The Long and Winding Road (The Seafare Chronicles 4)
He fucking giggles.
“Stop it.”
“That’s pretty genius if you think about it.”
“I’m serious.”
“Hi, Serious. I’m—”
I slap my hand over his mouth, looking around to make sure no one is listening to us. “Don’t you dare. We are in public.”
He rolls his eyes, and because he’s a jerk, he licks my palm.
“Ugh,” I say, pulling my hand away. “You suck.”
He waggles his eyebrows at me. “You don’t usually have a problem with that.”
I gape at him. “Are you hitting on me? In front of a strip mall?”
“I’m your husband. I’m allowed to hit on you anywhere I want.”
“Oh, right. Sorry. My bad.”
“Look, just ignore the amazing sign—”
“Your definition of amazing is seriously skewed.”
“—and we’ll do what we came here to do. Bear, if we’re going to be in the delivery room with Megan, then we’re going to need to know this stuff, remember?”
“Yeah,” I say nervously. “About that. What if it gets… bloody, and I kind of… vomit.”
He cups my face in his hands. “Then we’ll deal with it.” He leans forward and kisses me. “Besides, I don’t think blood and vomit are going to be the worst bodily fluids in there.”
I feel a little queasy. “That’s not helping.” But we both know he’s right. Otter and I had… researched childbirth extensively, even going so far as to watch a few videos online of live births. It was then that I realized women will always be stronger than a man ever could be, given all that they go through. Afterward, I had hugged Anna when I’d seen her next, telling her that I had respect for the power of her genitals and the abilities they had.
She’d punched me in the spleen for that one.
Otter had watched the videos, absolutely fascinated.
I watched with my hands over my eyes, peeking through and seeing things that I could never unsee.
“If you can’t, then you can’t,” Otter says. “And that’s okay. We’ll figure it out. At the very least, Megan says I can record it, so we can watch it later.”
“That might be worse.”
“Unless we play it at their high school graduation party in front of all their friends.”
I stare at him. “Are you being diabolical?”
“One of us has to be if the other is queasy. It’s kind of written into our wedding vows.”
I put my forehead on his shoulder and sigh. “I’m sorry I’m being stupid,” I mumble. “I’m just… getting anxious. About everything.”
“Me too,” he says near my ear. “But it’s a good thing.”
“What if we aren’t ready for everything?”
“I don’t think anyone can be. I mean, look at Creed and Anna. JJ turned out—okay, maybe that’s not the best example.”