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Chapter Seventeen
Julian
“You wear me out.” I tried hard to add a tinge of irritation to my voice but the pull on the corner of my mouth betrayed me. After our shower, we’d barely made it back to bed.
“Well, then,” she said, flopping backward onto her pillow. “I say we just stay in bed the rest of the day and sleep.” She’d just closed her eyes when laughter rumbled through my chest. Opening one eye, she tilted her face toward me. “Uh-oh, that sounded evil. What do you have up your sleeve, Bale?”
My grin widened as I reached for my jeans and slipped on a shirt. “Who, me? I don’t have anything up my sleeve.” I held out my arm innocently. “See? No sleeves, just a t-shirt.”
“You’re an incurable smart-ass, you know that?”
Standing beside the bed, I picked up a baseball hat from the floor and adjusted it backward on my head. “Of course I do. Now get ready. You take forever and we have someplace to be.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Oh, and where might that be?”
“You talk too much,” I scolded with a wink. “Go. You have twenty minutes.”
“Julian, you do know it’s physically impossible for a female to get ready in less than an hour, right?” She jerked the blanket up to her ears and settled deeper into the sheets. “Besides, I have no idea how to dress, because you won’t tell me where we’re going.”
I was buying none of her act. Besides, we were running late. What I planned had been timed to perfection. “Well, I guess you’ll set a new trend for females everywhere, won’t you? As far as how to dress—be comfortable. But nothing white…or any light color for that matter.”
“I’m not moving until you tell me where we’re going.”
Dropping to my knees in front of her, I placed both palms on her belly. My hands seemed drawn to it lately. “Like I said, you talk too much. Damn, can’t you women stop asking questions and just listen for a change?”
She sat up, throwing the blanket across the bed. “You’re lucky I’m in a semi-pleasant mood, Bale. Otherwise, I’d kick your ass for that.”
“Twenty minutes,” I called out after her as she made her way to the bathroom.
***
After forty-five minutes, I started wishing for an air horn to move her ass along. Finally giving up, I threw the remote control on the coffee table and climbed the stairs to see what the hell she’d been doing.
As I approached the bedroom, I paused. Resting a hand on the doorframe, I watched her. She pulled a blue shirt out of the dresser and turned sideways in the full-length mirror to catch a view of herself. Wrinkling her nose at her reflection, she groaned.
“What the hell? I’m going to be a balloon with feet by the end of this.”
“I’ve always been partial to balloons,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning my hip against the doorframe.
Raising her chin, she glanced in the mirror, studying my reflection as I stared back at her. “Don’t patronize me, Julian. I don’t know what to do with this.” She opened her arms, letting the shirt fall to the floor, and looked down at her stomach. “This is huge. This is out of control. This is…”
“This is beautiful.” I folded in behind her and wrapped my arms around her from the back. Nestling my chin into her shoulder, she squirmed as the scruff on my cheeks tickled her bare skin.
We stood in silence, both of us staring into the mirror at each other’s reflection. At that moment, I realized more had been said without words than in a whole afternoon of talking. Eventually, I turned her around to face me. “Are you ready?”
“You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”
“Questions, questions—always with the questions.” I kissed the top of her head. “Stop worrying and enjoy the element of surprise.”
She sighed and pulled the shirt over her head. “Okay, you win.”
I cupped my hand around my ear and shook my head in mock disbelief. “What was that?”
Another sigh. “I said you win, but don’t get used to it. The suspense is killing me, let’s go.”
“I should write this down,” I gloated. “The day that I won a battle with Phoebe Ryan.”
“Don’t be an ass, Julian. I said I let you win.”
