

Taking his leather jacket off the back of Iris's couch, he headed out of her bedroom with his phone in his free hand checking to see he had no new messages or missed call.

Sighing heavily, he heads out of Iris's hand and heads over to his Bentley, he slides inside and puts the key into the ignition and lets the sound of Famous by French Montana played.

The minute Justin tossed his phone onto the passenger seat, it started to vibrate making him crease his eyebrows and pick it up again to see it was a text from Jade.

winnie is home

you wanna make things right? get your ass home

Justin paused for a moment and thought over what Jade texted, it was almost like it was a sign saying that he can make things right with Winnie — and he shouldn't miss out on it.

Justin didn't waste another second, he tossed his phone back into the passenger seat along with his leather jacket and headed out of Iris's driveway to head back home.

He was going to fix this.

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Justin put his car in park and made his way out of the car and toward the front door with a million thoughts and questions going through his mind.

Once Justin reached the front door, he unlocked the door to the house and stepped inside and took in the fact that it was quiet but a faint sound of voices coming from the living room.

Justin cleared his throat and slowly walked toward the entrance of the living room and stopped in front of it as he looked to see Jade talking to Winnie as Winnie held onto one of the pillows in her lap.

Once seeing Justin, Jade stopped talking and pursed her lips and patted Winnie's lap and looked at her one last time — but her eyes were still on Justin as his were on hers.

Winnie then broke the eye contact and blinked a couple of times and looked down at her pillow covered lap as Jade patted her arm softly and got up from the couch.

Jade smacked her teeth and walked over to Justin and stopped at the entrance and grabbed Justin's arm. "Don't blow it, Bieber."

Justin nodded and licked his lips as Jade let go of his arm and headed off upstairs to Winnie's bedroom to give them privacy.

Justin looked back over to Winnie and saw her eyes still on her lap making him clear his throat and walk over to her and slowly sit down next to her.

"Winnie. . .I just want to apologize—"

"Justin, we're past that."

"Well, what do you want to hear? Ask me anything, Winnie. . .anything."

Winnie could feel the tears starting in her eyes again and Justin could see the glossy look of her big brown eyes as she looked over to him.

"Why me?"

"What do you mean?"

"Y-You ruined my chance of a relationship with Peter, and for what? Because you know what's best for me?"

Justin let out a shaky breath. "No."

"No?"

"No. . .I mean, I just. . .Winnie I've been pretty stressed for the past few days. I don't know what came over me when I said what I said."

"Did you know Peter was at the door?" Winnie asked in a whisper as she blinked away a tear and clutched the pillow tighter as Justin bit the inside of his cheek.

"Yes, but only because he wanted to know why Jade bought you a pregnancy test."

"Justin, it wasn't mine, it was—"

"Iris's, yeah I know." Justin murmured softly as he interrupted Winnie making Winnie crease her eyebrows as Justin momentarily avoided eye contact.

"She told you?"

Justin nodded slowly. "We haven't talked about it yet."

"She was so scared, Justin. . ."

"Why did she come to you for help? I — sorry, you get to ask the questions."

Winnie bit her bottom lip softly. "I wanna know why you stopped talking to me for so long. . .was it me?"

"God no. . .Iris wanted us to stop talking because she wanted our relationship to be fresh and make sure there wasn't anything trying to build a wall between us."

Winnie scoffed and shook her head. "Unbelievable."

"Anything else you want an answer for?"

Winnie let her eyes fall on Justin's slowly as she let out a shaky breath and shook her head looking at Justin raise an eyebrow, waiting for her to respond.

"Did you really mean what you said?"

"About. . ."

"Yeah, about you thinking Peter isn't right for me."

Justin didn't deny it, everything had already been said, what was the point in lying? He simply nodded and rubbed his jawline softly as Winnie felt her heart thud.

"I see."

"Winnie, can we. . .could we ever go back to how things were before?"

"And what was that, Jay?"

Justin cleared his throat. "Actually having a friendship."

"You called me a housewife, I don't think friends do stuff like that."

Justin let out a laugh as Winnie did the same and in that moment it was like all their problems over the past few weeks had been taken away and they were back to square one.

God, I missed her laugh, Justin thought.

"What do you say?"

"Give me time, Jay. . .but for now. . .I have to figure some things out."

Justin pursed his lips and nodded as Winnie smiled softly and touched Justin's shoulder softly and placed the pillow to the side and got off the couch.

Leaving Justin on the couch by himself, Justin couldn't help but smile as he felt one of the weights on his shoulders being taken off.

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"Ms. Baxter?"

Iris looked up from her phone to see the nurse smile down at her making her smile softly back and clear her throat as she got up from her chair and followed her.

Walking down the hallway, she walked into the first room and looked around at all the medical tools used and the bed where she could sit.

"Dr. Harris will be in soon."

"Thank you."

