Well, when she put it that way. I frowned. “If you get tired…”
She raised her right hand. “I solemnly swear I will tell you the moment I get too tired.”
That was craftily worded. Still, I understood what she wanted to do. “All right, Babe,” I said, tucking her arm through mine. “Where do you want to walk to?”
She glanced at the street before looking at me and making a face. “I really don’t know what’s on this side of town.”
Laughing, I pulled out my phone and pressed a couple of buttons to bring up the app and called a car.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you somewhere you can go for a walk.”
Once we were in the car, I said, “Battery Park, please.”
“Oh!” Frankie lit up and sent me a bright smile. “I’ve been wanting to go down there.”
I was aware. One of the amusing things about moving to Manhattan and then living here for the past several years, at some point, we’d just stopped playing tourist. Battery Park had been on the list for a long time.
“There’s plenty of places to walk, to sit, we can get lunch…”
“A real date.” The fact that she lit up at the idea had me kicking myself. We really had been hovering the last several weeks.
“We’ve been neglecting you, haven’t we, Babe?” I turned her hand over in mine. The rings were absent, but when her fingers started swelling, she took them off rather than risked having to cut them off.
“No,” she promised. “You really haven’t. We’ve all been trying to get everything ready for the bump. Then there’s work—I had so much to do before taking leave. Though Eddie giving me six months seems a bit extreme.”
Okay, at that, I laughed. “Dad found out that at six months, it would probably be okay for you to bring Bump to work with you, and don’t think he isn’t angling for that.”
She groaned, but her smile kept winning out. “Does he really think Jeremy is going to let me take the bump anywhere?”
“Probably a battle he’s looking forward to waging.” The grandparents were all just having way too much fun and we’d let them have it. Our priority was Frankie.
Once at Battery Park, she needed a bathroom, and then after that, we walked through the gardens before we made our way to the waterfront. It was just nice to just be, no rush, no meetings, no press of waiting to get back to testing the engine.
Jake and I were so damn close. So close. We’d found about fifteen hundred ways it didn’t work, but I rather hoped we finally had a line on a way that it did.
Leaning against me, Frankie sighed.
“Tired?”
“A little,” she admitted. “But it’s so pretty out here. Can we just stay for a little longer?”
We could do whatever she needed. But I did move us to one of the benches, even if it involved paying off the folks using it. There were many tourists out actually being tourists. Once we had the bench, I bunched up my jacket for a back cushion, and then we sat there until her yawns took over.
As dates went, it was actually going to be one of my favorites.
JAKE
Three weeks to her due date, and I found myself hating every single time I had to leave the house. Between her libido, which hadn’t cooled once in the last few months, her cravings, and how fucking beautiful she was so swollen with our child—yeah, there was nowhere else I wanted to be.
Right now, though, we were in the shower and I was washing her hair. I’d pulled a shower chair inside it because her feet had been starting to swell and I didn’t want her overdoing it.
“I miss taking baths,” she confessed as I massaged the shampoo into her scalp. “I miss being able to just soak and indulge.”
“Soon, Baby Girl,” I promised. “After the baby, you just need to heal up—what six weeks? Then we’ll make sure you get a long hot soak every single night. We’re gonna work out a schedule too so that you have one of us backing you up at night, so we can all look after him or her.”
She laughed. “Well, if we go forward with breastfeeding then I’m going to need to pump so you can use bottles too.”
“I like this plan, though I freely admit, I love these breasts more.” They’d seriously swollen over the last few months. When I’d pushed them together to fuck them, she’d laughed so hard, but she’d let me do it.
A little bit of white foamed over one peek as I massaged her breast. That was going to take some getting used to. But I didn’t mind.
“Hair, Jake,” she said with just a hint of laughter to underscore the command. “My breasts are a little too sore to come out and play.”
“What about your pussy?”
“Actually…”
The minute she said that, my stomach bottomed out. “Actually, what?”
“Actually, it is a little sore. Kind of hard to describe. You know—achy, but you guys were very enthusiastic this weekend, so I am not complaining.”
I studied her as I knelt there in the shower. “You sure?”
“I promise.” Her green eyes softened as she touched my cheek. I moved my hand to her swollen tummy and the distended belly button. The piercing was gone. Had been since not long after the lines turned pink. Her belly had gotten harder and harder as of late.
All normal, but still… “Maybe we should call the doctor and just be on the safe side?”
“Or we can call your mother, who has had four kids, and we can run it by her?” The suggestion immediately made me nod.
“I like it.” When I reached to turn off the water, she stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Baby Girl?”
“My hair?”
I stared at her blankly for a moment then at her hair. “Shit, sorry, Baby Girl.”
Her laughter filled the shower. I helped her rinse it, then condition it and after all that, actually helped her finish washing up before I did my own sketchy shower.
We put off calling Mom until after breakfast. Then I got to have a front-row seat to Frankie discussing our sex life with Mom. Not one of my favorite moments ever, but the amusement on Frankie’s face and the full-on belly laughs were worth it.
She had an appointment in a couple of days anyway.
IAN
I went through the next set of chords, pencil gripped in my teeth. Frankie dozed in the chair in the garden with Miss Abigail sprawled out on the stone in the sun a few feet away. Tiddles and Tory were sitting in the doorway, well laying in it. They didn’t venture out so much as just doze right there.
Since she’d become pregnant, the animals always wanted to be around her. I kind of got that. We wanted to be around her too. Not totally happy with that chord, I switched it to another, and Frankie sighed, shifting in her chair.
“Not that one. Bump doesn’t approve.”
I chuckled, replaying the earlier one. “Better?”
“Yes,” she said with a yawn. “Much. Apparently, Bump has definite opinions.”
“Well, Bump’s mama has fantastic taste when it comes to helping me with my music,” I told her. “And if the bump prefers the first set of chords, then that’s what we’ll do.”