Chapter Twenty-Three

They said you knew when you knew, at least when it came to nesting. I didn't really understand what that meant until today. Now I really did.

I woke up that morning, ready to go. I had energy to spare. My exhaustion had been getting better since I left the first trimester, but today, I was energized. If someone asked me to hike a mountain, I'd have signed right up. And if days like this were few and far between, I was going to take advantage of them. "Guys, let's go!"

Armel looked up at me, his eyes still half asleep. "Go where?"

"We need to go shopping." So much shopping. I'd have done it online if I thought I could get it on time. Based on how I was feeling, I wasn't sure that was going to happen.

"Shopping?" Armel sat up.

"Yes, shopping."

"Fine." Rome climbed out of bed, and the three of us were ready to leave in an hour. I'd gotten ready in twenty minutes, a personal record.

"What kind of shopping are we doing?" Rome grabbed the keys to the SUV. Good man. We were going to need the room.

"So much shopping. So much."

"So, like baby things?" Armel asked. "Like you want to get car seats and strollers and stuff? We've already ordered a lot of that. That doesn't mean we can't change our minds on some of them."

We had done a lot of baby shopping. That was true. We had cribs, car seats, and onesies galore.

Why had he assumed that's what I wanted? But there we were. "No, things for my nest. It's time. Today. Today is the time."

"Okay, tell us where to go." Rome was down for anything. Armel was too. I appreciated it more than they could know.

"I don't know. Let's start at the furniture store?"

And off we went to a furniture store. It was huge, and nothing really felt like it belonged in our babies' nest. I grabbed a few puff throw pillows, but nothing else in the store really made sense for a nest to me. It was all fine, but it wasn't what our baby needed.

From there, we went to a home store, and we did find some nice sheets I thought would go over the nest nicely. They were covered with little koalas. And while it wasn't the same as a sugar glider by any stretch, they had a pouch. I had a pouch, and I thought it was cute.

My mates were indulging me in anything I thought looked nice. I could have said that the ugly, huge, oversized recliner with the teal-and-orange cloth looked beautiful, and we should have that, and they would have been piling it into the car or arranging for delivery. They saw I was on a mission, and they were not getting in the way. I appreciated it.

"One of the guys at work told me about a nice secondhand store. Do you want to try that?" Armel said

"Yes, that I do."

We went in there and hit the mother lode. There were six quilts obviously made with love, hand-stitched, soft because they were old and washed a thousand times. We bought all of those. There were a bunch of afghans somebody had crocheted, also very soft from years of use. It wasn't everything, but it was a start.

"Don't laugh at me," I said when we were back in the SUV.

"We won't," Rome promised.

"Oh, you might. Can we go to the pet store?"

They started driving without asking any more questions. I appreciated it because I didn't really have answers. I just knew we had to get there. There was something there I needed.

What I discovered as soon as I walked in was their huge display of dog beds. They were fancy memory foam ones and ginormous. I wasn't sure what kind of dog they thought they were for, but they were huge, and I needed them. I left with three.

"Is this all you need?"

"No, it's not all. Okay, where do we go next?"

I thought about it and thought about it and wasn't really sure what the answer was. So, I opted for a big-box store. If I decided I needed anything anywhere else, we could get some version of it there.

We wandered the aisles and found some nice stuffed animals that were extra smushy. Sadly, none were sugar gliders, but there was a bear and a dragon, so two of us were represented. When I reached the pillows, that's when I figured out why I was drawn here. Pillows. Lots and lots of pillows. We grabbed a bunch, and I was ready to go.

We had what I needed. I could feel it.

It took a long time to lug everything and take the items out of their packages, wash the things that needed to be washed before we could use them, etc. But that was good because I had to plan. I used one of my mate's pens to sketch out where I wanted everything to be placed, including in what order. "This is what I think we're doing."

They both just said that it looked great. I didn't think they understood what I was about to do, or if they had, they didn't care, which was fine. They were still in not having opinions, indulge my mate mode. We grabbed a very quick bite to eat.

"Now I get it," Rome said.

We started to layer things and made sure that we layered them so that they were all going to be at a decent level and that we could all fit in this vision of us snuggling with our babies. Would we ever have that? I didn't know, but I wanted to make it possible.

It took some trial and error, but eventually, I had a nest to be proud of.

"What do you think, guys?"

Rome came up behind me, wrapped his arms around me.

Armel did the same on the other side.

I was officially the center of the best mate sandwich ever. "I think it's perfect. Now it's just time to wait."

A second later, I changed my mind. "We need Squishmallows." And off we went, back to the store. I had a feeling it wouldn't be the last time.