Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
“I had some toast. You don’t need to get me anything. I don’t eat a lot in the morning. I don’t get the severe morning sickness any longer, but I still get queasy. Nothing much has eased that.”
“Have you tried peppermints?”
“Like the candy?” she asks, and I nod yes. “Food in general is a no. I can’t imagine candy would help it.”
“We’ll pick up some of the melt-a-way peppermints. I bet it would help.”
“How would you know that?”
“T had to keep them at the club for Lyla,” I tell her. Then, when I realize who I’m talking about, I freeze, stealing a glance her way. Unfortunately, she catches me. This time, she’s the one squeezing my hand.
“Hey, it’s okay to talk about your family. It doesn’t bother me other than sometimes it reminds me of how off the wall I went. Shame can kind of smother a person,” she warns me.
“Don’t let it smother you. I’d miss that light you shine on me,” I tell her with a frank honesty that I don’t think she understands.
“You’re silly,” she laughs, confirming that she doesn’t believe what I’m saying. “What if we go by Frank’s for breakfast?”
“The doughnut place?” I say after frowning. I remember Crusher and Dani talking about it at the cookout.
“Yep. I do like cream filled doughnuts. Did you know they have banana cream ones?”
“I’m sensing you have a thing for all things banana,” I taunt.
“Just since the pregnancy, actually. When I was like four months, the cravings were horrible. I used to cut up whole bananas and toss them in a container of Cool Whip and eat the whole thing at once. It was both disgusting and delicious,” she confesses with a grin.
“Well, jellybean has to be a girl. Men don’t like bananas. That’s a sissy fruit.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“I’m a man. So, yeah, I got it on good authority.”
“I think you’re a nut,” she snaps back.
“You’re getting too sassy. Let’s get you to Frank’s.”
“That’d be good. They have breakfast sandwiches too, if you’re not a doughnut guy, King.”
“Oh, I like doughnuts. That’s clearly man territory.”
“Men and pregnant women?” she giggles.
“I think everyone likes doughnuts unless they’re aliens sent to live among us and survive solely on water and human brains,” I counter.
“Fighting squirrels, seventies porn, pre-teen sex, doughnuts, and now aliens. You know, King, conversation with you is never boring.”
“Right back at you, Sunshine. Right back at you,” I tell her, meaning every word. Time with Gabby never bores me. Today, like every day, it gives me peace.
Chapter 15
King
“King, I don’t need all of that.”
“I plan on coming over for dinner. That means I need you to have it.”
“That’s insane. Besides, all of this won’t fit in my car when I go to Denver. There will be too much stuff.”
“We’ll worry about that when the time comes. For now, it will be in your kitchen where it belongs,” I counter.
We’ve been shopping for over two hours. All of that has been in one store. Gabby took forever looking at curtains and sheets. Then, she got lost picking out paint colors. I picked up her gray color she wanted, with one small caveat. I asked the woman there about paint fumes and pregnant women. She directed me to the section made especially for that purpose. It contains less VOC’s—whatever the hell that means. I know it was more expensive and when Gabby tried to balk, I put my foot down. This is where a fight ensued. Mine by being an ass, her by being silent. It was a stalemate until I tried to pay. Then Gabby turned into a rabid dog. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had bitten me. The woman got so worked up I started worrying about the baby. For that reason, I let her pay for the paint.
Since then, though, I’ve been putting shit into her cart I know she needs and have made it clear I’m paying. She thought she was being smart and tried to take it out when I pretended to be distracted. It was a strategy that was fun to thwart. Things escalated to the point where I tagged a store worker to secretly collect the items she was putting back and place them in a separate cart. Gabby will lose her mind when she sees what I’ve done, but I don’t give a damn. The only thing we’ve agreed on without a clash are the curtains, blankets, and paint for the baby’s room. I don’t know much about colors, but the pale green she chose is pretty, and the baby blanket has greens, browns, and yellows in it. I find myself hoping she’s carrying a boy, because it seems to me a little girl should be covered in pastel colors, but then what do I know?
“Are we finished, you think?” I ask when she just seems to be wondering along, lost in her own world.