“Hey, you.”
“Hey, you,” I say.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For taking care of me tonight.”
“It’s the only place I wanted to be.”
She yawns again.
“All right, sleepy baby. Let’s make sure you get some rest.”
She flips to her side, and I move closer, draping an arm over her. “Is this okay? Does it hurt your wrist?”
“No. It feels good.”
“Yeah. It feels really good,” I echo.
Nighttime shrouds us, and shadows play on the dark walls.
“Did you like hearing the heartbeat?” Her voice is an imprint on the air. It feels like a wish. A hope.
I run my fingers through her hair and answer with my whole heart. “I loved it.”
“Me, too.” Her voice is feathery. “When I first heard it, I wished you could hear it, too.”
“Yeah?” I might be grinning like a fool.
“I did. I wanted you to experience it, too. It’s the most wonderful sound I’ve ever heard.”
“It really is magical.” I press a kiss to the back of her neck, and before I know it, she’s asleep in my arms.
In the morning, it pains me to have to say good-bye. But work calls, and I’ve got to hit the road for a few weeks, right when I’m starting to feel so much for both of them.
Thirty
Nicole
Penny plucks the pouch of a pair of maternity jeans, pulling it taut like a slingshot. She fires and the blue cotton bounces. “Oh! Look at the stretchiness! This is such a winner.”
I narrow my eyes at her and deliver my absolute best you’ve got to be kidding me stare. “Those. Are. Hideous.”
Penny bats her eyelashes. “They’re a building block.” Her voice is pure innocence. “A stepping stone to mom jeans.”
“Did someone say mom jeans?” Delaney rushes to us with a shirt wadded in her hand. “Your mom jeans would go so well with your new peekaboo.”
She unfolds it with a ta-da and strikes a pose.
I mime gagging. The shirt has a cutout over the belly. “Why? Tell me. Why on earth does that exist? Who even authorized a cutout maternity T-shirt?”
Delaney cracks up. “If you were a fashion writer, you’d have to do a column on the five worst maternity items.”
Penny snaps her fingers. “I know one to include. That Christmas maternity shirt that said ‘Santa’s Favorite Ho.’”
I laugh. “That is totally going on the list.”
Delaney hangs up the holey shirt then adjusts her bright blond ponytail. “Have you found anything you like?”
I shake my head. “Not a single stitch of fabric. Am I just too picky?”
“No way. You can never be too picky with clothes,” Penny says, her brown eyes intense. “Let’s keep looking.”
We wander through the racks in the maternity section of a department store in Brooklyn that we traveled to for this purpose. The chichi maternity boutiques in Manhattan are just too pricey for items I’ll wear only a few times. As Penny considers a rack of tent-like shirts, my phone pings.
My Pavlovian response kicks in.
Butterflies descend into my chest.
I grab my cell and slide my finger over the screen.
Ryder: Look. I’m just going to be blunt here. That okay with you?
In the two weeks he’s been gone, our texts have veered from gentle concern over my wrist—it’s totally fine now—to flirty, so I have a hunch I’ll enjoy his bluntness.
Nicole: I like blunt. Especially blunt hardness.
Ryder: Yes, blunt hardness is apt, since I need to tell you that your boobs look spectacular.
Nicole: You were always a big fan of the girls.
Ryder: I’m their number one fan. I had one of those big foam fingers commissioned to say Number One Fan of Your Tits. But it seemed a little too—how shall we say—inappropriate to actually wave around.
Nicole: Appropriateness is overrated.
Ryder: Anyway, I noticed the spectacularness of your chest last time I saw you.
Ryder: Let me amend that. I always notice your breasts. They are always spectacular. And now they’re at a whole new level of spectacularity.
Ryder: Fuck, now I’m really fucking turned on, and I have to go on air. Thanks a lot for having such perfect tits.
Nicole: I wish I could say I was sorry that my boobs are distracting you from 2,000 miles away, but I’m not. I’ll leave you with this thought—they’re even more sensitive now.
Ryder: Did you hear me groan across half the continent? Dear Lord, woman. What are you doing to me?
Nicole: Distracting you, since I’m buying a new lacy bra to hold my bigger boobs in.