Chapter 19
Briar
“You stay right where you are, and I’ll get the rest of the ingredients for you,” I told Maverick when he went to get up for the third time since he’d sat down at the table to work on his newest creation.
“I just need a couple, well, maybe a handful of things, and they aren’t even in the cabinets,” he protested, slowly beginning to leverage himself to his feet only to be stopped when Leo shot him a look of disapproval until he lowered himself back into his seat.
“Even if you need a dozen, Briar is perfectly capable of getting them for you,” Leo said sweetly, far too sweetly, since he was parroting what Maverick had said to him just the other night as he’d been working on matting photos for an upcoming craft fair.
We’d be sharing a rather large, family-filled tent for that event, which would be bustling with activity.
“Fine,” Maverick grumbled, huffing as he pouted and settled back into the seat fully. “Way to use my words against me.”
“Yup.”
I passed him a notepad, then checked on the batch in the oven while he wrote down what he needed.
One of the concessions he’d made before our doctor would allow him to continue working was that he’d only work for half a day and that he’d keep his feet elevated while he did, which meant there was a table and mini-ottomans in the kitchen where an abundance of empty space used to be.
He’d insisted on coming in with me first thing in the morning, not only because it was getting harder for him to drive the bigger his belly got, but because by two in the afternoon, he was one exhausted snow leopard.
“Here you go,” I said, after making sure everything I’d collected for him was to his specifications, right down to the sizes of white chocolate and milk chocolate chips he’d requested.
“Thank you,” he said as I leaned in to kiss him and got a soft purr in return. “Can you make sure to print up a new batch of comment cards for the Twisted Tea cookies and the chocolate delights? And please tell Nick to make sure he passes the right ones out with each sample.”
Sighing, I just smacked a hand to my face and shook my head, groaning at the memory of all the ways Nick had managed to find to screw up the simple tasks he’d been given since he’d come to work here. Thank the Goddess it was temporary.
“I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be eagerly and even impatiently awaiting Taylor’s return from vacation, but that’s the kind of thing he never screws up,” I grumbled.
Maverick just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Right! I felt bad for blowing up at Nick and then sobbing my eyes out while apologizing for being too harsh, but come on, he only had one job, just one, and he still couldn’t get it right.”
“At least he didn’t get stuck in the cookie costume again,” I said. “If I have to untangle him from that thing one more time, I’m just going to say ‘to hell with it’ and send his ass home that way.
Snickering, Maverick just sat there with a thoughtful look on his face.
“I mean, it would be free publicity. Not our fault he can’t follow simple instructions.
I told him when he volunteered to wear the costume in Taylor’s absence that the tights needed to go on first, then the bodysuit, then the cookie, which he would need to step into because it was absolutely not meant to fit over shoulders, let alone the head of the suit, and what does he do time and time again?
He either tries to pull it on over his head or tries to take it off over it. ”
“Yeah, I know, Mav, I know, but you’re not supposed to let things like that upset you unless you want your morning bake time taken away too,” I cautioned him, since his blood pressure had been a smidge elevated at our last doctor’s visit.
It wasn’t enough to be concerning, at least from a medical standpoint, but from an expectant mate standpoint, anything out of the ordinary was worrying.
“Oof,” Leo hissed and dropped his hand from the screen of the tablet to his belly, where one of the babies was probably tap dancing on his bladder again.
“Someone getting restless?” I asked as I moved around the table so I could place my hand beside his, eager to feel our babies moving.
Feeling my offspring squirm and turn inside my mates had become a favorite pastime of mine, and yes, I did like to sit between them on the bed, my hand on each of their bellies so I could feel the babies moving simultaneously, thank you very much.
One time I’d been certain I’d felt a tiny paw playing patty-cake with me, and it was the cutest damn thing in the world.
It seemed like they settled down the moment I started rubbing Leo’s belly, so I rubbed a while longer before kissing the top of his head and leaving him to work on sorting the latest batch of photos he’d taken for Maverick’s mother’s real estate agency.
With Mav beginning to work on his latest cookie creation, I was fine to turn the music on and work on the list of cookies I wanted to get baked before it was time to take my mates home for lunch and get them settled in before I returned to the Cookie Shop.
