As soon as he’s out of earshot, I sigh. “Great. Now you chased off my food source.”
Brant’s hand tightens around my waist. “Are you hungry?” he asks, looking over at me. “We can get you a plate.”
“It’s not time to eat yet.”
“It’s our wedding—we can do whatever the hell we want,” he says dismissively.
“I guess that’s true,” I murmur, looking longingly at the cake.
“Like, for example, I’m gonna murder Dirk.” He shrugs. “Wasn’t on the schedule. Just improvised it. It’s our party, so we can go wild.”
I grin, leaning into his chest and running my hand over the lapel of his jacket. “You’re not allowed to murder Dirk. I like him.”
“Hence… why I’m going to murder him,” Brant says, looking down at me as if doubting my intelligence. “Man, we do need to get some food in you.”
I shove his broad shoulder, but then I wrap my arms around his chest and hug him tightly. “I love you, husband.”
With a tender smile that’s just for me, Brant curves his arm around my back to hold me close, bends just enough to kiss the crown of my head, and tells me, “I love you, too, wife.”
28
Alyssa
Life as Mrs. Brantley Morrison is pretty damn great.
Following our wedding, Brant and I don’t take a traditional honeymoon where we go somewhere on vacation, but he does take the whole week off to spend with me.
We spend our time well, too.
Every morning I convince him to linger a little longer in bed so we can snuggle. Every night he possesses my body until we’re both seeing stars. Some days we spend inside with him introducing me to his record collection and dancing with me in our bedroom, or we cook together and watch movies. Other days we spend outside where I can admire the raw strength and power of my incredibly sexy husband while he chops wood and rakes leaves and does everyday tasks he thinks nothing of, but God, do I love watching him do them.
Every hour of every day is spent together over the course of that week, replacing all the awful distance that was between us before the wedding with intimacy and closeness.
I should probably get sick of him at some point, but I don’t. He should probably start to miss the solitude he was used to before I came around, but he doesn’t seem to.
Everything is perfect.
I finally start to show in mid-October, and my bump seems to pop all at once. One day my tummy is flat, the next day I go to button my jeans and they won’t close.
Brant is amazing with the baby, and she’s not even here yet.
We found out we were having a girl during our second ultrasound. She was moving all over the place on the monitor, so I asked the doctor why I couldn’t feel her yet. As he was explaining, our daughter flashed him her little lady bits. He stopped midsentence then turned to us and asked if we wanted to find out the gender, or if we wanted to be surprised. We both felt there had been enough surprises associated with this pregnancy, and Brant wanted to know what colors to paint the nursery, so we told him we’d like to know.
Every night since that appointment, Brant curls up on the couch with me and rests his hand on my tummy, waiting to feel her kick. I’ve felt little twitches and blips that might be movement, but it’s too faint to tell. I don’t want Brant to be disappointed that she never kicks for him, so I point out that if I can hardly feel it inside, there’s little chance he will be able to feel her from the outside.
Still, he waits for her every night, not wanting to miss her first little kick.
He’s already a great daddy, and it makes me fall that much more in love with him.
My head is so heavy as I try to wait for Brant to get home. He doesn’t close the bar much anymore, but tonight the manager had to go home sick, so Brant had to go in.
It’s the first night in a while he hasn’t been here to rub my tummy and wait for Mackenzie to kick him, even though she never does. I miss him, and he’s only been away from home for a few hours.
I think pregnancy is starting to make me needier and more sentimental than I usually am. I miss Brant all the time when he’s not around lately, even if he’s just downstairs when I’m still upstairs.
Right now I’m desperate to give up the good fight and let my eyes drift closed, but I don’t want to go to sleep without him.
My whole body suddenly jerks at the sound of my phone vibrating on the end table beside me. I shake off the sleep and blink a few times, then I reach for the phone to see what the notification was and notice the time.