20. Brooklyn
Chapter 20
Brooklyn
As each day of his pregnancy passed, Marcelo got yummier and yummier. He was so freakin’ adorable and sexy—an irresistible combination. Jackson and I couldn’t keep our hands off him. It was a good thing he didn’t want us to.
Every day his belly grew larger and rounder. He complained that he couldn’t see his dick anymore. We assured him it was still there and showed him we could easily find it… often with our mouths.
“It’s time to go,” Marcelo called from the other room. I hadn’t even realized he was up yet. Jackson and I had left him to sleep in. Apparently that plan was a fail.
I’d been drinking my coffee in the kitchen because he didn’t love the smell of it right now, which was fair. I offered not to drink it at all, but he insisted it was fine and drinking it in the kitchen was our compromise. I set my coffee mug down and went to see what Marcelo was talking about.
As far as I knew, we didn’t have any plans. But that didn’t mean we didn’t. Things had been pretty hectic setting everything up for the babies.
“It’s time.” Marcelo had his phone in his hand.”Let’s go.”
“Time for what?” I asked.
“It’s time, time,” he said, rolling his eyes.
Apparently, I was missing something he thought was pretty obvious. I couldn’t for the life of me think of what it was.
“Can you remind me because I don’t remember?” And I felt kind of awful about it.
“Jackson, where are you?” Apparently, he was done talking to me and had moved on to our mate. I had to admit, pregnant Marcelo kept us on our toes.
Jackson came in from the den. “What’s up?”
“It’s time for the nest.” This time Marcelo didn’t hint or assume we knew a single thing. He just said it and was I ever grateful, because at least I knew what I was dealing with now… sort of.
“Are we going somewhere?” Jackson asked.
“Yes, we’re going shopping.” He put his hands on his belly. “It’s time for my nest, and nothing here is right.”
“I’ll drive.” I grabbed my keys off the side table by the entrance
“Can someone explain to me where we’re going?” Poor Jackson. He still needed to learn a lot of things about dragons, even though we told him everything we could think of that was important. It seemed like daily, we were still finding little bits of information he needed to know that we had accidentally omitted.
“I think our mate wants some things that we don’t have around the house for his nest.”
Marcelo nodded up and down.
“Oh. Let’s go, then.” Jackson grabbed our mate’s hand. Without further discussion, we were out the door and in the car.
“Tell me where to drive.” I turned on the ignition.
“Discount home goods store,” Marcelo finally said after a long pause. “Yeah, I think we’ll start there.”
Worked for me.
I wasn’t superstitious. I didn’t think that everything for a nest had to be from a dream or that if it didn’t use things you already had, then the babies would hatch late or early or whatever that old wives’ tales said. As long as my mate was happy and felt like we had done what was needed for our babies, that was all that mattered to me.
The store wasn’t too far, and I dropped him off at the front entrance and went to park the car. No need for him to have to waddle across the parking lot—and he was at that stage… the sexy waddling one.
When I got back, he was already inside, pushing the cart down the main aisle, Jackson looking unsure if he should follow him or wait for me.
“Are we supposed to know what’s going on?” Jackson whispered.
“Nope. Just whatever he wants is perfect. And then we buy it.”
“I can do that.”
Marcelo actually started in the nursery section, which surprised me because we had all the nursery items we needed at home already. Everything was set up and ready for the babies. We’d had so much fun doing it too.
“What about those weird chair thingies?” Marcelo pointed to a display of little foam chairs designed to help hold the baby up. I found them rather confusing and quite ugly. But they had a sign saying “Parent’s Favorite,” so maybe I was in the minority on that one.
“If that’s what you think.” Jackson reached for one of them.
“Brooklyn, is that spot big enough to hold an egg?”
“I think so.” It had been a long time since I saw an egg. “We need to grab one each.”
And into the cart they went, along with seven different baby blankets, four swaddle muslins, and some pillows with a knight and a castle on them, which I found great humor in. Our family weren’t the knights; we were the dragons they were fighting. At least in the stories, anyway. In real life, no one ever really cared about us. Not that I learned about. Fact and fiction were difficult to parse out when most of the people on the planet didn’t think you existed.
Next, we headed to the bedroom section, where Marcelo picked out sheets, mattress protectors, more pillows, and a couple of quilts. One thing was for sure—our eggs were going to be warm.
We looked around for a base for the nest, and nothing made him happy. Then he said he had an idea and led us to the pet section.
“Bad idea,” he grumbled after circling around it twice.
On the way to pay, we hit up the clearance section for shits and giggles, and Marcelo grabbed a bunch of $.75 Christmas lights. I wasn’t sure if he was early for the holidays or he wanted them for the nest, but he was getting more frustrated by the second, looking for something he couldn’t quite pinpoint, that I didn’t ask.
We continued our journey to the front of the store, weaving through the living room sets. And I instantly knew when he found it, his face lighting up as he pointed to the largest bean bag chair I’d ever seen. It easily could have fit four people.
“One of these—no, two of these.”
We had to get some help for that, and thankfully, they were vacuum sealed so that they actually fit in the car.
I had no idea what vision our mate had, but I didn’t need to because he did. As long as we did what he told us to, it would turn out exactly the way he wanted. And that was what mattered with a nest—the omega feeling secure in its ability to keep their eggs safe.
From the home store, we went to a thrift store. Apparently, Marcelo did have a little bit of superstition in him, and he wanted something old to be part of the nest. He ended up finding some children’s books about dragons and called that good enough.
We stopped for lunch and then spent the afternoon going from place to place, buying everything that caught our omega’s eye.
Once we got home, that was when the fun began. We arranged everything in the order he thought we should, layer by layer. Once it was done, he walked around it, laid on it, and walked around it again.
“It’s not where it needs to be.” He let out a long sigh, and the three of us went back to work, this time moving the entire thing to the other side of the room.
When it was all done, I had to admit, it was cute. I still didn’t quite understand the little bump seats that were all lined up along the wall beside me. If they were for holding the eggs, shouldn’t they be in the nest? That was a question for another day.
We hung the Christmas lights on the ceiling and above the nest, and I thought we were done.
I was wrong.
“This won’t work. I think we need a tent. A happy tent, though. Not like a camping tent.”
“A tent?” Jackson asked.
A few seconds later, Marcelo had pulled up an example of what he was thinking. A few clicks and a whole lot of money later, it was scheduled for delivery the next morning. It was shaped like a little treehouse and not like an actual camping tent. I could see why he liked it.
When it finally arrived the next morning, we lined it with fairy lights—I was no longer allowed to call them Christmas lights because it wasn’t winter—and we set it halfway over the nest, the opening pinned wide. It wasn’t quite big enough to house the entire nest, but our mate was happy.
“You guys are the best. Now we’re ready.”
Maybe the nest was, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about being the father our babies needed.