11. Chapter 11
Graham
The first time I saw my mate standing there naked, I thought he was the sexiest man to ever exist, and he had been. But nothing prepared me for how he was going to look pregnant. Damn, that omega was fine.
During the first part of his pregnancy, Ewan had the cutest little baby bump ever.
He’d still been my sexy omega, with this tint of adorableness, and I couldn’t get enough.
I kissed his belly any chance I could, constantly put my hands on his bump, talked to our little one all the time. It was the best.
And then his little bump grew to where he could no longer wear his regular clothes.
And that adorable little belly got hotter.
I was still talking to our little one and kissing his belly all the time, but it also had me feeling like I did that day he was in heat.
I couldn’t keep my hands off him. Best of all, he didn’t want me to.
It was a good thing he was already in his second trimester by then, and the exhaustion was long gone, because neither of us was getting enough time to sleep thanks to our knotty good time.
Now we were well into the third trimester.
His belly was huge. So huge that Cora questioned if we missed a twin in there because of his size.
She listened for heartbeats often and only ever found one.
She even borrowed an ultrasound machine, just to be sure.
In the end, she determined it was his position that had him out front for all to see.
I both loved and hated how large Graham’s belly was. I adored it when we were alone. It reminded me of our love and how we were going to be a family of three soon. And of course, it still turned me on. Somehow it had regained the twinge of cuteness his initial bump had. I couldn’t get enough.
When we were out? That was a different story. I hated it, and I hated that I hated it.
I hadn’t realized it before, but I was a possessive alphahole, and when strangers reached to touch my mate’s belly, I wanted to smack their hands away. There were a few times when I nearly did.
When they squatted down to say hello to our little one, I wanted to push them over.
When they made a comment about how good my mate looked, I wanted to growl, as if I were a wolf shifter and not a farmer.
I despised this side of me but struggled to keep it at bay.
There were days my mate found it amusing that I was so jealous of random people that meant nothing to him, and then there were times like today, when I could tell he was getting annoyed.
That was why I decided we were done with our baby shopping at the box store before getting through all the aisles.
As much as I wanted to do better with my possessiveness, I didn’t think I was going to be able to settle down until this little one was here.
“Let’s pay for what we have and grab something to eat.”
He looked at the cart, which was overflowing. “We need to do the thing where we whittle this down,” he reminded me.
It was part of our process. We would put everything we were interested in in our cart and then decide which things we really wanted at the end.
We didn’t do this at all stores, but for baby things, it became a necessity.
Baby shopping was a test of willpower. It was so easy to find the cutest onesie ever one minute in, only to go to the next aisle and realize it wasn’t that cute because this next one was the new cutest onesie ever.
“Not today. Let’s just get it all.” Our baby was going to be so spoiled. I wasn’t sure I cared. As long as we didn’t let them become the brat part of spoiled, I didn’t see why he couldn’t have the best of everything.
This was far from our first trip baby shopping, and his uncles, which was what his cousins decided they wanted to be called, had already gifted him more things than most sets of triplets would need. They were as excited as we were about the baby.
“You’re sure?”
“A hundred percent.”
He half shrugged and then waddled towards the register as I pushed the cart behind him, loving my view.
When we were all checked out and to the car, I pulled out my phone to see what places there were nearby to grab something to eat.
This wasn’t our normal town to go shopping and we weren’t familiar with the area.
We’d only come here because the store had the car seat we’d settled on in stock, and it wasn’t farther away, just in the opposite direction of where we usually ventured.
“What are you in the mood for?”
“Hmm. Tacos… No. Scratch that. Ice cream… No. A burger.” He kept going on like that, unable to decide.
Each time he named a new food, I would type it in just as he changed his mind. We went through every cuisine I could think of before he settled on breakfast. Breakfast for lunch it was. I found a diner that served it all day, and we took the short route right there.
It was exactly what you’d expect from a diner from years gone by. I couldn’t tell if it was designed to look retro, or if it actually was old. But it was perfect for what we wanted. I could smell the grease the second I got out of the car.
I reached for my mate’s hand to help him get out and steady on his feet, and didn’t let go until we reached our table. My mate was no longer able to fit in booths, much to his chagrin.
“Have you ever been here before?” I asked, and he looked around as if he wasn’t quite sure of the answer.
“Maybe,” he said.
The server came over before I could ask what he meant by that, and he ordered a breakfast special and I ordered a burger.
When we first got together, I felt a little weird eating beef in front of him, given that he was a cow—not really a cow, a bull, but I had spent most of my life calling all of them cows, so it was a hard habit to break.
He insisted it was fine because I’d never eat a shifter.
And I believe that to be true, despite the fact that my mate could have easily ended up being sold for food that day.
He swore he’d have shifted in front of someone, if that were the case.
It still had me shivering at the thought of it.
“When you said ‘maybe,’ does that mean it looks familiar, or...”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t look familiar, but it feels familiar. Is that weird?”
“Yes. But also, what about our lives hasn’t been weird since we met?”
“That’s true.”
My food came quickly, and it was good. Nothing I’d dream about at night, but not a place I’d avoid either. And just as we were about to leave, a woman came over to our table.
“Sue Ellen. I haven’t seen you in forever.” She hugged my mate.
I half remembered that she had been his grandfather’s neighbor, the one who had slept away an entire month and who gave birth in a barn. The first part didn’t worry me, the second kept me up some nights.
“Look at you! I heard you were having baby, but I didn’t realize you were just about to have a baby.” She squatted down and talked to his belly, and unlike with other people, I didn’t mind. I hadn’t minded the hug, either.
“You be good, little one, and do your daddy a solid. Come and meet us when you’re in the house and not the barn.” She stood back up. “Did you guys come here because you heard we bought it?”
“Nah, I hadn’t heard, but then again, maybe I did because I sort of remembered this place.”
“That’s because my parents took us here for lunch. When your grandfather...” She never finished the sentence.
He’d mentioned losing his grandfather and how the neighbors had been so supportive during that time.
It didn’t take a sleuth to see this was all connected.
If he wanted to share it with me, I’d gladly listen, but everything about his body language shouted he was ready to move on with the conversation.
“You must be his mate.” She turned to me.
“Yeah, I’m Graham,” I lowered my voice, “Can you give me some hints on how to keep the baby from coming in the barn?”
She chuckled. I didn’t see the humor.
“Well, don’t let your mate be stubborn and decide he wants to eat all the hay after his due date.
” She ruffled my head like I was a little kid, despite not being much older than me.
“Be sure to invite me over when the baby comes. I want to meet them. If luck is on their side, they’ll look just like Graham.
” She winked and off she went, grabbing the check the server had left on the table and ripping it in three.
“I should be offended,” Ewan said, “but it’s hard to be offended when lunch is free.”
Fate seemed to know that conversation was exactly what I needed because everything felt lighter when we left the dinner to head home.
Knowing that the horror story of giving birth in the barn hadn’t been an average birth gone wrong, it had been a stubborn, very food-motivated shifter who refused to give up their hay made it preventable.
And while I too had a very food-motivated shifter at home, he looked truly terrified to repeat her mistake. I was glad.
I wanted our sweet baby to have the most perfect, easy, wonderful transition that was known to man, and for my mate to feel absolutely no pain. I knew neither of those were possible, but an alpha could dream.