The nurse nodded and shut the door as Iris stood up and looked around the room and let her eyes fall on the diaphragm of a pregnant woman's stomach and all the organs inside followed by the actual baby.

Iris kept her eyes glued on it and pressed her hand to her stomach lightly and sharply inhaled a breath as the sound of the door opening made her spin around and see Dr. Harris.

"Good evening, Ms. Baxter."

"Eh, just call me Iris."

Dr. Harris laughed softly. "Okay, Iris, mind getting up on the table for me?"

Iris swallowed hard and made her way over to the table and sat down as Dr. Harris took her stethoscope off her neck and placed it in her ears and listened to Iris's breathing.

After a few seconds, she took them out and placed it back around her neck and leaned against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest.

"So what's the problem today?"

"It's not working."

"Iris, from your reports it says that you've been trying to get pregnant since 2015?"

Iris pursed her lips. "Yes."

"Now we've told you before that you might have a fertile defect and you might not be able to conceive children."

"But, Dr. Imaan said—"

"Yes, sweetheart, I know. . .but your eggs being able to reproduce at this point would be futile."

Iris let out a shaky breath and ran her hands through her hair slowly as Dr. Harris pursed her lips and leaned off the counter.

"Unless. . ."

"Unless?"

"You find a surrogate for you and your partner."

"No, I-I still think we can try and have a baby. . .just give me some time?"

Dr. Harris smacked her teeth. "Alright."

Iris smiled softly and hopped off the table and straightened out her pencil skirt and walked out of the room with Dr. Harris.

"Do you mind walking me to the front of the clinic?"

"No problem at all."

Dr. Harris slipped her hands into her white coat pocket and followed Iris as the two headed out toward the entrance of the clinic.

Once they were at the entrance, Iris turned around and sighed softly and briefly shut her eyes and opened them as she looked at Dr. Harris.

"I'm going to make this work, doctor. . .I promise."

Dr. Harris nodded and watched Iris turn around and head out to her car that was parked on the first row of the parking lot.

Once she slipped inside, she put the car in reverse and made her way out of the parking lot to head back to her house.

But little did she know, the paparazzi had caught a glimpse at her location.

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"So you guys made up?"

Winnie searched through her closet for an outfit for tonight, Jade had decided that her and Winnie should hang out at the nightclub Club Xscape to get things off their mind.

"Sort of. . .I told him I still have things I need to work out."

Jade hummed. "I see, what're you going to wear?"

"I don't know. . .come find something to wear."

Jade puffed and hopped off Winnie's bed and walked into her closet and looked for herself an outfit as Winnie did the same.

After a few minutes of rummaging through Winnie's closet, Winnie finally found a white skin tight spaghetti strapped dress that stopped mid thigh, an oversized denim blue jacket, and nude knee high heel boots.

Jade decided on a camouflage jacket with the sleeves rolled up, a black bralette, high waisted ripped black jeans, and black ankle boots.

"You sure you wanna go out tonight, Winnie? We can have a kickback."

"It was your idea. . .and I need this, Jade."

Jade smiled softly and and watched Winnie disappear into the bathroom to get ready leaving her to turn the television on and turn on Grey's Anatomy.

After about an hour or so, Winnie came out dressed and motioned for Jade to get dressed, once Jade went inside the bathroom, Winnie puffed out a breath and plopped down onto the edge of her bed.

Just as she did, there was a knock at her bedroom door making her sigh and get up from the edge of the bed and walk over to the door and open it to see Justin.

"Justin?"

"Uh. . .I don't really know how to do this or say this, um—"

"Just spit it out."

Justin chuckled. "Wanna hang out tonight? You know. . .maybe make some s'mores?"

Justin and Winnie shared a laugh as Winnie looked down at the floor and shook her head and looked back into Justin's eyes.

"I wish I could. . .but Jade and I are going to a club."

"A club? Cool. . .have fun, I'll see you later."

Before Winnie could speak again, Justin leaned off the wall and headed back downstairs making her sharply inhale a breath and shut the door back.

Just then Jade peeled her head out as she twisted the bralette to fit properly on her chest. "Who was that?"

"Justin."

"Oh."

Winnie rolled her eyes. "Can you just get dressed?"

Jade hummed in response and kept the grin on her lips a she went back to getting dressed while Winnie leaned her back against her door and smiled while biting her bottom lip.

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The club was dark. The strobe lights were the only source of light besides the big neon one that glowed behind the DJ of the clubs name.

Winnie looked over everything around her, she smiled at the fascinating structure of the club, she hadn't been to a club in a long time.

The hard smell of sweat and alcohol swirled together throughout the atmosphere of the club as Winnie and Jade walked further inside the club as the sound of In My Feelings by Drake played.

"You wanna get something to drink?"

"Sure."

Jade guided Winnie over to the bar and took a seat down on one of the stools as Winnie did the same and the two bobbed their head to the beat of the song.

