“You can tell me now,” I say, looking up and into his shining blue eyes. “I mean, I’ve given you five kids and an endless supply of baked goods, so I think I’ve earned it. Don’t you?”
“Yes, love, you really have,” he murmurs, taking me in his arms right there in the middle of the room with our slumbering infants and the giggling nurses watching. “I love you, Ashley Jasper, with everything that I am. I always have, love, and I bloody always will.”
Chapter Thirty Seven
Three months later
“Look at Aunty Cammy, Cameron. That’s a good lad. Who’s your favorite aunty in the whole wide world? Of course it’s me. Who loves her little Cammy most in the world? Yes, right again! I do!”
I roll my eyes at the infuriatingly adorable woman and hoist Lucky, AKA Luc Junior, up and onto my hip and continue to ice the cupcakes for Mad’s birthday party with the other.
“You’re so adorable I just want to eat your face!” she keeps saying in a voice that makes me smile, till I realize what she keeps saying to my kid.
“Stop saying that to my son, thank you very much. You’re going to scare him half to death, you nut,” Luc growls, carrying his tutu-ed little princess in and cozying up behind me for a long kiss to my neck.
“Hello, Mummy. I think my Jewel needs a diaper change.”
“You’re gonna have to get over this and change her sometime, you know.”
Luc is a stellar dad and doesn’t hesitate to change poopy diapers or feed the little monsters, but when it comes to Jewel he won’t go near her nappy on pain of death. He says fathers should be here to pamper their little darlings, not have a coronary knowing that they’re actually girls.
I think he thinks that if he pretends that Jewel is a Barbie doll he’ll actually sleep nights instead of worrying about the future and boys. I still laugh my ass off every time, but seriously, it’s pissing me off that he gets to do the good diapers while I’m stuck with the nuclear pooper every time.
“What’s the big deal, old chap?” Cammy asks, blowing raspberries on Cam’s tummy. “You do everything else.”
“Yeah,” I snort. “Including turning me onto my side while I’m asleep and putting a kid on my boob without my knowledge! I almost had a freaking heart attack.”
“I don’t like the thought of them on bottles!”
“Yeah? Well, are your nipples chapped? Swear to God, I ask for one night so shit can heal, and I have Mr Milk over here pimping me out like a Red Light super cow.”
And I’d expressed enough for the night, so he’s got no excuse except his claim that boobs are better than bottles.
“Geez, I said I was sorry, love,” he grumbles, holding Jewel away from his body. “Please? She smells like she ate a corpse for breakfast and followed it with rotten cabbage.”
“Give her here, you big baby. Come to Mama, honey, and let’s go clean that explosion. Daddy’s just a big ole meanie, isn’t he?”
But Daddy turns out to be right, when I open the nuclear reactor and get a load of what my kid is capable of.
“Gross, Juju. Just gross.”
***
“Okay, Ash, you can do this,” I mutter into the mirror as I smooth my hands down the short, lacy nightgown and take deep breaths.
I am so not used to seducing men—hah! What an understatement—but since my husband has decided to play dumb and pretend he doesn’t need sex, well, I suppose I can try it for a change.
The problem is that I’m not exactly back in shape since giving birth, and I’m a bit self-conscious about the few stretch-marks and the slight tummy I still have. Maybe I should wait and give myself some time to get my body back.
My vagina disagrees, though, so here I am, getting ready to tease my guy into losing control and doing me. Damn, I should’ve asked one of the girls how to be sexy.
“Love? Are you okay in there?”
The sound of his voice so close to the door makes me jump, and I squeak, biting my lip and glancing at the door with a grimace.
“Yeah! Uh, I’ll be out in a minute.”
Okay, Rocky, here goes. All you gotta do is run your fat ass up those stairs without tripping, and then you can do your victory dance.
With a last look at the mirror, I take a deep breath and head out of the bathroom, doing my best to seem confident even as nerves scream through every inch of my body.
He’s sitting up in bed, frowning at something on his phone, when I stop at the foot of it and wait. It takes him a while, and by the time he finally looks up I’ve got my hand on my hip and my foot is tapping like Thumper’s.
“Jesus, took you long enough.”