Women Are Crazy
Ryan
I couldn’t stop staring at my cell phone. The picture Sofia just sent me of herself made my pulse race and my dick throb. My woman was drop-dead gorgeous.
I would swear on everything holy that Sofia was even more beautiful carrying my baby than she was before she became pregnant. There’s nothing quite like seeing the woman you adore grow round and curvy with the product of your love. I always knew I wanted to be a dad, but I never truly understood just how much until meeting her and Matson.
I loved her son like he was my own, and I was determined to make sure that I never treated him any differently than his little sister. Not that we knew what sex the baby was, but I not-so-secretly hoped for a mini Sofia, a mini angel. It was a concern of mine and Sofia’s, one we’d stayed up nights talking about. We both wanted to make sure that Matson knew he was just as much my child as the one growing inside his mom’s belly.
Thankfully, it never even occurred to Matson to be concerned about it. He was just excited to be a big brother. “Like you are to Uncle Nick,” he’d said, and I’d felt like my damn chest might explode.
The only thing better would be making it all official. I’d proposed to Sofia at least a dozen times since we found out she was pregnant, but each time she told me no. The first time I asked, she was concerned that I was only asking because we were having a baby together.
“I don’t want to get married because I’m pregnant, Ryan. They’re two very different things—babies and marriage,” she’d tried to explain, but I refused to listen.
“I bought this ring for you before we found out. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not asking because you’re carrying my love child.”
She cocked her head to the side, bit back a grin, and narrowed her eyes at me. “Then you can wait until after the baby comes to decide if you still love me enough to get married.”
The idea that I wouldn’t love her enough to marry her was beyond absurd. It was official . . . being pregnant made women crazy. Well, crazier than usual.
Another time when I asked, she looked at me like I’d grown two heads. She flat-out refused to get married in a maternity dress and tried to convince me that they didn’t even make them, even though I knew they did. I’d researched them already, but knew if I told her that, I was potentially risking my life by arguing. Pregnant Sofia was a force no one wanted to reckon with. Plus, she didn’t want our wedding pictures to be me looking all hot and perfect in a tux while she looked like a beached whale in white.
Her words, not mine.
The other night when we were lying in bed, I tried to be sneaky and slip the ring on her finger, but the damn thing wouldn’t fit. I couldn’t push it past her knuckle before she realized what I was doing. I knew that once she saw the diamond sparkling on her ring finger, she’d never want to take it off. But she was so swollen, it only further proved her point instead of mine. She insisted that if she couldn’t wear the ring, then she wasn’t saying yes.
Women.
She claimed it was bad enough that her body would still be all out of whack in her bridesmaid dress for Frank and Claudia’s wedding, and that if I loved her at all, I wouldn’t ask her to do that twice. So I’d reluctantly agreed to wait until after our baby was born and Sofia felt beautiful enough to walk down the aisle to me.
I only prayed it would be sooner rather than later.
The desire to make this woman my wife overwhelmed all my other thoughts. She absolutely consumed me, especially after everything that had happened with her ex.
It wasn’t often that I thought about Derek and the car crash he caused, but when I did, I got all choked up, my breath catching as my throat closed up. I could have lost Sofia that night, and the very idea of not having this woman in my life was almost too much for me. I hated thinking about what he’d almost cost me . . . what I could have been forced to live without.
“Dude. Wake the fuck up.”
Nick snapped his fingers in front of me, and I blinked a few times and focused on his smug face.
“What the hell do you want?” I clicked away from the picture of Sofia I’d been staring at and put my phone in my pocket.
“I’d like you to join us here in reality where people are ordering drinks, and it’s your job to make them.” He swung his arm around, gesturing at the half-full bar.
“You make ’em,” I growled, fighting with him for no reason.
“Nah.” He spun and walked away, leaving me alone behind the bar.
Asshole.
I got my head on straight and smiled at the group of women waiting for me to take their orders as our older brother, Frank, walked in through the front door instead of the back.
“Finally,” I yelled to him, even though he was ten minutes early.
Frank gave me a confused look, shaking his head as he walked straight into the office and shut th
e door.
I decided that both of my brothers were dicks today.
Six cocktails, four beers, and three shots later, Nick finally made his way back behind the bar. “What’s his problem?” He nodded toward the closed office door.
I shrugged. “No idea.”
We both stared at the door, willing it to open on its own. Because the truth was, neither of us wanted to have to go in there and figure out what was going on with Frank.
“I’m not going in,” I said before Nick could suggest it. “I have a pregnant girlfriend at home. I can’t deal with any more moodiness.”
“Really? Pulling the pregnant-girlfriend card?”
I nodded vigorously. “Hell yes, I am. You just wait until Jess is pregnant.”
“I thought Sofia was an angel,” Nick said, his teasing tone sounding like Grant.
I missed that old man. He’d been spending more time with Matson’s grandmother since he met her than with us lately. I made a mental note to give him a ration of crap the next time I saw him.
“Yeah, she was. But now she has a demon inside her. She’s mean, man,” I said, exaggerating a bit.
“Fine. I’ll go in.” Nick turned on his heel but stayed put for what seemed like an eternity, but I was pretty sure it was only a few breaths. He’d only taken two tentative steps toward the office when the door flung open and Frank sauntered out.
He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at us. “Why are you both looking at me like that?”