Page 106 of Make it a Double

You up?

Tate:

Not really the person I want to get that kind of late text from, but yes.

Tate:

What’s up?

I rolled my eyes. Tate didn’t even know anyone in this town save for our little group. She was just trying to get under my skin.

Me:

Ha ha. That’s funny.

Me:

I need some help with a project, and you’re the only person I know who is a genius with craft paper and glue.

Tate:

I thought you’d never ask. What do you have in mind?

SAWYER

Date: Tuesday, April 27th

35 weeks:

- Can’t stop peeing

- Heartburn is a bitch

If there was one thing I was grateful for throughout this pregnancy, it was finding out that clerical work was not for me. I stared ahead at the computer screen, ready to bang my head against the desk in order to experience a new form of torture rather than the one I’d been stuck enduring for the past month.

And to think, I had weeks of this to go.

In the past, I never minded helping Duke or Liv with administrative tasks. It didn’t happen often, so I viewed it like a break from the front. I could get off my feet for a shift and not have to worry about fixing my face every time someone asked me a stupid question. But now that this was my job? I never wanted to see an Excel spreadsheet ever again.

It wasn’t that the job was hard. I was just simply bored out of my mind. The office was a tiny little space that barely had room for the desk and a filing cabinet. There wasn’t even a window. Sitting here for nearly nine hours every single day was kicking my ass, especially if I couldn’t pass my time with people-watching. Sometimes, I would find any excuse I could to go sit and chat at the bar for a few minutes of stimulation. Duke and Liv never minded. Honestly, as long as the bare minimum was met, I was in the clear. But I felt guilty taking advantage of their kindness like that, so I didn’t linger long.

I never thought I’d find myself missing the weird things our customers shared with me, but I did. And I rarely saw our regulars unless it was on my way out at the end of the day.

When I took over, their shared desk had been littered with Post-it notes bearing hastily scribbled reminders. Things like organizing a vendor list and setting up automatic shipping on our regular supplies stared back at me. Neither of them had given me specific duties, per se, so I took it upon myself to digitize what I could and put the rest in a pile, ranking from most important to least important. Today, I decided to tackle the vendor list so it would not only make their lives easier once I was back behind the bar, but also my own, since I almost always had to search through emails to find who I’d ordered specific items from.

Everything would likely devolve into chaos once again when I left, but I could appreciate the organization while it lasted. At least I had something to do to occupy my time.

Glancing at the clock, I realized it was nearly two in the afternoon. I hadn’t ventured out of the office since this morning when I spent twenty minutes thanking Duke for all his help last week. He and Grady moved all of my belongings so I wouldn’t have to. Beckett offered to join them, but there was so much still to do at the new house that it made sense for him to stick with me.

Maybe I needed to get up and walk around before I lost my mind. If boredom was an actual cause of death, I wasn’t about to find out.

I stood, placing my hands on my lower back as I stretched. Between moving all of my things out of Gram’s trailer and prepping the nursery in our new home, the past weekend had kicked my ass. Everything hurt these days. When I brought it up at my appointment yesterday, my doctor told me it was normal—which I already knew. After all, I was growing a freaking human inside of my belly. It sure as hell wasn’t going to be a cakewalk.

Her only suggestion, other than a low dose of pain-relievers, was orgasms. Apparently, Legally Blonde was onto something when they connected the dots between a release of endorphins and happy people not wanting to commit murder. Of course, there was very little science backing up her suggestions, but Beckett and I took the research very seriously.

So far, it hadn’t been proven to help eliminate the pain, but now some of that pain was caused by pleasure instead of sitting too long. I’d take a win as a win. Who was I to question that?

Dr. Adler’s only concern was still with my elevated blood pressure. It hung around the borderline, but thankfully it still hadn’t progressed to preeclampsia. She did tell us that depending on how everything looked at my next appointment, she was considering inducing labor as early as the following week.