Ripped - Cassia Leo Page 0,44

I step out of her Acura SUV onto the curb. By the time I make it to the front door, I’m already out of breath. I can’t wait for this pregnancy to be over.

My lower back is constantly aching, I can hardly eat because there’s nowhere for the food to fit, and the past two days my pelvic-floor muscles have been tight and achy with constant pressure. I constantly feel like I have to take a huge dump. I’m so over this.

My mom follows me to my bedroom, turning down the bedcovers so I can lie down. “Are you hungry? I can bring you something to eat in bed.”

“Mom, we just ate two hours ago at your house,” I reply, grabbing my iPad off the bedside table.

“I know, but you’re eating for three. Those babies need all the nutrients they can get in these final days of the pregnancy.”

I shake my head, hardly able to believe that my mom is encouraging me to eat. “I’m fine, Mom. Can you just put the girls down for the night and get my phone out of my purse? I need to call Adam and see where he is.”

“Of course,” she replies as she sets off.

After she brings me my phone and disappears upstairs to get the girls ready for bed, I dial Adam’s phone, but he doesn’t answer, so I leave a message. “Adam, we’re back from my mom’s. She’s getting the girls ready for bed. Where are you? I thought you weren’t going surfing today… Anyway, I—” I’m interrupted by Kaia leaping onto my bed. “Hey, sweetie, what are you doing?”

“I came to say good night,” she says, flashing me a toothless grin. “I love you, Mommy.”

“I love you, too, baby. I’m leaving a message for Daddy. You want to say good night to him, too?”

“Good night, Daddy. I love you to the stars!”

I laugh and plant a loud kiss on her cheek before she heads out. “Come back soon. I love you,” I say into the phone before I end the call.

I place the phone on the bedside table and turn over onto my other side so I’m facing the bedroom door. I want to be able to see Adam when he walks in. At this stage in my pregnancy, being surprised has the ability to make me piss my pants, which is not at all sexy. Not that I’m going to be having sex tonight or any night for the next two months or more. If Adam were to fuck me tonight, he might break my water.

Hmm… Maybe we should have sex tonight.

I shake my head at this ridiculous thought as I open up my eBook and continue where I left off. But after just a few paragraphs, my eyesight blurs as my mind drifts to thoughts of what’s going to happen after these babies are born.

The nursery is ready, my mom is all set to step in should the babies arrive after Adam leaves for Hawaii, and Adam claims he’s spoken to his sponsors about retiring after Pipeline. Though I’m not sure I believe that.

Adam is notoriously a very bad liar. He knows that, often, people who lie add too much detail to their stories in an effort to add credibility, but it usually has the opposite effect. So Adam will usually skim over the details when lying, because he thinks this makes the lie seem more credible. It’s double-reverse psychology, as I like to call it. And it doesn’t work on me.

My mom comes in to bid me good night before she leaves, then I continue reading for a while until I come to the end of the chapter. As a former English major, I immediately see the parallels in my life and the structure of the story. I’m coming to the end of a chapter in my life. Actually, if my life were a book, we would be coming to the end of the part told from Adam’s point of view. Our whole marriage, even our relationship in college, was always about what Adam wanted. I know having your feelings and desires ignored is not a reason to cheat, but that’s what happened when Adam and I were living together in college.

I played the part of the nagging girlfriend who wanted to know what Adam planned to do after graduation. I thought I had a right to know, since we were living together. He played the part of the moody, angry boyfriend who was being stifled by