Anchor - M. Mabie Page 0,74
of it on his tongue was enough to pacify my craving. I looked at it like a win-win. Beer and Lou. It was a delicious combination.
“My genes are strong, honeybee. That baby likes beer.” I giggled because it was true and my big fat belly bounced. “Don’t you? You know the good stuff.” He slid his hand in my shirt, like he did every night, and talked to the baby as it did flips on my bladder. His voice always caused movement, so it seemed they were already a pair I didn’t stand a chance against.
Tuesday, May 17, 2010
I DIDN’T STAND A chance against Blake and that baby. They had me right where they wanted me. Around their tiny pinky fingers. Becoming a husband and then finding out I was going to be a father, was like someone saying you won a brand new car, and free gas for life, and an island in the south of France, and a mansion, and all the beer you can drink, and blow jobs on the hour.
Okay, it wasn’t quite that obnoxious, but it was good.
Blake was incredible and every day I found new reasons to love her. When I watched her try three times to get her shoe on because she couldn’t bend around her big belly. When I made her laugh and she held her crotch to keep from peeing. When it took her two tries to roll over so she could wrap an arm around me in the middle of the night. My heart wasn’t just full, it was growing.
The house was alive with projects to get done before the baby came. A crib to put together. A room to paint. Shelves to hang. But I was too busy watching her. We’d bought Hook, Line, and Sinker and turned it into our dream jobs. I’d be making beer, hands on, and I could change it up whenever I felt the whim. The best part was we could work together.
No more solo road trips.
No more good-night texts.
No more missing her. Ever again.
It was perfect, too. I had my space in the building, which we’d expanded to accommodate the kitchen and microbrewery. She had her zone and I had mine. But we could ride to work together and at night when one of us was buried under, the other was there to help.
I’d watched my girl transform as the pregnancy progressed. After we made it through morning sickness, her belly seemed to pop out overnight. Thin shiny lines striped her skin where she stretched to hold our baby. At first I think she was a little embarrassed of them, but I thought they were bad-ass. They were like self-creating tattoos.
Her boobs got huge and a little aggressive, I might add, but I knew how to stay out of their way. Her rosy nipples had darkened, bringing a new reason for me to study them.
As time passed and the baby’s due date came closer and closer, it got more uncomfortable for her to sleep, and when she wasn’t working, eating or sleeping, she wanted to be fucking. I didn’t know pregnant women were so insatiable and unapologetic. I’d never heard, “Fuck me, Casey,” so many times in my life as I did in that nine months. She blew the fifty-eight times average right out of the fucking water in the first trimester. I was sort of proud.
It had only been that week when she’d lost some interest. She was napping more and cleaning non-stop. Micah said she was making a bird’s nest or some shit, but her restlessness was freaking me out.
We’d just fallen asleep when I felt her jerk and hitch her legs up to her stomach.
“Ow. Ow. Ow,” she panted.
I knew that sound. I was there when Foster was born, but we were still about three weeks until D-day. I flipped the light on and she was sweating. Just like I’d seen Micah do. Teeth bared and that crazy look in her eye.
“Blake, are you all right?” I’d been gently scolded yesterday. All I did was worry about her. About the baby. I was kind of losing my mind. Thing is, being overprotective isn’t a choice. I was innocent, but I was getting on my own nerves at that point.
Still, she’d never made that sound before. She’d never looked like that.
“No. Ow. No. Ow.”
We didn’t even have the bag packed. The fucking bag wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready. She was in labor and I was already fucking up.
“What can I do?”
“I