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“Ah, the perfect picture,” my mother fawns.
It’s a good thing I never dated anyone in high school. She’d have been the one to insist on a thousand pictures for every tiny occasion, whether the girl would’ve been around for more than that night or not.
“Hold up,” Rae says, looking around at everyone. “We’re missing something.”
She grabs Aaron’s hand and walks over to the mound, and a moment later, Mackie, Sarah, and Joel follow her. Somehow, in all the friend combinations, we forgot the most important one. We snap a couple of pictures, and then Rae steps away and looks at the six of us.
“Mom, can I have my phone?”
Kara runs it over, and Rae swipes through it until she finds what she’s looking for and shows us.
Laughing, we rearrange. Mackenzie stands and holds her arm out. I step up next to her, wrapping my arm around her back. Aaron stands next to me, and I sling my arm over his shoulders. Rae lines up next to him and he wraps his arm around her back. Sarah loops her arm around Rae’s back, and Joel comes to stand at the end of the group as we recreate a photo of us from when we were six years old.
Sixteen years and all kinds of craziness later, and here we are.
I look over at Amelia, who is smiling as she takes a picture.
Six-year-old me—hell, sixteen-year-old me—couldn’t have imagined my life going the way it has, but now that I’m living it, I know it’s far better than any dreams I ever had for myself.
Amelia
I wish I could climb onto the counter.It would make unpacking in the kitchen much easier. Instead, I’m settling for a tiny step stool. I guess I’ll just do the first two shelves of every cabinet and let Mr. Six-foot-three do the rest later.
As I pull another plate from the box on the counter and stack it in the cabinet, the apartment door swings open.
“Hey, I’ve got—what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Miles’s voice booms.
I turn to look at him, only to see him striding toward me, a fierce look on his face.
“Putting things away?”
“No,” he says sternly, sweeping me off the stool and over to the couch. He sets me down. “Sit down. You can’t be climbing on stools.”
“Oh my god. It’s a seven-inch stool. Seven inches. That’s all.”
“And you could still easily lose your footing. You can’t be doing that stuff while you’re pregnant. I will take care of it. I’ll set up a chair for you and you can tell me where everything goes.”
I glare at him. Is he fucking kidding me?
“I’m not an invalid, Miles. I can still do things. I stillwantto do things.”
While I usually like Miles’s bossiness, I do not like this controlling edge. I know it’s how he likes to deal with things, but I’m a human being. And a damn strong one at that. Do I need to be more cautious while pregnant? Of course. But I’m not some fragile damsel in distress. The last thing I want is to be babied.
“Your job is to take care of yourself and our baby. That’s all.”
I shove off the couch, standing and staring up at him. Damn him for being so much taller than me.
“No way. Absolutely not. You don’t get to make all the decisions. I know you like being all bossy, but I’m a boss, too, and you don’t get to make sweeping decisions about my life or my body or how I handle any of it.”
An eyebrow lifts and I see a hint of smirk.
Does he think this is funny?
He steps forward and wraps his hand around my waist, letting his hand slide over my butt. He leans down, rumbling in my ear. “It’s adorable that you think that. Maybe I need to turn you over my knee and spank that gorgeous ass until you remember you’re supposed to be sitting on it and resting.”
Seriously?He’s trying to turn this into something sexual? I cross my arms over my chest, still unbelievably pissed. Even as my traitorous vagina reacts to his threat. She’s just going to have to live without because he’s not getting anywhere near it right now.
I push him back and step away. “You can’t diffuse this with sex. I’m serious right now, Miles. What do you expect me to do? Sit with my feet up all pregnancy? Let you lift everything, hold everything for me? Carry me around? Drive me everywhere like I’m Miss Daisy?”
