I shrug with a smirk. “It’s his thing.”
Her eyes momentarily widen like she’s unsure if I’m serious or not. “What do you mean his thing? Has Julian ever done that?” she whispers the last question into my ear like he might hear us.
I laugh harder. “No, Angel. Jules might be strange at times, but he’s not a kidnapper or criminal.” I shake my head with amusement when she sighs with relief. “But that’s beside the point. We’re getting off track.”
“I know.” She grins.Ah, the little tease played me well.“How about this? Maybe. I’m not ready for any back door activities. But I might be open to try it one day.”
My brows rise. “Really?”
She bites her lip. “Mhm, the girls all said that if it was done correctly, it was really fun. I mean, maybe they’re lying, but I guess I won’t know until I try.”
“Wait, the girls? What kind of things do you talk about when we’re not around? I knew you women had weirder conversations than we did.” I chuckle.
“Uh, no, we don’t. We have perfectly normal conversations compared to you boys.”
“So do we,” I retort.
She gives me a ‘cut the bullshit’ expression. “Shane, I’ve seen your group chat with the guys. Having a competition over who has the cutest pet, and recording random strangers saying our dogs are cute to prove ours are better, isn’t what I would call normal.”Shit, she knows about that?
“It was one time,” I answer quickly.
“It was three,” she deadpans, raising a brow and daring me to tell her she’s wrong.Even though she is… It was four.
“All right, all right. Enough about this. It doesn’t matter who says the most normal things, all that matters is that you saidmaybe and I’m remembering that. Now, let’s get you into that bath so you can relax and then bed.”
I pick her up into my arms bridal style, and manage to climb off the bed, heading for the patio doors. Aubrey tightens her hold around my neck as I try to lean most of her weight away from my injured shoulder. I then whistle twice, signaling to the pups it’s time to head in, and they all come running within seconds.
“What about the food?” she asks, giggling in my arms.
“You’re more important. I’ll clean up after.” I smile, making my way to our room.
“Can you bring a box of pizza to bed?” She blushes but her eyes grow hungry for that pizza.
I chuckle and kiss her forehead. “I’ll bring the pizza and the snacks.”
Chapter thirty-four
Shane
Stupid hormones.
~ Four Weeks Later ~
Our wedding is three days away, and despite us not having anything to deal with, I can tell Aubrey is getting nervous. From what Eden has told me, Aubrey has been texting her secretly every other day, asking if there are any problems with the wedding.
Eden seems to find it adorable and sends me screenshots of her conversation with my fiancée. Mainly the number of timesAubrey asks Eden not to tell me, because then I’ll worry, and she doesn’t want me to worry.
God, I love her.
Aubrey has been having a lot of Braxton-Hicks contractions lately, to the point that two days ago, they were so intense we went to the hospital to make sure she wasn’t in actual labor. Thank God, she wasn’t. We would have been fine if it had been the real thing, but I know Eden would have lost her marbles if we had to cancel the wedding.
Today, I have another surprise for my Angel.
When the girls started talking about a baby shower and bachelorette party, Aubrey said she didn’t feel it was necessary to have either of those. She thought it might cause her too much stress, which is something we’ve been trying to avoid.
I did agree with her at the time, but it also didn’t feel right not celebrating like we should be. So today, we are throwing her a surprise baby shower, combined with a bachelor and bachelorette party.
Of course, we won’t be doing the traditional going out and getting drunk. But I’m having everyone over this afternoon for the surprise baby shower while Aubrey is out with Veronica. And then we’ll have a nice barbeque dinner with all our friends and family, followed by some little fun activities that won’t be too much for her.
