FORTY-EIGHT
BLAIR
Baby is the size of a newborn goat
I’m pretty sure I’m going certifiably insane. There’s no way women are supposed to be pregnant for the full forty weeks, and the ones who are pregnant until forty-one weeks must be some of the bravest souls in the world.
Maddox’s phone rings far too many times for my liking. Just when I think the answering machine is going to pick up and I’m going to have to be an even bigger annoyance by calling a second time, he answers, out of breath.
“Blair?”
“Can you send Colt home, please? He’s not answering his phone.” I’d rip him a new one for that later, after I got what I needed from him.
“Is everything okay?”
“No. I need this baby out of me immediately.”
“You’re in labor? Colt!” he yells without remembering to pull the phone from his mouth and I wince at his volume.
I sigh in irritation.
“I’m not in labor,” I tell him through gritted teeth.
Perhaps it’s not his fault but the fact I am still pregnant is a very touchy subject for me right now and he’s delaying something I just researched may help.
“I need Colt here to help me get this baby out of me the same way he got it in me, so send him home before I come and get him myself.”
I hang up before he can argue again. If Maddox Whittaker knows what’s good for him, my boyfriend will be coming through the door in the next five minutes.
Colt indeed comes home with a smirk on his face a few minutes later, wrapping his arms around my waist like there’s not a massive boulder between us.
“I can’t believe you called my boss and got me out of work so we can fuck.”
“I can think of a really good way to thank me for that.”
40 weeks + 3 Days
“This is actually a bit of a workout,” Tate says from the end of the line. She, Austin, Kenny, and I had gone into town to curb-walk up and down Main Street.
Well, I’m the only one that has to curb-walk.
The rest of them just seem to be doing it for moral support.
The people who pass us on the sidewalk look like they’re either very confused about a line of four women doing some odd exercise, or very sympathetic at my discomfort and touched by my sisters-in-law’s support.
I’m just done .
Beyond done, really.
Colt and I had sex practically nonstop the last two days and yet, I haven’t gone into labor. If this doesn’t do the trick, I’ll be banging down the doctor’s door early tomorrow morning and demanding a membrane sweep immediately.
“Tate, I don’t think Blair wants to hear that right now,” Kenny says gently, likely taking in the way my hands are pressing against my lower back and how I keep leaning against every bus stop sign we pass to rest for a moment.
Tate whistles low and then, “Sorry, Blair.”
“It’s fine. You guys don’t have to also do it, you know.”
“It’s not bothering me,” Austin says back. “Honestly, I might just come down here and do this a few times a week. Maybe it’ll give me a better ass.”
I snort. “You’ve got a perfect ass as it is.”
Austin smiles at me and blows me a kiss. “An even better ass then.”
“Rest in peace to Maddie if you get an even better ass,” Kenny adds in, and somehow the conversation breaks my frustration up enough for me to laugh along with them, despite curb-walking.
I’m still a bit iffy around Colt’s mom, but I’m coming back around to thinking I might really be considered a part of this family again.
I can’t get the look Maddox and June shared at the table that night out of my mind.
Like they’d been talking about me and my potentially not-a-Whittaker baby for weeks behind my back.
For someone who’d spent sixteen years never fitting in at any of the homes I’d lived at, it had hurt to think the home I loved the best didn’t consider me family.
Maddox was easier to forgive because he hadn’t liked me anyway.
He’d never made me feel welcome prior to that night.
He’d always been gruff and short and blunt, so when he brought up the DNA test, it hadn’t really been a surprise.
It wasn’t until the panic attack in the barn that he’d started softening up to me and that I’d started considering him more of a brother-in-law than a vague acquaintance in the first place.
But June… I’d already been considering her “Mama” in my mind.
Someone who’d helped me through some of the hardest pa rts of my pregnancy since I got to Cedar Creek and someone who’d be holding my hand while I gave birth.
I haven’t outright shunned her or anything since that night, I’ve just been cautious.
I’d always been cautious with people I couldn’t get a read on, or couldn’t trust just yet.
If it bothered Colt, he didn’t say anything.
She hasn’t apologized, but there isn’t anything for her to apologize for, really. She needed to protect the ranch. It was me who’d gotten a little too comfortable a little too quickly with her, I think out of desperation for someone who’d shared the same experience I was currently living.
We reach the end of Main Street and I huff, sitting down on the bus stop bench.
Should I feel contractions by now? How quickly did curb-walking work?
Kenny comes up and pulls my hair from behind my back, twisting it into a quick braid while everyone sort of just stands there and waits for me to recuperate.
“Don’t get pregnant,” I warn the group as a whole.
Austin snorts. “I’m way ahead of you. I’ve already gotten fixed.”
“Really?” Tate asks and dives into a million and one questions that I close my eyes and tune out, reveling in the feeling of Kenny’s fingers in my hair.
She’s definitely not going to abide by my advice.
She’s got Mom written all over her. Honestly, I probably won’t abide by my own advice either.
Colt’s too good at sex and the idea of him having a son after this baby is pretty freaking cute.
I eventually give up the curb-walking and decide to get dinner with the girls instead, on Colt’s dime since it’s his fault I’m so uncomfortable.
I suppose I played a part in it all, but no one who’s ever looked at Colt would blame me for that.