Roomie Wars Box Set

This is her way of telling me to get my damn clothes off super-fast and make crazy love to her.

Happy wife equals happy life, right?

Chapter Three

Zoey

The first trimester is the longest three months of my life.

According to this book I’m currently reading, to understand the development of a baby, you best compare it to a piece of fruit. At sixteen weeks, I’m carrying an avocado—times two.

Sure, an avocado is smaller than a watermelon, but there’s no chance in hell I can push one, let alone two, out of my vagina.

Thankfully, the cycle of nausea has eased. One minute, I love the smell of fresh pineapple, the next, I projectile vomit giving Linda Blair a run for her money. Like I said, the longest three months of my life.

Aside from telling Mom and Dad, we decide to keep the pregnancy quiet until it becomes difficult because of my weight gain. Ironic, since I can’t hold a thing down.

Dad is being typical Dad—proud and rambling on about his grandkids’ future fishing trips to the lake near where I grew up. If they’re anything like the fishing trips he took me on back in the ‘90s, I say payback is sweet. If they’re wreaking havoc in my uterus for the next five months, they can endure Dad and his stories about his two-mile walk to school every day and how he got beaten up by some kid who stole his ball and jacks.

Mom is no better. Going from speaking on the phone once a month, she calls me daily, coincidentally at eight at night when I take my prenatal vitamins. My God, the woman can talk on and on about articles she reads, food I should or should not eat, and telling me the same story over and over again about how she carried me, and I turned her off to having more children. Great story to hear when you’re a hormonal mess.

I crave solitude. Since I work for myself and have a small office downtown, I can escape daily and throw myself into working for new clients. I have taken on a huge project just outside of town, building a ranch property for a high-profile celebrity.

Keeping myself busy with work takes my mind off the pregnancy and all the weird things my body is now doing. Take, for instance, heartburn. I’ve never had it in my life. And don’t get me started on the untimely gases that choose to leave my body without warning. It’s times like this that I’m grateful for an office on the ground floor because elevators are a death trap for others riding with me.

Drew tells me to slow it down, that I have plenty of time to wrap things up. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. The guy is a workaholic. The only reason I don’t get all five-stage clinger on his ass is because he’s saving lives. I’m selfish but not that selfish.

After dedicating much of my adulthood to my career, giving it up once the babies come doesn’t seem like such an easy thing to do. I wrack my brain trying to think of ways to expand so I can work from home more, but nothing I come up with works.

So back to square one of my failed plan.

Drew and I barely have time for each other these days. Conflicting schedules and crazy hours are his life due to the hospital being short-staffed. I knew this would be our life once we married. It’s never going to slow down. We do, however, make an effort to take small road trips when we can, a few day trips to the mountains, and once a month we schedule one day at home to binge-watch movies, but that’s all pre-babies.

I can’t ask for a better husband, but Drew is overbearing at the best of times. You’d think I’d have seen it coming since we’d been roomies since forever, but he takes it to a whole other level. Mom and him combined are annoying the living daylights out of me, to the point that I walk out of the room leaving them to pick out which breast pump is the best on the market. I feel like a human experiment. Breast pump? The thought of whacking out the girls in public terrifies me. Occasionally, I have witnessed mothers breastfeeding with that blanket covering them. They look like they have it all under control. Knowing my luck, the blanket will fall right off, and my nipples will be swaying around spraying everyone with milk like a loose fire-hydrant hose.

The only thing I can do is block out the noise of other people’s opinions and seek joy in the very few things that still make me happy such as tonight’s tickets to The Best of the ‘80s. Belinda Carlisle, Tiffany, Bananarama, and too many others to name.

I flatly refuse to bring Drew along—his aversion to anything from this era has almost cost us our marriage. However, my best friend, Mia, is the perfect date. Pregnant or not, I’ll be making an appearance and dancing the night away.

Mia arrives promptly at three wearing black tights with an oversized Whitney Houston tee and sparkling white Reeboks. Her ebony hair is teased and compliments her fluorescent pink earring hoops that fall past her jawline.

We plan to get there early by beating the peak traffic, grab a bite to eat, then take our seats and catch all the opening acts.

Inside the car, Mia connects her phone and chooses her ‘80s’ playlist to get us in the mood.

“Girl, you look amazing. Love the Footloose shirt.”

I lower my head, tugging on my shirt at the same time. There isn’t much choice in my wardrobe, and thank God this still fits me. Throw in the maternity tights I found at Target and some pink ballet flats, I have to admit I’m pretty comfortable. The crimped hair is just an added bonus courtesy of Mom’s hoarding. She found my crimper in some old box stored in the attic. I’m shocked it still works and didn’t burn the place down with some electrical hazard.

“Thanks, you look great, too. I’m so excited. What do you think they’ll open with?”

I can barely contain my excitement, bouncing in the passenger seat hoping to make it to the venue without a restroom stop.

“Oh…” Mia sighs. “Tough choice. I’m thinking Belinda, Heaven is a Place on Earth?”

“Yes. Or maybe even Summer Rain. It’s such an underrated song.”

Mia nods in agreement before cussing like a sailor at some moron who has cut us off.