Just Good Friends (Cheap Thrills #5) - Mary B. Moore Page 0,15

but eventually, Garrett nodded slowly and moved to do what I’d asked. It was Dave who tackled it a couple of minutes later.

“What’s in the box, Zuri?” he whispered as he made a show of setting out my chess set on a kick-ass tiered table.

I didn’t play the game, and I didn’t understand it, but when I’d seen the four-level wooden game table and the intricate and beautiful chess pieces that came with it, I’d fallen in love. I’d tried teaching myself how to play, but in the end, I’d come to the conclusion it was just going to be a piece of art for me.

Glancing around to make sure no one was near us, I leaned in closer as I carefully unwrapped one of the pieces. “It’s my protection. I meant to unpack it yesterday, but I usually put pieces in the furniture—”

“Protection?” he hissed. “Like safe sex type, or weapons?”

The question was that ludicrous that I forgot to monitor the volume of my response. “Really? Safe sex? What the hell do you think?”

The room went silent, and I felt all eyes on us.

Shooting a carefree smile at everyone, Dave just waved a hand. “She’s like a sister to me, guys. I need to read her the riot act.”

Holy shit, this guy was good.

And just like that, everyone went back to what they were doing. Half an hour later, after Dave had repeatedly stressed rules and quizzed me to the point I was getting a headache, Tabby came over and joined us with Rose, who was holding the base of her back.

“I swear these babies are pushing my ass hole out of my body,” she moaned as she sat down and lifted her feet onto the box in front of her. “It feels like all the gravity in the world is centered right here,”—she motioned to the bottom of her abdomen—“and it’s pushing everything down and out. I had two pieces of toast earlier, nothing on it apart from some butter, and the bloating is hell. Add that onto the pressure down below, and I’m not even sure my body knows what to do next.”

“Let her be the example of why you have safe sex,” Tabby snickered.

Dude, no shit.

As a lover of random facts, though, I couldn’t stop my mouth from sharing them. “Did you know that on average, fifty percent of women get hemorrhoids during pregnancy? It can be exacerbated by constipation and labor, too.”

Rose blinked at me, but Tabby leaned forward. “I didn’t have either of those. Is it common for women to get constipated? Maybe I should’ve written down what I was eating and started a blog to help women avoid getting constipation and hemorrhoids.”

Passing the unwrapped chess pieces on my lap to Dave with my non-decrepit hand, I picked up another pile and started on the first bundle.

“Roughly forty-six percent of women get constipated during pregnancy, and diet would probably have a lot to do with it. Women need to eat a lot of bran and roughage to help their bowels keep moving, and pregnancy makes it harder for them to do it.”

Looking at her husband, Tabby frowned. “Did I eat a lot of bran and roughage? I don’t even know what constitutes as roughage nowadays.”

“No,” he snorted as he put the pieces on the board. Thank God someone knew where they went. I’d made the mistake of throwing the box out after I’d bought it, and I’d used the instruction book as my emergency phone note pad, which had then been thrown in the garbage by accident when I was tidying up. “You ate a lot of shit. Donuts, cake, pies, candy—”

“I ate fruit and vegetables.”

“You ate fruit that’d been put into sweet things like cakes and pies, fireball. And I’m not sure tempura vegetables and mashed potato count.”

Shooting him a glare, she turned back to me. “That was for the first five months of the pregnancy because I had bad cravings. I also couldn’t stand the shape of fries, so I went for mashed potato, which is healthier anyway.”

“You added half a stick of butter to them, baby, and then topped them with a shit ton of grated cheese.”

“Both of which are dairy products and good for you,” she snapped.

Looking over at Rose, I caught her licking her lips at the food discussion. Yeah, someone was going home to make cheesy mashed potatoes later.

“I could totally go for creamed potatoes with cheese on top,” she sighed. “I’d put them on top of cake