“I’m queasy as hell. But not in the morning. It’s before bed.”
“I would tell you it’s only a couple more months, but I was sick until the day I gave birth. Each time,” she said, putting her hands on my shoulders and squeezing.
“Are we talking pregnancy horror stories on her wedding day?” Fee asked, coming in in her perfect black dress and heels, offsetting her pale skin and blonde hair. She had Izzy on her hip and Becca trailing behind, both in white tool dresses with black polkadots.
“My dress is tight,” I grumbled, working my hands down the seams, praying they would hold up.
“I know. Makes the expanding ta-tas look ace,” she said with twinkling eyes. “Charlie is already in the hall, pacing. It’s sweet really,” she added, her smile warm. I knew that, like me, with Fee’s screwed up past, Charlie was the only good father she had ever known too. “He walked me down the aisle too, but he’s nervous like he will forget the cue to start.”
I turned to face them, my lips twitching. “He’s totally going to make me do that cheesy father-daughter dance too, isn’t he?” When they shared a look, I sighed. “I blame you two for this, you know.”
“We know, hon,” Helen said, giving my hand a squeeze. “You ready to get married?”
I glanced down at my hand to see the big, almost obnoxious, round-cut diamond engagement ring on my finger. I smiled, like I always did. “Oh yeah,” I said with a nod, exhaling hard as they led me into the hall.
I knew I was supposed to be nervous. Even brides who had no second-thoughts about the man they chose got nervous. Or, at least, that was how it seemed. But if anything, all I felt was a calmness, a rightness.
Because what I was walking toward wasn’t just the man I loved, it was the feeling of home I buried in him.
He didn’t cry, thank God, because I wouldn’t have been able to handle that.
And it wasn’t his nature.
He looked me up and down and gave me his trademark smirk, but his eyes were just a little awestruck.
He took my hands and we faced the Justice of the Peace to repeat our vows.
He kissed me like he always did- hard, hungry, demanding, despite the hoots and claps and whistles from our audience. He pulled me close and I finally found the right moment to tell him.
“I’m pregnant,” I whispered in his ear.
His arms squeezed me tight for a long second. “I know.”
“How?” I asked, the question having been a burning one for ages.
He pulled back, giving me my favorite little wicked smile. “Baby…”
“What?”
“I’m a big fan of those tits of yours. Think I wouldn’t notice when they started getting bigger?”
Not expecting that, I let out a snorting laugh. “God, I love you,” I said, meaning it.
“I love you too, you pain in my ass,” he said with a wink as he pulled away from me to lead me out of the room.
The reception was full of a bunch of loud, rowdy Mallicks and all their crazy friends taking the opportunity to catch up like a bar on a Friday night.
Becca, chasing her forever-bullied little sister, managed to slam into the table holding the cake, making the whole back of it smudge against the wall. Fee’s littlest decided to spend half the time screaming, the other half vomiting all over her dress then sleeping like she hadn’t just put her parents through hell. Charlie made me father-daughter dance with him, doing so while giving me a welcome to the family speech that made me sob like a little girl.
And finally, when we had had enough fun, Shane grabbed my hand, told the whole of the room that he wanted to get me alone, then dragged me out of there.
We didn’t leave Navesink Bank for a honeymoon, both of us happy to simply spend a week alone in bed.
So that was what we did.Lea - 5 yearsApparently, for me, having babies was just like losing my virginity. Once I started, I couldn’t seem to stop. Shane was convinced it was just that I liked fucking him too much, which was definitely part of it, I’m not going to lie, but once we had the first one, eight months after our wedding day, I realized nothing had ever felt more right than seeing a little, squishy baby in the arms of the man I loved.
Jason was the spitting image of his father. And, according to Helen, every bit as difficult to bring into the world, weighing in at over nine pounds at birth. We waited with bated breath, and a bet between all of the Mallicks that had a truly obnoxious pot, to see what eye color he would end up with.
“I knew it,” I told Shane after the pediatrician appointment where the doc confirmed that enough time had passed, the eyes were going to stay blue.