17. Theo

I was going to be a father. I couldn't think of anything better than that… aside from my mate finally getting out of his craptastic job. His pregnancy was zapping energy from him like nobody's business, and adding that on top of his workload? He was walking around half asleep, and I hated it for him.

No more late nights was working out well for us as a family, but I knew it was adding pressure to him at work. It meant that he needed to get even more done during the week, and he had already been given too much of that. Fingers crossed that one of his job leads would pan out for us.

I pulled up to his office where he was waiting, and he climbed inside and kissed my cheek. "Thanks for coming to get me."

"I never give up a chance to spend time with my mate."

He flinched.

"I didn't mean it like that. I meant… I was being silly." I felt bad that he carried so much guilt over working such long hours. He didn't need to. All of this was an adjustment to both of us, and besides that, he was doing something about it.

"I know. Can I get a Mulligan on the account of hormones racing through my body?" He rested his hand on my knee.

"You don't need one, my love. You don't need one." I pulled away from the curb. "But what you do need is a break from work, and I have the perfect idea."

Carlton's big meeting for the day was canceled, leaving him with a chunk of time "open." He told me he wanted to hide away and take a nap, and I told him I'd do him one better, and I planned to do just that. Not that sleeping under a desk and hoping no one saw you was a difficult thing to top.

"Are you going to tell me where we're going?" he asked, and I shook my head.

"Nope. But trust me, you'll love it." At least I hoped he would. If nothing else it would get him out of the office for a while, and that had to make it worth it.

"I can't believe we are going to be dads." Carlton had to be used to this conversation by now. I brought it up often enough. I couldn't help it—it would hit me out of nowhere again and again. I never thought I could be this happy.

Carlton told me that we wouldn't know for sure if our baby was a bear or not until they hit puberty. I didn't have a preference, as long as they were happy and healthy. That was all that mattered to me. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious. It was scary knowing that I might be raising someone I didn't fully understand. My mate assured me over and over that I was the exact father this baby needed. I really hoped that was right. Because I knew nothing about what it was like growing up as a bear, and I wanted our baby to have the best.

"I sometimes wonder if I'm going to wake up and have this all be a dream too, my love."

The store I was taking us to was close to his office and shared a parking lot with my favorite steak-and-cheese place. Worst-case scenario we had great sandwiches. Best-case scenario, we had a new bed.

"Lunch or shopping first?" I asked as I drove into the lot.

"Shopping?"

"Yeah, I thought we could pick out a new mattress for us." While my bed was soft, he preferred hard, and I figured it was best for us to find one that worked for us both, especially with him being pregnant. He needed a good night's sleep more than ever.

"Really?"

"You don't want to? That's fine. I just thought…"

"No, I want to. ‘Really?' Was more of an ‘I can't believe my mate is so unbelievably considerate that he would think of this' and not ‘Why is he doing this?'"

"I'm glad. Which first?"

"Let's do bed testing because I can always bring my sandwich back to the office if it takes us too long in there."

Technically speaking, the store was a furniture outlet and not just for mattresses. I'd looked at a few of the mattress-only places and quickly found out they were either overpriced so they could have a perpetual sale, were brand specific, or had horrible reviews. This felt like the best option.

We walked inside, hand in hand, and must've looked like serious buyers because three sales people raced to us, the first one grinning at the others after we told him we could use some help. I regretted it instantly because he was our shadow for the next half an hour trying to upsell us on everything and not once listening to what we wanted before showing us the next option.

"Thank you so much. I think my sweetie and I will need a few minutes to confer." I wanted him gone and was trying to be nicer than I longed to be. Pretty sure telling him I'd had enough of his bullshit and to leave us alone wasn't going to help us any.

"Thank you," my mate murmured close to my ear before nibbling on my earlobe. "We can leave or look ourselves. Your choice."

Had this not been the best place to go looking for a mattress, I'd have said we should leave. But it was, and they weren't exactly the type of thing you could buy online. I mean, I suppose you could, but I doubted the results would be as good as if you tried them out first.

"Let's try them out. If he continues to be a butt, we can regroup."

"Deal."

Finding the right mattress was a heck of a lot easier once he was out of our way. We already knew what kind we wanted, it was just which brand and firmness level. Less than ten minutes later our decision was made. The sales associate was more than happy to ring us up, and it was available for delivery same day. We couldn't ask for much better.

We hadn't officially decided to live together yet. I wasn't sure why. We didn't sleep apart—ever. I blamed my humanness on it. To me we were already going at warp speed. Adding moving in together, while it was something I wanted, seemed too quick of a thing to bring up, which was ridiculous given he was carrying my baby, but so be it.

"Where would you like it delivered?" the man asked, and without skipping a beat, Carlton gave him my address. It made sense. We were there more often than not thanks to our little furry matchmakers.

"Lunch?" I held out my hand, and he took it.

"Lunch."

The steak-and-cheese place lived up to the hype, both of us enjoying the greasy goodness. I'd read somewhere that things like this were good for pregnant bellies. Carlton hadn't had many issues yet, but they were probably around the corner. He'd already started to not want some of his normal favorites, and I was pretty sure that was a precursor to morning sickness. I hoped not, but all signs indicated yes.

"Let's get you back to work before your boss thinks I kidnapped you."

As much as that place sucked my mate's lifeforce, the people were nice, and I could see why he never wanted to let them down. If there were a way for him to keep his job and not have it put him in an early grave I'd be all for it. He'd been looking at their postings to see if there was a job with fewer hours opening up. So far there hadn't been, but it wasn't a lost cause.

"I don't wanna." He stuck out his bottom lip in a faux pout.

"You can call in sick for the afternoon?"

"No. I have things to do, but all this talk of a new bed has me wanting to use it already."

Me too, but I wasn't thinking about a nap. My mind was in a far dirtier place, and I loved it.

"Good thing it's coming tonight. We can try it out as soon as you get home, if they are on time." Which was another reason I was getting antsy for time.

I needed to strip our bed, get the babies shut off in another room so they didn't get stepped on or have a mattress dropped on their little bodies, and finish up my own work. I was getting to be as busy as my mate. But at least mine were because of fun things. At least the mattress part.

"Fine. Bring me back to work. And don't think I'm not on to you," he sassed.

"On to me?"

"You just want to drop me off so you can ogle my ass as I walk inside."

"Now I do." I giggled, and as I dropped him off, I did exactly that. I needed to take my mate to work more often.