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I mean we both had a bit of a savings. Well, we had a bit in the bank. Adler had money stashed all over. He kept saying he would take a weekend and go collect it all, move it closer where he could get it.
"Reign pays us well, duchess. And my savings is more than enough to buy us a nice house."
"Exactly how much money do you have stashed away?"
"We," he corrected.
"Okay. Exactly how much money do we have stashed away?"
I knew by the wicked smirk on his lips that it was a helluva lot more than I had ever imagined.Adler -"The fuck is this thing?" I asked, waving the blue cone-shaped ball thing in the air at the specialty baby boutique because that big box baby store disappeared years before. "Some kinda balloon toy?"
"It's a boogie sucker," the somewhat too helpful attendant informed us with drawn together brows.
"I'm sorry... what?" Lou asked, looking even more confused than I was.
"A boogie sucker. Sucks the boogies out of the baby's nose."
"So ya are trying to tell me that after hundreds of thousands of years of human existence where babies could easily snort out their own fuckin' boogers, we suddenly need to suck them out with a little balloon? And what do ya do with the boogers once they're in the balloon part?"
The rest of the day pretty much went the same way, so that by the end, all three of us looked more tired than we had ever been in our lives.
"The boogie suckers really do make life easier," Maze informed us later that night at the compound. "Especially if they have a cold."
"Did you get the glider I told you about?" Penny asked. "It's great for fussy babies."
"And the nursing pillow," Bethany added, making Lou whimper, and turn her head into my shoulder.
"I think she's broken," I told the group. "She's whimpered anytime someone has mentioned the b-word since we left the shop this morning."
"It's a lot," Janie broke in. "I think especially so for those who weren't sure they'd ever have kids. She'll get there. Plus, I mean... she's miserable. Someone is always kicking an organ, demanding food, causing heartburn, fucking with her sleep..."
"Yeah," Summer said, giving Lou a soft smile even though her head was buried in my neck. And I was pretty sure she had fallen asleep. She'd become narcoleptic these days. "If you want, we can all get together and handle the necessary stuff."
Summer had been alright. Considering one of her children still refused to come home, was now legally old enough never to do so again if she didn't want to. She had gotten used to knowing her daughter through letters, had slowly come back to her friends, to the club, to life.
"That'd be great, if ya girls don't mind."
"Not at all," Summer assured us. "We'll make a day of it. Remind us about the excitement of expecting a little one."
I bit my tongue about excitement not exactly being what Lou was experiencing.
Not that she wasn't happy about it.
She was.
Just overwhelmed.
So much had changed so fast.
Our apartment was all packed up, ready to be moved into the new house on the same street with Repo and Maze and Lo and Cash with three bedrooms, two baths, and a nice fenced yard for Linny and the kids when they were old enough.
She'd needed to leave her job, her livelihood, her outlet for all her feelings, so things were coming out in ways she was not comfortable with normally.
Crying.
Taking to the bed.
Occasionally snapping at me.
I knew better than to take it too personally.
She was an incubator for two living beings.
She was transitioning roles as a woman.
And she hadn't been able to have coffee in months.
She'd be back to somewhat normal eventually. Once she settled into the new place, made it her own, got to throw a ball to Linny in the yard without having to be on a leash. Once she got busy setting up a nursery. Once she had the babies, and realized being a mom was a job, a purpose too, but not one that would have to completely define her like she was worried.
I settled her into my bed, smiling when she automatically - even in her sleep - reached for a pillow, stuffing it between her legs.
"She's fine," Lenny told me as I turned to find her leaning in the doorway. "I know you're worried about her, but she's fine. She was even talking about names last time I was over. She was the one who brought it up."
We hadn't even tried to discuss names. The task seemed daunting. Naming a human being. Giving it something it would be called for the rest of its life.
"Like what?" I asked, too curious not to.
"I'm not giving it away. But it was her sister's favorite flower."
