by Sarah Adams
Except, Drew pulls away with an awkward smile. “Whoa.” He chuckles, and I move to kiss his cheek and then his neck. “What’s happening right now?”
I answer him by trying to take his shirt off. “What’s it look like?” I kiss his strong jawline.
Drew grabs my hand and stops me, though, pulling away with a slightly panicked look in his eyes. “Jessie…slow down. Let’s…go inside and talk about it first.”
What?
He just put the brakes on. Turned me down. Oh my gosh, Drew doesn’t want to make love to me! Of course he doesn’t—I’m massive! He’s had time to think about it and finally realized making love to an elephant doesn’t sound appealing. What was I thinking?!
Mortification slaps me, and I feel my face burning hot as I lunge for the handle and jump out of the Jeep. Except, I can’t, because I’m so freaking pregnant that I can’t get out quickly. Great. Now my face looks sunburned from the angry blush creeping over my skin, and I have to scoot to the side of the seat and put my hands under my butt to hoist myself up like a sumo wrestler coming home after a match.
“Jessie, wait!” Drew jumps out of his side like a spry leprechaun, and his agility makes me irrationally angry. He rushes around to where I’m climbing the front steps of the house.
“No. It’s fine,” I say, my voice breaking because YEP I’m crying again. “I’m a whale. I get it. You don’t want to have sex with me like this. I don’t blame you—I wouldn’t either.”
I shove my key into the lock, intending to race up to my room and barricade myself inside for the rest of my life. Sure, I’ll have to deliver my baby up there, but it’ll be fine.
“No, no, no. Wait, don’t go inside yet. Let me explain!”
“Save it!” I’m on a dramatic daytime television show now, and if I had a vase of water nearby, I’d throw it in his face. I finally get the key turned in the lock and fling the front door open.
I’m immediately greeted with the sight of at least twenty wide-eyed faces. The room is silent, and I immediately take in the giant banner that reads Oh, Baby, Baby, glittery streamers, a table full of cake and treats, a giant pile of presents, all of my friends, a few ladies who work at the salon, Drew’s parents, and Lucy and Cooper standing in front of everyone with matching nervous smiles.
“Surprise,” Lucy says quietly. “Happy baby shower.”
I’m shocked. Stunned. Can’t even form a coherent thought. Slowly, when the gears in my brain start shifting again, I realize Drew knew about this. This is why he didn’t want to start up the sexy train in the driveway. And OH MY GOSH THEY HEARD ME! They all heard me crying about how Drew doesn’t want me because I’m a whale.
Now, tears are flooding down my face, and I have no idea if they are from joy or embarrassment or relief. I just know they won’t stop. Lucy sees my expression and takes a step toward me, but I surprise her when I quickly turn to Drew. He’s standing at the door, a crooked, apologetic smile on his beautiful face. He raises unenthusiastic jazz hands.
“Surprise,” he says flatly.
I blink a few times, and then my smile blooms, and all I want is to be in Drew’s arms. I nearly tackle him when I wrap my arms around his waist. I feel his chuckle and then his breath on my ear.
“No part of me thinks you’re a whale. And believe me, I’d take you back to my room right now if there was not an entire room full of people watching us.”
Heat and desire swirl in my chest, and for a split second I consider kicking everyone out. BE GONE! ALL OF YOU!
“We can still hear you! Do your dirty talk later,” Cooper says, breaking the ice and making the whole room laugh. “I’m ready for cake.”
“Well, you pulled it off, man,” Cooper says, clapping me on the back.
We’re standing off to the side of the room, and I can’t take my eyes off of Jessie. She’s by the door, wearing the “Baby Mama” sash Lucy made for her and thanking guests on their way out. I haven’t been able to stop watching her and her beaming smile all day. I’m addicted to it now, already planning hundreds of ways I can keep it on her face for the rest of her life.
When I don’t respond to Cooper, he says in a mocking tone, “No, Cooper, it was you and Lucy who did the heavy lifting! I couldn’t have pulled it off without you two!”