“Oof!” Leo grumbled as soon as I’d walked across the room. "When I turned to look back over my shoulder to see him rubbing his belly again. Curious, I crossed the room and knelt beside him, running my hands over his stomach again.
“Are you waltzing on Daddy’s internal organs?” I cooed. “You really need to stop that.”
Beneath my fingers, I felt squirming and a tiny foot pressing up against my palm, so I tickled it and felt a ripple of movement as one of our twins squirmed away.”
At seven months along, our babies were quite active and right where they needed to be, growth-wise.
“Someone thinks it’s playtime,” I murmured, continuing to trace my fingers over his belly, chasing that foot, while Leo grumbled about those tap-dancing feet trying to puree his liver. “I’ll see if I can get them to settle down.”
I asked the smart speaker to play Lullaby by Shawn Mullins and sang along while continuing to caress his belly, playing tag with tiny toes and tickling whenever I had the opportunity.
For about ten minutes they wiggled around in there, with my mate complaining about his insides starting to feel like they were being turned into a milkshake.
“If that’s your definition of calm, we need to buy you a better dictionary, because they are bouncing around so much it’s like they’re having a party.”
Maverick brushed flour off his hands and heaved himself out of the chair so he could come around the table, dragging his chair closer so he could sit and slide his hands up Leo’s t-shirt to feel all the rolling and kicking going on.
“Oh wow, are they playing ping-pong in there?” Maverick asked.
“They’re playing something, and I’ve got to pee,” Leo whined. “Oh my god, get me out of this chair!”
Mav scooched back while I stood so I could help him up. I swear, I tried not to giggle as he waddled as rapidly as he could manage, but a few slipped out that I was forced to smother beneath a cough when he turned to glare at me.
“If I were you, I’d break out the pomegranate lemonade sorbet you made last night and start dishing it up before he starts plotting your demise,” Maverick suggested.
“Pretty sure you two got started on that months ago.”
“There could be a hint of truth to that.”
“Just a hint?” I teased as I decided to take his advice and dish up sorbet for them both before the kitchen got so hot it melted it before they could take their time enjoying it.”
“Well, let’s just say that the end of morning sickness did mellow out the plots a smidge,” Maverick admitted. “You’re still on midnight feeding duty and laundry patrol, but we’re no longer planning to remove one of each sock from your drawer and stash them in random hiding spaces.”
“Oh good, it’s bad enough with the dryer stealing them.”
“Yeah, that pesky dryer can be evil that way,” he replied, giggling.
“The dryer hasn’t been stealing my socks, has it?” I asked.
“Some of them are really soft.”
“And you’ve stuffed them in the nest, haven’t you?”
“Every bit of fluff helps.”
“Uh-huh,” I groaned, deciding it would probably be easier to just go out and get more socks, since they had at least two more months of nesting and I was sure a few more socks would go missing during that time.
I placed the bowls on the table along with a pair of spoons.
Maverick dove right in, as did Leo when he emerged from the bathroom.
They were halfway through when Maverick’s phone began to chime, and he nearly sent it skidding off the table in his effort to snag it while still shoveling sorbet into his mouth.
“What in the world?” I asked as the phone went off three more times while Maverick bobbled it and sent it spinning towards Leo, who picked it up and handed it to Mav.
“Yes!” he declared as soon as he’d checked his messages. “Our packages are out for delivery. With any luck they’ll be at the house when we get home for lunch.”
“Sweet, that means we can find spots for everything,” Leo declared.
“And what have you guys been ordering this time,” I asked, “and will it require me to break my toolbox out again?”
“Probably,” Leo replied. “This might be the batch with the toy chest and the hampers.”
“It is,” Maverick explained, “and the ABC bookcase shelf, which is probably a good thing, since two of the other boxes are filled with children’s books, and the crib sheets and bumper guards have arrived too, along with the mobiles and the night light projector.”
“Which one did you wind up choosing this time?” I asked since we already had three.
“The forest scenes,” Maverick explained. “We got a smart speaker for their room too, so we could have thunder and wind sounds and other ambient music playing through the night for them.”
“What do you two do, shop while I’m sleeping?”
“Naa, usually it’s while we’re waiting for you to come home from work,” Maverick said. “In between napping, nibbling, and actually getting work done.”