13. Poppy
13
POPPY
Something happened to Logan at work, and he immediately inserts himself completely up my ass. Then to top it off, he refuses to leave me alone, even if it is just to go to the bathroom. But he won’t tell me what it was that happened. So, every single time I get pissed off, it’s all his fault.
“Why?” I try to slam the door but he just walks right in. “I need to pee, and you’re too annoying to let me do my business without leaving me alone.”
“Humor me.” Logan’s eyes aren’t on me, though.
He is already looking back over his shoulder toward the main bathroom door like someone will break into the room at any moment. He even has his dominant hand resting toward his back, where I know for a fact that he carries his off-duty weapon.
“Lo.” I lower my voice. “If you check the bathroom and it’s clear, with no point of entry or exit except for the door, you can stand outside while I pee.” Motioning to my stomach, I sigh. “I’ve got a freaking basketball here, and I’m already embarrassed enough that I farted on you this morning. Can’t you just let me pee alone?” Unashamedly pouting, I take a deep breath when I see the tension release from his shoulders.
“You’re not gonna try to escape through the window or anything, are you?” He watches me carefully, trying to figure out what my thoughts are. “You don’t have a getaway car stashed, right?”
That is the other thing that’s started to bother me. It is like a switch flipped, and the man who usually stands confident in the feelings that I have for him is gone. In his place is a man who questions every single thing. Every look. Every word. If I didn’t feel like I’m about to start peeing down my leg, I’d set him straight right now. But it isn’t like he can go anywhere. We are off on the same day for the first time in a week, and he’d finally convinced me to go out to eat.
The offer of taco pizza is one that I literally can’t turn down. Especially when our baby starts to jump when I even think about eating the pizza.
“I’m not going to fit out the window even if I want to.” I stare pointedly at my stomach, which seems to grow by the second. “I promise you’re fine.”
Logan eyes me suspiciously and then walks out of the bathroom without another word, which may have saved both of our lives.
Me, because I really am about to piss myself. Him, because if he didn’t give me this little bit of breathing room, I genuinely would pull his head off by the neck and tear out his spine.
I barely get my leggings down over my thighs before falling backward onto the porcelain. Once I finally finish, after what feels like a five-minute break, I have to lean forward just to get the leverage to get up.
“Seriously,” I huff to no one but myself once I manage to get my leggings back up. “This is all the crap no one tells you when you get pregnant. Like sure, Poppy. You’re gonna glow. But you’re also gonna struggle to get your freakin’ pants up over your ass. Oh, sure, you may not have shown at all for the first half of the pregnancy, but now there’s no hiding the fact that you’re gonna pop out Logan’s giant baby.”
“Who are you talking to?” Logan sticks his head into the room while I wash my hands.
“Myself,” I snap. “Remind me not to let you get me pregnant again. This shit is definitely for the birds.”
Logan smiles then, and I want to slap the dimples right off his face. Either that or sit on them. I can’t make up my mind, and I blame him for every single moment of the confusion. He’s responsible for turning me into this giant mess of hormones and anger and horniness.
“Let’s go.” I stop in front of him, turning my face up so that he can lean down and kiss me. “I’m starving.” He leans down and presses a soft kiss to my forehead.
“I love you, Poppy.”
“I love you too, Lo. Now let’s go because if your kid dances on my bladder anymore, I’m not going to be able to eat before I have to pee again.”
I don’t tell him that I’m not really hungry for food at that point because my hormones need to take a chill pill. At least until we get home. I’ve already had him once, first thing in the morning. Now, I just need to make it to the house.
“I wonder how often Parker’s having sex with Remy,” I muse when we get back to our booth.
Logan pauses, his drink halfway to his lips before he cocks his head to the side and opens his mouth. “I don’t even want to know the route your thoughts took to get to our friends and their sex life. But I know you’re gonna tell me anyway.”