I begrudgingly pull my gaze from Jessie. “Sorry. I was distracted.”
Cooper’s brows rise, saying he already knew that. “Yeah, I gathered as much.” He grunts a laugh. “You’ve got it bad. I’ve never seen such a pathetic shmuck.”
“Really? I have—about two months ago when you were marrying my sister after like two days of dating.”
“It was a month, thank you very much, and I looked hot while smoldering at Lucy. You look dumb.” He makes the most ridiculous puppy eyes, hanging his tongue out and panting.
I shake my head. “I do not look like that.”
Lucy pops up beside me and laughs way too hard for my liking. “Are we impersonating Drew?! Here, let me try!” I can’t even describe the idiotic face she makes. It’s twisted and upsetting, and I just hope to God I don’t actually look like that.
“Alright, get out. Both of you. Out of my house.” I point toward the front door, prepared to pick them both up and deposit them on the sidewalk if I have to.
Lucy props her hands on her hips. “Yeah right! Jessie hasn’t even seen the main surprise yet, and since I was the one to stay up until midnight last night making it happen, I deserve to see the big reveal.”
Oh geez, I forgot about that. Now my heart is beating so hard I can feel it in my fingers, because knowing Jessie, she could either really love what I’m about to show her or really hate it. I’m prepared for her to take one look and bust a hole through the wall in her need to leave as quickly as possible.
“Hey, preggo!” my sister yells after Jessie closes the door behind the last guest. “Drew has one final present to show you.” Lucy singsongs the words and then shoves me into the middle of the room near Jessie like she’s offering me up to a lion. I flash her a look of warning over my shoulder.
Jessie’s eyes sparkle with amusement as she slowly moves closer to me. “Is it just me or did she make that sound really dirty?”
“It’s going to sound worse when I tell you to follow me upstairs.”
“Ooo.” She grins and lifts her eyebrows. “Lead the way.”
“Ewww. Is this how it’s going to be from now on? I don’t know that I like it,” says Lucy, following behind us up the stairs. “I haven’t had enough time to adjust. One minute you hate Drew, and the next you’re trying to get him to do unspeakable things with you at your baby shower.”
“I didn’t know there was a baby shower inside, okay?! Leave me alone. Besides, you and Cooper are way worse,” says Jessie.
“I agree,” I say as we reach the top of the steps. “I don’t think I’ve even seen you guys sit in your own chairs yet. It’s really gross.”
Jessie makes an over-the-top gagging face. “Maybe we all need some PDA rules in place.”
“I’ll never agree to the terms,” says Cooper, hooking a finger through one of Lucy’s belt loops so she can’t race past and beat us to the reveal like she’s intending. Lucy pouts and Cooper gives me a Go ahead nod.
And now, my palms are sweating worse than they did before my first kiss (Melissa, I still feel bad about that awful kiss, I’m sorry). I try to get rid of the sheen on my palms by wiping them on my jeans, but Jessie notices and gives me a wry smile.
“You okay over there?”
“Yeah.” My voice box is a squeaky toy. Nice.
Jessie’s eyes widen because now she knows something serious is about to go down. I’m seconds from changing my mind and finding a potted plant to hand her instead. What if she sees this and thinks I’m insane? What if she hates it? What if…
“Drew?” Jessie asks, sounding a little concerned as she takes my hand. “Seriously, are you feeling alright? You’re white as a sheet all of a sudden.”
I c
lear my throat and nod, putting my hand on the small of her back to push her down the hall a bit. We stop outside the closed second guest bedroom door, and before I have the chance to chicken out, I push it open. Jessie is still smiling at me curiously until her gaze slowly moves to the room and it falls completely.
Oh no.
I knew it.
This is too much too soon.
It was a stupid idea.
She’s going to break up with me.
“Jessie…say something…” I ask, afraid she’s stopped breathing. I’m going to have to resuscitate her.
