So, this song made complete sense to me when I had to pick one, plus I really would lay her down in a bed of them if she wanted me to. It only took twenty seconds for me to regret my choices, though. What made me do it was the fact that Jose hadn’t looked at me once throughout the dance, and now the men were all glaring at me, too. Every single woman there, including my wife, was too busy staring at the stage as Jarrod sang, his deep voice making it impossible for them to look away. I had one thing going for me that the other men didn’t – she couldn’t go and stand in front of the stage like the other women were. She had to stay with me for the full six minutes and thirty-three seconds that the song lasted for. When it finished, the men clapped louder than the women for the poor man who was pretty much running off the stage, well aware of why we were all so happy that it was over. With the smile on Jose’s face though, I didn’t regret my choice one bit.EpilogueI was the size of the iceberg that the Titanic hit, I shit you not, and everything was pissing me off today. My shoes, my panties that came up to my boobs, the boobs that wouldn’t fit in my bra, the fact that thanks to the Texas heat I had humiditities. Men will never ever be able to understand what it was like to have these huge watermelons on your chest with big old mammaronis on them and then have to deal with the heat coming from them thanks to the Texas sun. And to add to it, every Piersville resident appeared to have come to get groceries at the same time as me, so I had to schlep twenty miles across the parking lot to the front door because I’d parked in the far corner. Walking through the sliding glass doors – something which I did nervously after stupidly watching a scary movie last night where they closed and cut the guy in half – I breathed a sigh of relief at how cool it was inside. Getting a cart, I was torn between hoping that Liv would and wouldn’t want to sit inside it. If she did want to, I’d get kicked in the vagina as we walked around, plus I’d have to lift her into it. If she didn’t, she’d run off finding things, and I’d have to run around after her. Pushing the panel back to flatten the seats, I asked, “You getting in?”
With all the attitude in her two-year-old body, she gave me a dirty glare. “No way, I’m shopping.”
Shit. I was about to lay out the rules for her ‘shopping’ when my phone rang with Ellis’s ringtone.
“Hey.” That was all the energy I had in me after that walk, a downcast hey for my husband who was leaving me to maneuver around the shop on my own. Normally this wouldn’t have been an issue for me, but I was feeling a bit sorry for myself today. Fucking hormones!
“Uh oh, what’s wrong, baby?”
He got me, he truly got me. I know there was no way to miss the fact I was in a funk because of the tone I’d answered with, but right now that didn’t come into it. My husband had some sort of ESP and had known I needed him.
“I’m at the store, and I had to park in Mexico to walk through a parking lot that’s hotter than Satan’s backyard to get to the doors.”
His laughter made me roll my eyes because he was inside an air-conditioned tattoo place, he had no idea how hot it was outside. Especially not while you were carrying – and cooking – another person inside your body. “Mexico?”
“Feels like it,” I muttered. “And Miss. Olivia doesn’t want to get in the cart because she’s shopping.”
“That might not be a bad thing, baby. The last time she kicked you in the vagina so hard you thought she’d broken it.”
I still wasn’t sure she hadn’t. My poor crotch portal was under a lot of strain with the pregnancy as it was, and when she’d seen Dad walking around as he picked up something for dinner, she’d screamed and moved so quickly she’d lost her balance. She might only have little feet, but Tabby had bought her a pair of bright pink glitter Doc Martens, and when her leg had come flying up, that glittery boot had connected right in the center of the war zone. Dad had moved here after the wedding, deciding that he wanted to be close to his daughters and involved in his grandkids lives. He’d never had another long-term relationship, and had no other kids apart from us, so he was free to make that decision. We were still learning about each other because twenty-eight years of life can’t be retold in one night, or even one month, but both Tabby and I loved that he was so close. Wylda hadn’t hung around after that day either, and I found out later that it was thanks to both Dave and Dad. They both had the ability to do some digging and investigating into her life, and whatever they had found had been incentive enough to skedaddle and forget I existed. Maybe I should feel upset about that, that I was so easy to leave behind, but I wasn’t. I had Tabby, Dave, Dad, Liv, Ellis, and I had my friends. I’d even done the Piersville Pirate Festival this year without fainting or knocking myself out, or even throwing up thanks to the morning sickness that came and went as it chose. So, it was fair to say that I was in a good place emotionally and mentally, even if my vagina wasn’t when a small boot tried to break it.