22. Tabby

TWENTY-TWO

TABBY

“ W hat are you doing?”

“Nothing,” I muttered, struggling to bend over, my foot on the edge of the bathtub.

It was the day before my due date. With the nursery finished, bags packed, and Genevieve lined up to take care of Lucy, I was beyond ready to have this baby come out of me. At my last appointment, the doctor told me I was a few centimeters dilated, but I could stay that way for a while.

So I had to find ways to keep myself busy while wondering if any little pain or hiccup was a contraction.

I had exactly zero patience for it.

Nate had all of it. Of fucking course.

“What are you doing?” he asked again.

When I kept on going, he caught my wrist, stealing my razor from my hand.

I heaved a sigh. “I’m shaving. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” he repeated flatly. “Why?”

“I haven’t in a while because it’s really hard, but I’m about to have multiple people all up in my business, and I don’t want to have hair everywhere.”

He smiled an annoyingly irritating smile. “Why? I don’t mind it.”

“We haven’t had sex in weeks. Not since your sister’s wedding.”

“Yeah. When are you going to let me touch you again?”

I rolled my eyes. Never. I felt like a water balloon about to pop. A cranky, sweaty, hairy balloon.

I didn’t want him touching me. Let alone even looking at me. Securing my towel firmly under my arms, I grumped, “You are the worst.”

He hummed in agreement, sitting down next to where I still had my foot propped up. “I know. The absolute worst.” He picked up the shaving cream can and shook it a few times. “Buying a kiddie pool so you could stay cool.”

He did do that. After I’d complained about how hot I’d been, he put up a plastic pool in the backyard for me and filled it with ice-cold water. I sat in that thing for hours every day.

“Giving you back rubs all the time.”

His hands were magic; I had to give that to him.

“And now, shaving your legs.”

I blew out a loud breath, acquiescing. “Fine.”

“Well, don’t sound so put out about it. I’m doing you a favor, princess. Take the towel off.”

I made a face. “No.”

“I can’t see.” He’d started rubbing the cream up and down my leg and motioned to my thigh as if he couldn’t possibly reach it with me wearing a towel.

“I don’t want you looking at me.”

He widened his eyes, looking at me. The smartass.

“I’m huge and uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, so stop making this difficult. Drop the towel, and let me do this. It’ll take a few minutes. Come on.”

I mumbled a few curses and let go of the towel, only to cross my arms over my chest and hinge forward, so he couldn’t get an up-close view of the jungle between my legs.

In a matter of minutes, he had my entire right leg clean-shaven then moved to my left and asked, “You want anything else done while I’m down here?”

“No,” I snapped because I knew what he referred to. My jungle .

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’m not having you shave my vagina.”

He had the audacity to actually appear put out. “Why not?”

“Because!”

“Because why?”

“Because this is already embarrassing enough. I’m completely helpless. I can’t bend over, can’t put on underwear, can’t fucking get up from the toilet. I have to literally roll out of bed every morning. You don’t know what it feels like to be so completely out of your own body. I hate it.”

He nodded, calm and understanding. “Makes sense.”

I hated him for that, too.

While I silently seethed, he finished my left leg then snatched my towel from the floor and walked to the bed. “Come on.”

I spun around. “What?”

He merely waved his arm after spreading it out on the mattress. “Come here. I’m gonna finish shaving you. You want to feel in your body ? Let me do it for you.”

“Ugh!” I stomped over to him and shoved him in the chest hard enough that he took two steps back. “Do you have to be so goddamn perfect all the time? You know how frustrating that is? You’re all…just…so…ugh!”

He muffled his laugh behind his fist, his eyes alight with mirth while I lost my mind. This baby was making me lose my mind.

“I can’t stand you,” I pouted, reclining on the bed, on top of the towel. He stuffed a few pillows behind me so I wasn’t completely flat then disappeared into the bathroom for another few minutes, returning with the razor, a warm, wet towel, and the shaving cream.

He settled between my legs, placing the towel over me as he made idle chitchat about how he had to pop over to check on the bistro and then planned on going to the grocery store.

I loved him, but I literally could not care less and stopped listening, trying to ignore how his thick yet nimble fingers pushed and pulled my sensitive skin taut so he could drag my razor down in easy, even strokes like he did this every day.

Like he was some professional barber who shaved vulvas all day.

Zoning out, I hadn’t realized I’d started singing until Nate sat up, grinning ear to ear.

I frowned at him. “What?”

“Are you taking requests?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re singing. First, it was ‘Fast Car,’ then it was that song from… Was it Dawson’s Creek ?” He mangled a few bars of the song.

I shook my head. “It was ‘Torn’ by Natalie Imbruglia, and it was definitely not the Dawson’s Creek song.”

“Sorry,” he said with a charming quirk to his lips, “I was too busy having a life as a kid to remember.”

I kicked at him, though he ducked out of the way, taking all his supplies with him. He’d finished already. I heaved myself up, struggling to peer down, over my stomach. When I couldn’t get a good look, I stuck my hand down there, drawing my fingers over the smooth skin. He’d done a good job, even around the creases and at the bottom by my butt.

Nate rounded the door of the bathroom, stopping when he saw me touching myself.

“Tabitha,” he droned in a pleasant singsong. “What are you doing now?”

“I wanted to see how you did, but I couldn’t. So I used my hand.”

He slowly closed the distance between us, wagging his head side to side. “You know the rule, don’t you, princess? That pussy’s mine. You need someone to touch it, I will.”