She’s motionless, staring at the room, and I’m just about to pull her back out and slam the door with a hundred apologies when I stop short. Her jaw ticks and eyes flutter several times like she does when she’s trying not to cry, which is honestly about fifty times a day lately—but are these good tears or bad tears?
“You…” She sucks in a breath then presses her lips together with a shake of her head like she’s not ready to talk yet because she knows a sob will spill out. After another few seconds, she finally looks up at me, her green eyes full of unshed tears, and when a small smile pulls at her mouth, I know these are happy emotions. “You made me a nursery?” Her voice cracks and shakes, her joy sitting so fragilely on the surface of her skin that it makes me want to cry too.
I nod just as Jessie’s arms fly around my neck. I wrap her up, trying to pull her as close to me as her belly will allow. “I know there’s a very real chance your house won’t be done in time for the birth…and…I just wanted you to have a place to bring the baby home to and not feel displaced.”
“Why would you do all of this for me?” she says into my neck.
I pull away enough to look down into her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? I love you, Jessie. I lo—”
My words are cut off when her mouth crashes into mine. She wraps her arms around my neck again and nearly pulls me over. I spin Jessie around to lean her against the wall.
She smiles up at me in between kisses and whispers, “I love you too.”
I look back and forth between both of her eyes and then dive back down to take her lips, but Lucy interrupts before I get the chance.
“Mmhmm…and we’re the gross ones. Come on, Jessie! Peel that pucker away from my brother and look at this nursery already!”
Jessie laughs and rests her forehead against my chest before sliding out from under my arm to walk around the room with Lucy and admire everything. She cries again when she realizes I bought her the things off of her secret registry we made together, the one she thought only existed so she could go back and buy it all when she got home. The moment she fell asleep that night, I purchased it all and had it overnighted. What’s the point of having an incredible salary if you can’t spoil someone with it?
“Thank you,” Jessie says, looking at me in equal parts awe and terror. I know her—I know it scares her to receive a gift like this from a man, but I plan to show her over the coming days, weeks, months, and years that she can trust me to love her well. To give her gifts not because I need anything from her, not because I’m apologizing for something terrible I did. Just because I love her.
“Yeah, yeah, Drew mashed his finger on the BUY NOW button—big whoop! Cooper and I are the real MVPs here,” Lucy states with zero delicacy, making me and Jessie both laugh.
Cooper runs his hand down the grey velvet curtains like he’s modeling them on QVC. “And how about these bad boys? Just take a look at how level that curtain rod is.”
“Did you hang the curtains, Cooper?” Jessie asks, her smile so big and wide I’m sure her cheeks will hurt tomorrow. Good.
Lucy hip-checks him out of the way. “No! I did. He strung the curtains on the rod, but I did all the drilling. Don’t try to steal my spotlight.”
Cooper grins down at Lucy. “I think you’re using the phrase all the drilling a little too liberally.”
“I was the one who held the drilly thing and pushed the button to make it spin.”
“The drill. It’s just called a drill. And I’m the one who put the drywall anchors in, lined up the screw, and held it in place so you could push the button.”
Lucy sticks her tongue out at Cooper, and he narrows his eyes on her mouth, and I’m honestly scared of what’s happening between them now. It doesn’t feel like animosity, I’ll tell you that much. Jessie gives me a look that says she’s worried too. Jessie swiftly interrupts their weird eye chemistry by hugging Lucy and spilling out all of her gratitude. Their tears are flowing like waterfalls, and that’s when I exchange a look with Cooper that says, Take your wife and get out.
He chuckles and goes over to Lucy, wrapping his arm around her and steering her out of the room while she’s still talking to Jessie. “OKAY AND THE DIAPERS ARE IN THE BOTTOM DRAWER!” she says over her shoulder as Cooper pushes her from the room like she’s a helicopter mom dropping off her oldest baby at college for the first time.
“Later, man,” he says before they both disappear into the hallway.
And then it’s just me and Jessie. Alone. Finally.
She holds my gaze, and her smile grows slowly, a tilt to it that makes my stomach coil up. “You didn’t have to do any of this, you know.”