A bartender walked up and looked at Winnie and Jade and smiled before speaking. "Can I get you guys something to drink?"

"Some shots of tequila, please."

The bartender nodded and walked away to fix the shots for them as Winnie rubbed her hands together and looked all around her before Jade tapped her.

"Just relax, you're tense. . .relax."

Winnie nodded and puffed out a breath as the bartender returned with the drinks, she sat them down in front of Winnie and Jade and Winnie counted them all to a total of 10.

Jade slid the bartender a 20 dollar bill and slid 5 of the shots toward her and the others to Winnie hearing her chuckle.

"Jade, I can't drink all of those."

"Exactly, that's why it's called a shot you drink it down so fast you won't even realize ya did it."

Winnie sighed. "I hate you."

"You love me!"

Jade let out a squeal before giggling and taking down two of her shots back to back making Winnie raise her eyebrows and giggle.

"How do you feel?"

"Such a rush! Come on, do one with me."

Winnie bit her bottom lip and slowly took on of the shot glasses in her hold as Jade and waited for Jade to say the word.

"Okay, 3. . .2. . .1, go!"

Winnie downed the tequila shot as Jade did the same and Winnie instantly felt the burning sensation in the back of her throat making her sharply inhale a breath as Jade giggled.

"How was it?"

"That was. . .actually pretty good." Winnie murmured softly as she smiled softly and picked up another shot and downed it as Jade rose an eyebrow.

Winnie wiped her chin when some of the tequila dropped from her lips and down, she giggled softly and looked over at Jade who was already laughing.

This should be fun, Winnie thought.

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Justin sat down onto the couch and popped one chip into his mouth from the big red bowl in his lap and turned on Netflix and went into his account.

After searching for something to watch, he finally decided on watching Criminal Minds and sat back in his seat as he let the first episode of season 3 start.

As the show began, Justin thought about how he hadn't spoken to Iris all day — well, ever since she left him at her house earlier.

Justin reached over to the left side of the couch and checked his messages and the time seeing it was almost midnight.

Winnie's been gone for awhile, Justin thought.

Justin went into his messages and scrolled down to Winnie's name and let his thumb hover over the contact name.

Give her space, like she said, she needs time, Justin thought.

Justin cleared his throat and went out of his messages as he shook his head and went into his call log and pressed on Iris's name and let the phone ring as he pressed it to his ear.

After a few moments of ringing, it went to voicemail making Justin crease his eyebrows and brush it off and hang up and go back to watching Criminal Minds.

As he did so, the sudden sound of slow knocking made him pause and look around the house — no sound came.

Justin shook his head and went back to watching the show when the slow knocking started again making him groan and pause the show and head to the door.

Justin walked over to the front door and opened it and looked around to see nothing — that was until he looked down making his eyes grow wide to see Winnie on the ground with a case of beers in her hold with one out of the box and in her hand.

"Oh. . .hey, Jay. . ."

"Holy shit, Winnie you're drunk."

Justin looked around to see no one in sight as Winnie giggled when Justin bent down and picked her up from the ground and carried her into the house and shut the door behind him with his foot.

Justin cursed under his breath as Winnie continued to giggle in his ear and he walked them upstairs to Winnie's bedroom.

Once they were inside, Justin sat Winnie down onto the ground as she wobbled making his eyes grow wide and hold onto her waist. "Winnie, where's Jade?"

"Who?"

"Oh my god. . .nevermind. You need to give me that. . .," Justin murmured softly as he reached down and slowly reached for the case of beer making Winnie whine and move them away from him. "Winnie, give em."

"No. . .make me."

Fuck, Justin thought.

Justin cleared his throat and shook his head and snatched the beer case away from Winnie making her whine as take the one in her hold and press it to her lips.

"No no."

Justin reached for the beer and took it away from Winnie's lips making her pout as Justin sat them down on her dresser.

"Winnie, drink this."

Justin reached and grabbed a half drunken water bottle off the dresser and passed it to Winnie as she slowly took it and started to drink it as Justin watched and Winnie kept her eyes on Justin.

After finishing it, she smacked her wet lips and wiped them as Justin took the water bottle and tossed it to the side of the room.

"Winnie. . .can you get out of those clothes?"

Winnie giggled. "Why?"

"So you can get comfortable and go to bed."

Winnie hummed in response and bit her bottom lip as she wobbled a little bit as Justin let go of her waist and walked behind her and slowly let his fingers find the zipper of her dress.

Justin slowly unzipped Winnie's dress making her gasp softly and laugh. "Buy me dinner first, mister."

Justin scoffed and shook his head as he zipped her dress all the way down to her waist and was greeted by her black lace strapless bra and the hem of her black lace panties.

Justin slipped the straps of her dress down her arms as her giggling stopped and her breathing became a bit uneven.