AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Pulling into our driveway beside my parents’ car, I’m not even fully out of the car before I can hear Bunny’s signature bark echoing from the backyard.
“Stop upsetting my baby,” I call over the barking, waddling over to where Nathan and my dad are shooting Bunny with a water gun.
“Mom’s home!” Nate shouts, causing a forty-five-pound bundle of wet, golden fluff to bounce toward me, tail wagging excitedly.
Knowing he was transferring to Seattle at the end of the season, Nathan promised me after the Olympics in February we could get a golden retriever. What neither of us planned for when we decided to become dog parents was my pre-Olympic debut anxiety causing me to vomit up my contraceptive pill.
I won gold in the ladies’ singles.
We celebrated.
A lot.
On every surface we could get our horny little mitts on.
Six months later, I have a giant watermelon strapped to my stomach and the world’s most chaotic puppy.
Nate strides toward me, closing the gap between us, holding the water gun in my direction, a mischievous glint in his brown eyes. His shorts are low on his hips, the last of the day’s rays bouncing off his tanned skin.God, he’s hot.“Don’t you dare, Hawkins.”
“Welcome home.” He drops his weapon to the floor, narrowly missing Bunny, spinning around at our feet. Taking my face in his hands, he lowers his mouth to mine, making every single cell in my body hum happily.
Pregnancy has made everything heightened, so when I thought I was attracted to him before, I wassowrong. The fact my parents are here right now is the only reason I’m not trying to climb him like a tree.
“How are my favorite girls today?” Nate’s hands trail down my arms gently until they reach my stomach. She’s going wild like she always does when he’s near us. “You want me to do the thing?”
“God, yes. We’re good. We’re hungry.” He steps behind me, winding his arms around me until they link at the bottom of my bump, lifting to take the weight off me, and I instantly melt into him. “Oh God, yes.”
I always suspected Baby Hawkins would be one big-ass baby, but I’ve basically been showing since conception.
RIP my vagina in a few months.
I’m all bump and boobs. Gigantic boobs that make everyone stare at my chest. I visited Sabrina in New York with my mom, and she spent the entire trip checking me out and weighing up whether she wanted a boob job.
Mom appears with a glass of lemonade, and between the two of them looking after me, I wonder why I even bothered leaving the house today. “You all packed, honey?”
I nod. “Nothing fits, so I’ll just be wearing crop tops for a week.”
Nate kisses my cheek from behind. “It works for Winnie-the-Pooh.”
When Alex, JJ’s partner, offered to help plan our babymoon, I thought they were joking. But it turns out there is a whole host of baby-related things I’m yet to learn about. The ones that involve me getting gifts and trips are my favorite.
“Are the baby’s things packed up?” I ask, reaching down to scratch behind Bunny’s ears.
Mom sighs. “You do know you’ll have to stop calling him the baby when the baby gets here?”
My face instinctively scrunches. “No, I won’t. First born.” I point to the fluffy face intensely licking my ankle. I point at my swollen tummy. “Second born.”
She rolls her eyes, crouching to fuss him, and narrowly avoiding the huge slobbery tongue that heads toward her face. “Come on, little guy, you’re going on vacation too!”
The intense excitement I once experienced when traveling is less intense now I’m a bowling ball, but I do enjoy bossing Nathan around from a comfortable position with my feet up.
More than two-and-a-half years together and the man still can’t use packing cubes properly.
The journey from Seattle to Cabo is seamless, and we only get stopped for pictures approximately one million times. My favorite fans are the ones who don’t watch hockey, so they hand their phone or camera to Nate when they ask for a photo. He says he doesn’t mind people thinking he’s famous for being my boyfriend.
I can’t help but laugh when he says it because he seems to mean it. I said we can work on his public image before I win my next medal; maybe it’ll reduce how much he has to play photographer.
Our villa is less villa, more beach mansion, but Nate says the extravagance is necessary because he wants somewhere private where I can be comfortable.