“I know.”
“It’s too much.”
“It’s not enough.”
She bites her bottom lip and looks around the room again. “I can’t stop feeling scared of all this.” She says all this but gestures between us, and I know she means our new relationship.
I start closing the gap between me and her. “That’s okay. I’m not asking you to not be scared, because I’m confident you have nothing to be scared of—and I’m excited to prove that to you.”
I run my hand from her shoulder down her arm to intertwine my fingers with hers. Her lashes are cast down, studying where our hands meet. “You’re awfully cocky.”
I grin. “That’s nothing you didn’t already know.”
Her eyes pop up to me, hazel and sparkling. “I kinda like it.”
Lifting a brow, I step as close as possible to her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I lean down and brush my lips over hers, never finding purchase, just taunting and teasing. “How much?”
Her eyes flutter shut and her lips part. “A little.”
I hum and nip at her bottom lip. “How much?”
She grins but keeps her eyes closed. “Some.”
“Not good enough,” I say, gathering her up in my arms and bending down to lay hot kisses up her neck.
“A lot.”
“Better,” I mumble against her jawline, and now she feels like a heavy limp noodle in my arms. “How much?” I ask one more time.
Jessie doesn’t answer me with words this time.
Bliss. Utter bliss. These past two weeks with Drew have felt like a dream, one you absolutely never want to wake up from. Fantasy boyfriends, step aside and hold Drew’s beer. He’s too good to be true. Yes, we bicker and fight. Yes, he has crazy cowlicks in the morning and bad breath like everyone else in the world. And yeah…he occasionally Dutch-ovens me under the covers. But somehow, all of those things just add to why I love him.
We both go to work during the day (I can’t bring myself to stop working yet), and I literally miss him all day. He’s started doing this thing where he takes a picture of my butt (clothed, get your head out of the gutter) when I don’t know it and texts it to me randomly to make me laugh. Yesterday, in the middle of the day, he texted me a close-up picture of my backside in jeans standing in front of the stove with a heart drawn around it. He always adds “I miss you” below the photo, and the first couple of times, I replied, “I miss you too.” But then he’d send, “I was talking to your butt.” So now I know better than to reply that way anymore.
Now, we’re on the couch, he’s rubbing my feet while we watch TV, and everything just feels too right. He’s shirtless in his lounge pants with freshly showered damp hair, and I keep sneaking a peek out of the corner o
f my eye, waiting for him to go poof. There’s this sense of foreboding that says, Things are too good, Jessie. It’s time for something bad to happen. He’s going to get tired of you.
“I see you staring at me,” he says, not taking his eyes off the TV. “Is this a good Take me to bed stare or a You have pasta sauce on your face stare?”
“Neither.”
He shifts his dark blue eyes to me and runs his hand over my swollen ankles. Seriously, little baby, get out of me already. “So it’s a freak-out stare then?”
“Maybe…” I bite the corner of my lip, feeling guilty for still doubting him even when he’s given me no reason. It’s hard to shake the feeling of loss, though, when I’ve experienced so much of it.
Drew looks down at my feet and smiles. He raises my leg to kiss my foot (true love) and then leans over, raises my shirt up so it’s exposing my stomach, and rests his head on it lightly. “You hear that, baby? She’s still got the odds stacked against me.” He rubs my belly like it will grant him a wish. “It’s so fun proving her wrong every day.”
I grin at Drew and shake my head.
He kisses the side of my belly and looks up at me. “I love you. Do you want anything from the kitchen?” And just like that, he moves on, standing up to go get us glasses of water. Not because he doesn’t value me or my feelings, but because Drew isn’t one for fluffy words. Instead, he shows me day in and day out that he loves me and is committed to us.
While Drew is in the kitchen, my phone rings, and I note on the caller ID that it’s my contractor, Rod.
“Hello?”
“Jessie! I’ve got good news for you. Your house is almost finished, and I think we should be wrapping everything up in the next day or two. I’d say you’ll be set to move in on Friday.”