Great Sass (Providence Family Ties 1)

Even talking about them didn’t take away from the hilarity of the memory. I’d firmly placed them in two categories in my heart and mind—Before Cooper and After Cooper. The Before Coopers were hilarious and like a second set of parents for me. “His dad stood up on his chair and screamed, ‘That’s my boy!’”

Throwing her head back, she laughed even harder. “Please tell me someone caught it on video?”

Nodding, I wiped my face with my hands. “Of course. I think it’s on YouTube, too.”

Looking over, I caught her watching me with a big smile on her face. “It’s memories that’ll keep him alive, Elijah. I want to hear all of them, and if there’s a video to support it, even better because I get to relive the experience like I was there with you.”

I’d been close to the tipping point from ‘I like you very much’ to ‘I love you like fuck’, but those words tipped the scales into the latter.

I’d never said the words to anyone who wasn’t family, though, so I needed to figure out how I was going to do that. Instead, I moved into her space and hugged her against my chest. “You bring me peace, Sadie.”

Rubbing her face into my chest, she murmured, “You bring me everything, Elijah.”

Hook, line, and sinker, I belonged to Sadie Odessa Dahl.

And she was having my fucking baby.

Which reminded me. “I need to feed the two of you, pixie.” Rubbing her belly, I suddenly couldn’t wait to feel it kicking and moving around.

“Can I have jerky?”

We’d stopped to pick up some groceries on our way here, and when she’d seen a pack of jerky, she’d gotten her first craving.

“So long as you don’t mix it with nasty shit like ice cream and pickles.”

Way the wrong thing to say, apparently, because she gulped in a mouthful of air and went pale.Chapter SixteenSadieI was going to bloody brain him.

Was it possible for a vagina to explode? None of that asking for a friend nonsense—I was asking for my poor nunney.

Last night, I’d had a nice shower and felt refreshed, and like I could survive, then the nausea had hit. Fortunately, the puke boy scout had ginger ale, anti-nausea medication, crackers, these chunks of crystallized ginger, and Gatorade to hand—literally to hand.

I’d come out to get some water, hoping it would help, and he’d taken one look, bent over the edge of the bed, and up came a pregnant puker’s worst nightmare or biggest dream depending on how you looked at it. I would have started with the anti-nausea medication and a sip of ginger ale, but he’d made me have some of each. Now, granted, it worked, but he’d woken me up twice in the night to make sure I hadn’t thrown up in my sleep. Actually, that was kind of cute, so scratch that.

However, he now knew the perfect temperature for showers and baths, so he’d gone out to get a thermometer—a digital human one—to stick under the water to make sure it wasn’t too hot.

This morning, I’d woken up to an anti-nausea pill being pressed to my lips before I’d even opened my eyes because Parker said it was best to take it first thing, and more Gatorade. Again, the temperature of the shower was checked, and he intermittently stuck his arm in with the thermometer to check it through the duration.

I’d smiled and chuckled, thinking he was cute—while freaking out internally about what he was going to be like as a dad—and had then gone to get a cup of coffee, reminding myself it had to be medium strength.

The first mouthful convinced me I’d been poisoned, and when I opened the garbage can to dump out what was in the filter in the coffee maker, I’d seen an empty packet of decaf that he’d poured into a regular tin to trick me. Not so cute. After some searching, I’d found the real stuff and had made a cup of medium/weak coffee and was just sitting back to enjoy it when he stuck the thermometer into it and said it was too hot.

And finally, fina-fucking-lly, I put on a bikini that had been packed for me, and he’d banned me from going out in the sun because I could ‘overcook the baby.’ So I was sitting in the shade while he checked the temperature outside on his phone and cross-checked with the Gods of Google if that was allowed.

“You know,” I called sweetly, getting his attention. “If you don’t calm down, I’m going to shove your phone and your thermometer up your arse.”

Apparently, I was too sweet because he only nodded and continued doing what he was doing.

“Okay, this says you’re fine to come into the sun, but you can’t spend long periods outside in case you overheat. You need to stay hydrated—”