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I glared at him, staring for a few beats more. Then I crossed the distance between us, grabbed the back of his neck, and kissed him.
“You better earn your keep,” I told him after sinking my teeth into his lip and drawing blood.
Kip lifted me into his arms without effort, walking us toward my bedroom. “Oh, baby, I intend to.”
twenty
Boo
Kip came home to a disaster.
The smoke alarm was going off. I was waving the broom at it, too fucking pregnant to jump up and reach it like I normally did. Damn my fucking large and inelegant body, unable to cooperate as it used to.
“Babe, babe, I got it,” Kip said, rushing to my aid.
I let myself be rescued happily, only to sprint over to the smoking pot that was the reason for the smoke alarm screaming at me.
The beeping stopped almost immediately, because Kip was taller and overall more capable than me.
I resented that. Resented him for not having a basketball attached to his torso. Despite the shit he’d given me about having put on weight as a result of my ice cream purchasing habits, his torso remained flat, his six-pack intact.
And despite me feeling salty about that, I was still trying to do something nice for him. Trying and failing.
“It’s ruined!” I cried, lifting the lid off the pot and inspecting the blackened mess in front of me.
My morning sickness thankfully left at the beginning of the second trimester, but this stench was strong enough to bring it back.
I slammed the lid back down with a clatter.
“I’m so fucking useless!” I yelled, tears streaming down my cheeks.
Kip threw the broom on the floor, then walked toward me and grasped my hips, pulling me into his body. I melted into his embrace, his smell, especially raw and masculine after a hard day at work.
“I wanted to do something nice for you,” I sobbed into his chest. “Even though you might’ve been a massive cock in the first trimester, you still made me shit and wanted to take care of me.” I gripped his shirt and looked up at him through blurry eyes. “Now you’ve been much less of a massive cock… except in the important places.” I looked downward, momentarily distracted by the thought of that massive cock.
Then the smell of the dinner wafted toward me.
Though it didn’t smell like dinner. It smelled like a chemical spill mixed with rotting meat.
I looked up at Kip, who had been concerned—which happened to be his default whenever I didn’t seem happy, healthy, or content—but now the fucker was smiling.
“Don’t laugh!” I hit his chest. “I was doing this foryou.”
Kip’s smile disappeared. He stroked my hair. “You don’t have to do anything for me. In fact, this”—he stroked my stomach—“is your ticket fornothaving to do anything. Creating a human is a big job, so I hear.”
“I wanted to do it!” I shrieked. “And that is a big deal, because I don’t usually want to do anything for men, but you’ve been doing too much lately, and I figured I needed to practice cooking for our spawn because she’ll need to eat once she gets off the tit. I’d like not to poison her.”
I wasn’t going to be relying on Kip to stick around long enough to cook our daughter solid foods. Sure, he’d stopped with the cold robot man routine, and he was now sleeping in my bed every night, but that didn’t mean he was going to actually be a husband and father. We hadn’t talked about the long term. That was a ticking time bomb, and I knew eventually I’d have to address it. Just maybe not when I was overcome with fear, hormones, and heartburn.
Kip didn’t speak for a handful of seconds, his expression somewhat troubled.
I really hoped he didn’t think this was the right time to hash out future plans.
Then, still holding me, he moved to lift the lid off the pan and inspect the contents. I squeezed my eyes shut, holding my breath and letting out a hysterical sob.
“I’m useless,” I cried.
“No,” Kip said quickly, focusing on me once more. “I like it like that.”
