Although I knew his mind was probably happily playing in the gutter right now, I was absolutely floored by his offer. I don’t know why I was surprised. Nick had a house. I had an apartment. He had room. I didn’t. And this was our baby.
Moving in together was a huge step, but having a baby was an even bigger one.
God, we had done things so ass backward, but I didn’t care as I stood there, openly staring at him.
I love you.
I wanted to get those words out. I wanted to scream them at the top of my lungs, but once again, I couldn’t get them past my tongue.
Who knew three little words would be so hard to speak?
Chapter 26
“So when will I get to meet Nick?”
My eyes widened as the subject of my mom’s question swaggered out from my bathroom half dressed. Dark denim jeans hung low, showing off the vee shape of his lower stomach. While I would never ever pass up the chance to appreciate the hotness of his near nakedness, we were going to be late to dinner.
But his bare chest glistened from the shower he took, and I wasn’t convinced that he was wearing any underwear. I bit down on my lip as I eyed the tightly coiled muscles of his abdomen. Desire pooled low in my stomach. My hormones could just be going crazy, but I couldn’t get enough of him.
Nick had to run into the bar late Sunday morning to help move more new equipment into the kitchen. When he showed up at my place, he’d been greasy and sweaty, immediately stating that he needed to get into the shower. Which was a great idea, because we had a group date we were supposed to be at tonight, but I was . . . well, I was going to blame pregnancy hormones.
He had undressed but his shower stalled when I kissed my way down until I was on my knees before him. So the fact that we would be running late was partly my fault.
“Stephanie, honey, are you still there?”
Pushing those thoughts out of my head, I turned around and stared at my dresser. “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry. I was distracted.”
Nick chuckled from behind me.
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know when you can meet Nick, Mom.” Pausing, I peeked over my shoulder to gauge his reaction. If he looked like he was ready to pass out then that would probably be a bad sign, but he appeared engrossed in pulling the sweater out of the gym bag he’d brought with him. Was he purposely ignoring what I was saying? Or did it not bother him?
“Well, I think you two should figure that out,” Mom insisted, and I fought a grin as I recognized her “mom” voice.
“I can ask him.”
“He’s there?” Mom laughed. “So that’s why you’re distracted.”
“Mom,” I groaned as I twisted around so I faced Nick. “Mom wants to know when she can meet you.”
Nick glanced up as he shook out his sweater. Nice wrinkle removal technique there. “I can’t really head down to Martinsburg right now. Not with my granddad,” he said, and that made sense. “But if she’s coming up here, I’d love to meet her.”
He’d love to meet her. My heart did a little dance in my chest. “He said—”
“I heard him, dear. Please tell him that I totally understand about his grandfather and he’s in my prayers,” Mom replied. “I was thinking about coming around Christmas. How does that sound?”
Nervousness assailed me. Christmas was, like, next week, and although I was thrilled that Nick was cool with meeting my mom, the first parent-slash-my-baby-daddy meeting made me want to hurl. Actually, when I went shopping for Nick last week, looking to get him something small and special for Christmas, I wanted to hurl then, too, because picking something was harder than I’d realized. I ended up settling on a nice, durable watch. It looked pretty in its box, but now I was thinking it was kind of a lame gift, even though he’d said time and time again that he needed to get a watch.
I told Mom around Christmas was okay, and then after a couple more minutes, I got off the phone to face Nick once more.
He was still shirtless.
I arched a brow as I dropped my phone on the bed. “Are you going to go out like that tonight?”
A cocky grin appeared. “I would, but then you’d be too ‘distracted’ to eat.”
“Shut up.”
Chuckling, he walked over and took my hand. He sat down on the edge of the bed and tugged me down so I was sitting in his lap. “Nick, we need to get going,” I protested. “If we don’t, we’re going to be late.”
“We’re not going to be late.” He curled an arm around my hips. “We have time. And we need time.” His other hand landed on my lower stomach. “How are you feeling? Are you still feeling pretty tired?”
After putting up the Christmas tree, I’d gotten hit pretty hard with exhaustion for about three days straight, and it had been intermittent since. According to the baby sites and my check-in with the OB/GYN, per Nick’s insistence, it was fairly normal. “I’m feeling fine today. Isn’t that obvious?” I teased, toying with the button on his jeans.
He grinned. “I’m pretty sure you could be halfway to a coma and still be horny as hell.”
I laughed. “I’m not going to even try to deny that.”
The smile slipped a little. “But seriously, I’m just worried. You were so tired last week, and you said you weren’t feeling that great.”
“Thank you for being concerned, but I am feeling fine,” I insisted. “And if it makes you feel better, I have my next appointment Friday.”
“I know.” His lashes lowered to where his hand rested on my pillow. “I can’t believe you haven’t gained any weight yet.”