eyes nearly every week since she’d announced her pregnancy.
“I’m fine. This is totally normal.” Talia and Aurelia had reassured her of that several times over the last two weeks. They’d both experienced the same thing. Talia called it her body’s way of practicing for the big day. She had given birth to her adorable little boy, Evan, named for Derek’s mother, Eva, just after Christmas, and Aurelia had delivered her and Ben’s impossibly cute son, Christopher, right after the New Year.
“You should go home and put your feet up,” Kase said for the tenth time in as many minutes.
She glowered at him. “If you and Harley and everyone else in my life does not stop helicopter parenting/sistering/brothering/friending me, I’m going to kill all of you.” She continued descending the steps and said, “Remember, I’ve had nine long months to figure out where to hide the bodies, and I’ve put every puking, amazing moment of it to good use.”
“I still can’t believe Harley let you come to work when you’re almost ready to pop.”
Piper rolled her eyes. “When have I ever allowed a man to let me do anything?”
Kase mumbled, “Whoever said motherhood softened a woman was dead wrong.”
“Nobody has ever said that. If anything, motherhood makes you stronger. I’d like to see a man carry a human inside them for months without losing their minds. See how guys feel when the baby jumps on their bladders the second they finally fall asleep or makes them puke every time they try to eat a frigging doughnut.” Puking had been her first clue that something was off with her body. She’d been at Willow’s bakery with her sisters before work one morning when she’d eaten her normal goodies and puked them up five minutes later. Her sisters had felt her head, asked her all sorts of annoying and personal questions, and within minutes they’d decided she was pregnant.
They’d decided.
Piper, on the other hand, had taken more convincing.
She’d taken three home pregnancy tests, all of which were positive. For the life of her she hadn’t been able to remember ever missing a birth control pill. Her doctor had gone through a list of medications that could hinder the effectiveness of pills, but she hadn’t taken any. He’d then gone through other sources of potential conflicts, like flaxseed, which was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. Her doctor had doubted that the amount of flaxseed Willow had used in the health-nut muffins she’d started making over the holidays was enough to cause issues, even though Piper had been eating them nearly every day. He’d said Piper was simply among the few who could get pregnant while taking birth control pills. Her mother swore it was the extra F she’d been putting in Piper’s lotions, and Harley claimed it was his supersperm.
She didn’t know why her birth control had failed, but she had a feeling that life just had a way of tripping people up now and then, and if her life with Harley was any indication of how good tripping could be, she couldn’t wait to be tripped up time and time again. One thing she did know for sure was that love as powerful as theirs was meant to be shared, and she was looking forward to the day they’d meet their little bundle of joy. They’d decided not to find out the sex of the baby, and they’d gone with a neutral theme in the nursery: white walls with randomly placed quarter-sized black polka dots. It was clean and simple, with a white crib and dresser and a picture above the dresser that read YOU ARE OUR GREATEST ADVENTURE. They decorated with stuffed giraffes, rabbits, and elephants and pictures of the same. Piper built a white ladder-style bookshelf, and her father had made a gorgeous rocking bassinette. Piper had spent far too many hours in the rocking chair John Love had made for them, dreaming about what it would be like to have their baby sleeping in that room and what it would feel like to see Harley holding their little one.
She followed Kase into the bright, cheery café. Marshall had hired Everly Love to paint colorful murals on the walls, and they never failed to fill Piper with happiness. Sunlight spilled through the large windows, gleaming off the refinished hardwood floors. The ordering area of the café was to the right of the main entrance. There was going to be open seating at the front of the café, and the