“Okay.” I draw on the table in an imaginary circle with my finger, my eyes locked on his. “So, I’ve been ridiculously horny, since before I even found out I’m pregnant. Which you know. And it’s only gotten worse as the pregnancy’s gone on. So it has me wondering if it’s worse with twins. Or maybe it’s the opposite. And the only one I know that I can ask is Parker because all the other women are having one baby too. So they’ve gotta be like me. Just horny all the time. But if Parker is doubly horny, is it because there’s twice the hormones? Or is it less because there are two in there to settle her down.” Phew. Rambling like that has me thirsty, so I steal the drink right out of Logan’s hand and drink half of his Dr. Pepper in one swig.
“Caffeine, Poppy. You’re not supposed to have caffeine.”
My only response is the burp that I don’t even try to hide.
“I give it a six out of ten,” Logan says distractedly. He is too busy staring over the top of my head at whoever has just come into the restaurant.
“You’re crazy. That was at least a seven, just on length. Not to mention, I’m almost eight months pregnant. Where did all that sit in here?” I motion to my stomach, which is actually fairly well hidden by the table. “It’s like the air came out of the baby. Not just me.”
Logan doesn’t answer me. I look over my shoulder, trying to figure out what has him so distracted, but all I see are some of the firefighters.
“Hey, Josh!” I call out loudly, causing half the restaurant to go quiet. At least until they see my craziness waving at my friend like a lunatic. “How’d that baby delivery go last night that I sent you on?”
All the firefighters around him start laughing, and I can’t help joining in when I see the red flush creep up his face.
As a group, they move to our table, and I slide out of my side of the booth and into the other side so that I can force Logan to rub my back while I eat. Although, I don’t have to force him to do anything, because his nondominant hand immediately starts a soothing rub of my lower back.
Josh and two of the other three men take my old spot in the long booth, and the last guy grabs a chair from the table behind us. Then he positions himself so that he is sitting with his back to the wall, practically at my side. As close as he can get without actually sitting in the booth with me.
“You think Vi is gonna freak out about us joining you guys?”
“Nah,” I tell him with a smile, leaning into Logan, who immediately wraps an arm around my shoulders. “She hasn’t come to get our order yet. Just drinks so far. But she knows what I want already, so really it’s just Logan who needs to order.”
“Great.” Josh turns to the men at his side, who can really give the guys at BPD a run for their money in the looks department. “These are some of the guys from BFD. Gino Ramirez, with the crazy green eyes.” He motions to the tan man sitting right next to him. “The blond one who looks like he should be surfing is Ryder Cook.” The two of them nod but don’t say anything. “And then, of course, you know Kevin Young, Chloe’s brother.” He nods at the man at my side, who grunts in response.
I stare at Josh like he is an idiot, before shaking my head. Of course I know who he is. I went with Logan to celebrate the man’s life, and they served together overseas. But I also know he was hurt, and he doesn’t like to be touched. Ignoring everyone else, I lean over slowly, so that he can see me coming.
“You wanna feel the demon spawn?” He stares at me with uncertainty in his amber eyes. “I just drank half of Logan’s Dr. Pepper. He’s gonna be jumping around like crazy here in a minute, and Logan pissed me off so I don’t want him to be the one to benefit from it.”
Still ignoring the silence that fills the air around us, I wait for him to make up his mind.
“Chloe keeps making me do the same thing,” he admits quietly. So quiet that if I hadn’t been waiting and watching his mouth, I would have missed it completely.
Hesitantly, he finally reaches out, and I take his hand with a huge smile on my face.
“This. Right here. This is his ass.” Then I watch as the tension leaves Kevin’s body and awe fills his face. “I told you. Soda makes him go crazy. It’s hilarious.”
For a long few seconds, everything is right in the world. Logan has his arm wrapped around my shoulders, and one of his best friends gets to escape the craziness and the nightmares that I can see are still haunting him, if the dark shadows under his eyes are anything to go by.
When the baby starts to settle down, I let go of Kevin’s hand. He leaves it, surprising not only me, but Logan as well.
