Chapter Eighteen
Edris
I hated to leave my mate when he was so pregnant, especially with triplets, but I needed to go back to the city to handle the closing on the condo.
The homeowners’ association, being the jerks they were, didn’t allow it to be done any other way.
It was such a joke needing to be present when the new owner and I’d signed off on the condo association document.
But I had to follow the rules or fight them, and fighting would take time.
The last thing I needed was to be dealing with this when our little ones were here.
The second the papers were signed and the check delivered, I sent Zac a text telling him it was done. He called me immediately.
“Let me guess, you’re off to Disney World?” he teased, although I could see us heading there in a few years with our kids.
“Nah, not for a good five years. It’s time to put in a saltwater pool.”
I was joking, 1000 percent. Did I miss our saltwater pool at the condo? Absolutely. But I wouldn’t trade any part of my life now for it.
“As long as you stop home first. I miss you.”
I missed him too and drove straight through, arriving home as quickly as I could, to find my mate sound asleep in the recliner.
Getting in and out of bed had been a struggle for him lately, but the recliner had been working…
sort of. He still wasn’t sleeping well, but some hours were better than no hours.
The pregnancy taking a toll on his body. The healer kept telling us everything looked great, and I believed him that it looked great for a pregnancy of triplets, but that didn’t mean felt great. My mate was exhausted, achy, and miserable.
“Hey, honey,” I murmured, brushing a kiss on his forehead.
He cracked his eyes and smiled. “It’s a long drive. I was expecting to find that you’d stayed over at a hotel on the way and to see you this afternoon.”
“I couldn’t be away from you that long.”
“You look tired.” He reached up to my chin.
“I think we’re twinsies that way,” I said. “I have to run into town, but I wanted to see you first. They gave me a paper check, and the quicker I can get that in the bank, the better.”
“Bring me back a cinnamon roll?”
“Absolutely.”
Layla would be expecting me after missing two days in a row.
I’d been getting him one pretty much every day for the past month.
They were the one thing he could always stomach.
I teased that it meant we were having three girls because of the whole “sugar and spice and everything nice” nursery rhyme, but in truth, neither of us cared what gender our babies were, as long as they were healthy.
The bank was a quick stop. Go, small-town customer service.
The bakery, however, was not so quick. Layla insisted I wait until the fresh batch was out of the oven and that my mate eat something more than just sugar, making an omelet filled with an entire garden’s worth of vegetables for me to bring home to him.
It was covered with cheese in an attempt to make it look less healthy.
Knowing my mate, he’d scoff at it and then eat it anyway.
I expected to come back and see him still sleeping in the recliner or trying to convince himself to get up.
Instead, he came out of the bedroom, his sweatpants rolled below his belly and a shirt that at one point would have fit both of us, barely covering his belly button, his hair damp. He was so freaking hot.
“Breakfast is here.” I grabbed some dishes and brought them out to the table, plating the food. No one liked to eat out of Styrofoam, or if they did, it wasn’t my mate. He said it made noises, his hearing getting far better as the pregnancy went on.
“I did some research,” he said, pushing a notebook toward me.
Where did that come from?
It was confusing at first, but when I opened it up, even more so. Pages and pages of information about saltwater pools, all handwritten and hand-drawn. “When did you have time for this?”
“I’ve been doing it for a while. I think it’s doable, and if we build a pool house that we connect to this house, we can use it year-round.”
“We don’t have to get a saltwater pool,” I said. “I was being silly before.” Note to self, don’t joke about things like this.
“I started this when you put your condo up for sale,” he said. “You gave up your life in the city, your career track, your friends, and your pool. Let me at least give you back your pool.”
“I don’t feel like I gave anything up.” I didn’t love that my bestie and I only talked by phone, but even that was nothing more than a slight inconvenience.
I looked at all the calculations, and sure enough, he’d done his research.
He had everything from the supplies for the structure, to where to buy the water, to the maintenance.
He’d gotten it broken down by time, who could do the work, and money.
It was impressive and to think he did it all on the sly.
“Are you sure? We can use this money for so many things.” I’d done really well on the sale of my condo, but that didn’t mean we should spend a large chunk of it on a pool.
“I’m sure. It will be good for the kids to learn how to swim, and it would be good for us. There’s nothing like it around here. Let’s do it.”
“Let’s sleep on it,” I suggested. “Maybe wait until after the babies are born to decide if this is really what we want to do.”
“I’ll wait, but don’t think this is a pregnancy thing.” He squeezed the entire zip-top bag of frosting Layla sent for him. “Unlike these cinnamon rolls.”