Zyah nodded. “Send the pictures to me. I’ll blur out the tats, put them in a collage, and disable the ability for anybody to find our current location.”
Ryann gave her a hug while Mocha circled their feet. “Thanks, Sis.”
Zyah touched Ryann’s non-existent stomach. “That’s auntie sis to you.”
Later that night, once the food had been put away, the kitchen was cleaned and everybody had settled into their respective rooms. Ryann and I got ready for bed. She came out of the bathroom wearing cute shortie pajamas. They weren’t meant to be sexy, but the way the two pieces rode her curves was definitely sexy.
“Aren’t you glad I decided to wear these college-girl pajamas and not some slinky lingerie?” she joked as she walked over to her bed. “I had no idea that we would end up sharing a room.”
“Sorry about that. I didn’t know that Zyah was bringing her husband. I thought the two of you would be in here and I would be in there.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It makes sense, though. We’re the two singles, who are also kinda together.”
“Kind of,” I agreed.
She peeked into the carrying case to check on Mocha.
“You sure you wanna keep her in there? We could make a pallet or something…”
“Nah, she’s good. I don’t want her wandering your house while we’re all asleep. What if she takes a dump somewhere and we don’t find it before we pack up to leave?”
She climbed in her bed and got under the blankets.
I lay on my back, looking up at the ceiling.
“Hey, Brix.”
“What’s up?”
“I’m so excited,” she squealed quietly.
That caused a laugh from deep within to rumble from my chest.
“But I’m scared, too. I know I won’t be out of the danger zone until after the first trimester, and even then something could go wrong. But for right now, I just want to celebrate the fact that the test was positive. And today, there’s a teeny tiny little person with half of your DNA and half of my DNA growing inside me,” she whispered squealed again.
“Ay, come get in bed with me.”
I loved that she didn’t ask me any questions, she didn’t even ask me to repeat myself. She just moved from her bed to mine. She crawled under the blankets next to me. I rolled onto my side and wrapped my arm around her, letting my hand rest on her flat stomach. I got up on my elbow momentarily and dropped a kiss on her smooth cheek.
“Thank you for letting me share this with you, Ry. You’re gonna be a dope ass mom.”
Eight WeeksLater
“Here, Pooch Belly.” Genesis slid an open container of food across the kitchen island toward me as I worked on Christian’s calendar for the month.
“What is this?”
She rolled her eyes at me, although I knew she wasn’t really mad at me, more so like, semi-annoyed. “It’s lunch. Which I traipsed all the way to the commercial kitchen to make since you can’t stand the smell of food.”
She was right. I was ten weeks pregnant and morning sickness was kicking my ass on the daily. Everything stank to me. Everything made me nauseous and most things made mepuke. Genesis was a personal chef and caterer who couldn’t even use her own kitchen when I was at the house, because the smells of her various dishes caused my stomach to react violently.
“Sorry.”
Her eyes softened. “I know it’s not your fault.” She leaned down toward my still flat stomach and spoke. “I know it’s my little niece or nephew in there wreaking havoc. Give your mama a break, Baby Cole.” She glanced over at me. “Is it gonna be a Cole? An Upton-Cole?”
I smirked at her. “Between Christian and my daddy, there are enough Uptons. This baby will be a Cole.” I paused. “Or that could be the pregnancy talking, in which case, this baby will be an Upton-Cole.”
We both laughed.
