“Mahasin, is everything okay?” Tru asked from outside the dressing room door.
“Noooo,” I wailed.
Being dramatic, I laid on the floor. No, literally—I laid my big ass on the floor, stretched out, hollering like a spoiled brat. I didn’t mean to be ridiculous; I just literally couldn’t control my emotions at that moment.
I must have scared the shit out of Tru because when she couldn’t open the locked door, I heard her heels take off. Seconds later, he was knocking on the dressing room door.
“Dollface, open the door,” Gage asked gently.
Silence.
Well—except for my sobs. I laid completely still on my right side, letting snot and tears run down my face.
“You got some tissues or wipes?” I heard Gage ask someone nearby. “She's one of those ugly criers, snot just everywhere.”
“Dollface, I’m coming in.”
Before I could protest, he and his muscles were crawling through the open space beneath the dressing room door. How he managed to get those broad shoulders through that crawl space will forever be a mystery. But as soon as he cleared it, his ass jumped up fast, checking his clothes thoroughly like something got off the floor with him—panic and disgust written all over his handsome face.
I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Shit ain’t funny. Get my baby off this nasty-ass floor,” he said, helping me to my feet.
He removed a small pack of wet wipes from his back pocket and began gently cleaning my face. His scent filled the space—today’s blend was a mix of sandalwood and something fresh, like cotton.
“There you go,” he said, swiping the last wipe under my nose. “What kind of show are you putting on here?”
“I look fat,” I blurted out, sounding childish even to my own ears.
He blinked, like he genuinely couldn’t compute what I had just said.
“Doll—”
“Dollface, my ass, Gage. I look like I stuffed myself into a high-end pillowcase.”
He chuckled. “You’re seven months pregnant, and you look exactly how you’re supposed to look. You’re supposed to—”
“I’m supposed to look glowy,” I said, rudely cutting him off.
“Then go stand your big ass out in the sun. I bet between the shine off this fabric and your sweat glazing that neck, you’ll look like a big-ass lava lamp.”
As bad as I wanted to curse his ass out, I couldn’t help but laugh.
And what made it even funnier—he was dead-ass serious. Clearly annoyed by my antics and the fact that I’d cut him off while he was trying to comfort me.
My laugh must have been contagious because he let out a hearty one himself.
“If you don’t like the dress, take it off. Here, let me help.”
Gage spun me around, so I was now standing in front of him, facing that dreadful-ass mirror. He lowered my zipper and gently peeled the gown from my body, letting it pool at my feet—leaving me exposed in my matching black lace bra and panty set. My belly was a paid actress.
“Look how perfect you are, Mahasin.” He slid his arms around my middle and lifted my belly from the front, carrying the extra weight for me. The relief was instant. The pull in my lower back eased, and the pressure on my knees and ankles lightened. I let out a sigh of relief that I didn’t know I’d been holding.
“There she go,” he murmured against my hair. “Breathe.”
I closed my eyes. Chris Brown’s “She Ain’t You” played over the boutique’s speakers. It must have been someone’s favorite song because they turned it up so loud, I could feel the floor vibrating under my feet.
“Look,” he said, eyes on me in the mirror. “You see what I see?”