“Stay away from me.” I held my hand up. “Don’t even think about putting your dick anywhere near me.”

He smirked. “Good. Because it’s gonna be my face.”

He launched himself onto the bed, and I shrieked in laughter because even when I couldn’t stand him, I couldn’t help it. The man was a giant golden retriever, doing anything he could to make me smile.

I yelped as he buried his head against my thigh, rubbing his beard over my skin, but a familiar kind of pain hit my uterus. I gasped. “Wait, no. Stop.”

Nate froze. “What?”

I grimaced, smoothing my hand over the top of my stomach to the lower curve. “I think… It feels like I’m having a cramp.”

He placed his hand over mine, as if he could feel it too. “You think it’s a contraction?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what contractions are supposed to feel like.”

He dropped a line of kisses on the bottom of my stomach, murmuring words to Frogger about being gentle as he fished his cell phone out of his pocket. He pulled up one of his many apps and proceeded to rattle off information about contractions and reminders about time between and breathing.

“Since you’re so anxious to get him out,” he said, raising his brow in question, “we could give that old wives’ tale a shot and see how many orgasms it would take to induce it.”

I played back the last five seconds in my head. “What did you say?”

“I could give you a couple’a orgasms. Help the process along.”

I struggled to sit up, waving my hand. “No. No. Before that. What did you say?”

He eyed me. “You’re anxious to give birth and asking about contractions…?”

I pointed at him. “That. Then. You said I was anxious to get him out.”

He shot up. “No, I didn’t.”

I sucked in a breath, my hand on my racing heart. “You said him!”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t.”

“And you look totally guilty.” My nose started to burn, throat clogged. “You said him. I’m having…” I cupped my hands on my bare stomach. “Frogger’s a boy?”

Nate shook his head as the guilt fled his eyes, his gaze going soft. And then he nodded, whispering, “I didn’t mean to look, but the envelope wasn’t sealed and I accidentally knocked it down last week and the edge of the paper poked out and I—I’m sorry, Tab. I know you wanted to wait, but I?—”

I struggled to push off the bed, and when Nate bent to help me up, I threw my arms around his neck. “Frogger’s a boy.”

He breathed out a laugh against my cheek. “Yeah. Frogger’s a boy.” He kissed my temple. “Are you happy?”

“I’m so happy,” I sniffed. “I’m having a boy.” I placed my hands on either side of Nate’s face, holding his gaze. “We’re having a boy.”

That was when his eyes went glassy. “We’re having a boy.”

We held each other, reveling in the knowledge that soon we would have a baby boy. Frog was real, and he’d be here.

“So,” Nate started after a few minutes, his hands journeying down my still-naked back to my ass then around to my hips and thighs. “Where did we land on the orgasms?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “No, thank you.”

“Fine,” he whined good-naturedly then helped me to put on clothes. All the while I couldn’t stop thinking about the boy in my belly.

After dressing me in underwear, shorts, and one of his T-shirts, forgoing a bra, he sat me down in the living room with Lucy. He gave me my water bottle, along with a suggestion. “We could play a game.”

It’s a boy . “What kind of game?”

“I’ve got one or two buried somewhere in the basement. Probably Clue or checkers.”

I shook my head. What color will his eyes be?

“A movie?”

I sighed and put a pillow between my knees as I turned on my side, pushing against the lump in my belly. His butt. Come out already.

As if he heard me, I felt another cramp. This time, it was a tiny bit stronger and in my back too.

Nate noticed my wince. “Is it a contraction?”

“I honestly don’t know. It could be or not. It’s not much different from other things I’ve felt. And it could be Braxton-Hicks.”

He tugged at his hair, playing on his phone. “Well, it’s been like ten minutes. You weren’t feeling anything this morning or last night?”

“Yeah, but I’ve kinda been feeling little things here and there for the last couple of days.”

He gaped at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why should I?”

“Because they were probably contractions.”

“How would you know?”

He wiggled the phone in my face, as if it and therefore he knew everything about pregnancy.

I hope he is thoughtful and funny like Nate. “Listen, every single thing I feel could be a contraction. Okay?”

Nate harrumphed as if I was being stubborn about this. I wanted them to be contractions. If I could fast-forward, I would.

“I thought you were going to check in downtown,” I said, and he shrugged.

“I already texted Collin that I won’t be in today.”

“What about the groceries?”

“Meh.”

“Meh?” I dug my toe into his side until he set his phone down and met my gaze. “ Meh ?”

“Meh, meaning I don’t want to buy food and then take you to the hospital in a few hours and have it all go bad.”

“But what if it’s not labor and we starve?”

“We’re not going to starve. We have food, just no fresh produce.”

I needled him. “Oh, so you want to feed me frozen chicken fingers and french fries right before I give birth?”

He pinched my big toe. “No, actually. I was going to force you to eat the multigrain Cheerios.”

I gasped. “You wouldn’t dare.”

He nodded seriously. “I dare.”

Turned out, we still had a few pieces of watermelon left, along with some frozen burgers he put on the grill, and we spent the night buying tiny little graphic T-shirts and planning family Halloween costumes, because why not?

This was what we did now.

Oohed and aahed over baby onesies that read Don’t Touch My Rolls with a picture of sushi and argued over whether we would be Mario, Luigi, and Frog as a mushroom—my pick—or Snow White, the prince, and Frog as Dopey—Nate’s pick.

And when the pains didn’t increase through the night, I told him to go to work in the morning.

Only so I could call him three hours later. It was time.