“I love you, Poppy,” he whispers against the side of my head. “Thank you for doing that. He needed it.”
“I know.” I smile even wider when Vi comes up to our table with a pizza in her hands.
“I went ahead and put this in for you as soon as I got your drinks. I figured you’d want to get started while I put the rest of the food order in.”
Eyes wide, I stare up at her while blindly reaching for the food in front of me. “I love you, Vi. If it wasn’t really weird, I’d ask you to have my babies.”
Vi laughs, waving me off. “No, thanks. I’ve got enough on my plate without worrying about a baby. Y’all are crazy, all of you having kids at the same time.”
“You’re telling me.” Logan shakes his head. “I don’t even want to know what’s going to happen when the office has to find coverage for all of us when we go on paternity leave at the same time.” He looks over at Josh. “You might get stuck with the troopers covering the city, too.”
“Not me.” Josh laughs. “My last shift is this weekend. I’m going full-time with BFD after I take a vacation week to go fishing with my brother.” His face goes dark for a second. “You know, to get his mind off the fact that his ex-wife just got sentenced to life in prison for attempted murder.”
“Bitch wrecked my baby,” Kevin mutters darkly. “She deserves it.”
I can’t help the merciless laugh that leaves my lips. “What kind of car was it again, Kevin? Like a Toyota or something, right? Something annoying and feminine?”
He glares at me, but it does nothing to stop the smile on my face as I give him shit about the car that his sister was in when she got in a car accident with a psycho.
“It was a mint condition and fully restored 1965 Mustang, in midnight blue. Do you know how much it’s gonna cost me to have it rebuilt?”
“All that money that you got paid for being a prisoner of war?” I bat my eyelashes at him playfully, ignoring the sharp intake of breath that every single person at the table takes at my words.
Kevin, surprising everyone at the table, smiles and starts to laugh. “Great god above, girl. You always knew how to tear the Band-Aid off. What, did you and Chloe take lessons together in being a badass?”
Doing something that is a really bad idea, I pull him into a hug. An awkward hug, since Logan is still partially wrapped around my shoulders and I have a huge belly bump. But a hug all the same.
“Did you know,” I tell him quietly when he tenses up under my touch before forcing himself to relax, “that my brother and father miss you too? Dad said something about you spending time at the club before your last deployment. Maybe you should go see them. They might be able to help you get through it.”
Kevin nods, and when he hugs me back, I have to fight back the tears.
But I fail.
He lets me go, looking at me like he broke me.
“What’s wrong with your woman?” He looks over my head at Logan. “I didn’t hurt her, did I? I swear I didn’t mean to do whatever it was.”
“No, man.” Logan clears his throat. “You just… ha ven’t been yourself since you’ve been home. And you gave her a glimpse of what she misses about you, too. Plus, she’s pregnant and likes to cry at the drop of a hat right now.”
The stark honesty in Logan’s words has the tears pouring down my cheeks. But the smell of the pizza is too delicious to ignore. So I sit there crying while I stuff my face with pizza and wait for the guys to order their food.
“You know.” Logan wipes the tears from my cheeks between bites. “I really do love you. More than anything I’ve ever thought possible. Not only for what you do to me. But for the love that you have for my friends.”
“I know,” I tell him while still crying. “It’s why I didn’t put better locks on my doors.”
Logan picks up the hand that doesn’t currently have a slice of pizza in it, and he kisses my wrist while everyone else around the table laughs at what they think is a joke about my locks.
“Poppy.” He gives me a half smile. “There’s literally no door or lock in the world that can keep me away from you.”
“That’s cute,” Josh interrupts. “In a really stalkerish way.”
“Zip it,” I snap at him over the table. “Or I’ll wish for you to fall in love with a woman who won’t want you back.”
Josh narrows his eyes at me over the table.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Oh.” I laugh. “You don’t know me well enough to know that I absolutely would.”