“What is your obsession with my nipples all of the sudden?” he asked, tossing pants at my head.
“I was looking up symptoms of pregnancy,” I said, tossing my phone onto the bed.
Vatten squinted down at his nipples as if they might have secrets to tell him. He poked one and winced.
“Okay, actually, yeah. They are. Just how long have you been out of your rut?” he asked, standing half akimbo, poking at his nipples with the hand that wasn’t resting on his hip.
“I dunno. It just sort of blended into the rest of time. I thought we were here for like 5 days. Not two weeks,” I said.
“I feel like I need pasties to hide my nipples when we go out,” he said.
“I’ll cover them up for you,” I said, reaching out to put my hands on his pecs. Vatten slapped them away.
“That’s how this got started. We need to make sure that’s what we’re dealing with. Maybe you just played with them too much,” he said, turning away to get dressed.
Chapter 27
Vatten
Guardians of Glitter Bomb Territory
How long had I been pregnant? I hadn’t gotten sick. Then again not everyone experienced ‘morning sickness.’ My nipples definitely looked like they were charging up to be baby bottles. How many of our fifty-eight to seventy days have been burnt up already? We might just have to keep living in the apartment for now. Building a house takes time and I couldn’t hold a hammer or a nail gun in my dog form.
My thoughts chased their own tails as we walked to the pharmacy. I almost skipped it altogether and headed straight for the Green Bay Omega and Baby Clinic. An ultrasound would be better than a pregnancy test but I didn’t know any of the midwives here, unless you counted Evie.
“I could’ve called her and had her drop by the apartment,” Eran said, squeezing my hand.
“I needed the walk either way,” I shook my head.
Then I couldn’t help it. Fur sprouted between my fingers and toes and my dog burst out of me, taking me down low to the ground and running off. Conflicting emotions always gave me the zoomies. Was I supposed to be excited that I was pregnant or worried about how little time we had to be prepared forwhat might be a very large litter? Was I supposed to be pleased or concerned about how Eran followed me from room to room even after his rut was over? Was Gooseberry doing okay? Were murderous ghosts still wandering the streets of the GGB waiting for someone to strike down? Like how the hell was I supposed to do anything besides run aimlessly until I ran out of steam? How did anyone do this whole ‘living like an adult thing?’
Zoomies.
Zoomies had to be the answer. I glanced over my shoulder to see a white, fluffy cat racing behind my butt. Eran was fast for such a little creature. I kept zooming. I weaved in and out of feet and legs and around newsstands and little carts selling food. I zoomed until the streets gave way to greenery and children ran in all directions as if someone had made a grassy field just for them.
Park.
The word came unbidden into my thoughts. I’d seen parks before during my travels. We didn’t have them up north. Not like this anyway. A few little heads turned in my direction, and I zoomed away from the park. I didn’t want to be treated like a pet dog by a bunch of babies. Eran swerved, following me perfectly. Maybe he really would follow me anywhere.
“Any idea where you want to go?”his voice played through my thoughts.
“FAST!”I answered.
Sure, fast wasn’t a destination but it was the appropriate word for what my dog considered to be our goal. So fast that either the thoughts flew out of our head or they lined themselvesout right. So, I kept running until I had to duck into an alleyway and pant for air. We were near the bank. That was information I received from what Eran knew but it wasn’t that useful to me.
“We could drive out to the lake,”Eran offered and for half a second, I almost took him up on that offer. Escaping to the water sounded perfect, except chasing waterfowl and going for a swim wouldn’t make me any less pregnant.
“Gotta fetch the stick and pee on it,”my dog told him and he cracked up inside my head.
“That’s one way to say it,”he said a second later when he stopped laughing.
Eran caught up to me and leaned against me as I panted. I loved him so much. There was something nice about having someone around who always wanted to be with me. Especially, when I always wanted to be around him too. Maybe it was the domestic animals inside of us. Together was just better.
“Or we could drive out to the farm and see what Evie’s up to,”Eran offered.“You could zoom around out there. You could stick your head out the window while I drive.”
“We gotta walk all the way back to the club where the truck is though, huh?”I asked.
“I’ll go get it as long as you promise not to run off. I can find you, but parking is a nightmare in the evenings when Glitter Bomb has drag night and tonight is drag night.”
