One more trip to the restroom, then we were back in the car.
“Homeward bound? Or do you want to stop somewhere?” my mate asked.
“I want chicken. Lots of fried chicken. And then maybe we can go watch the sunset up on the hill while eating all of it.”
My pregnancy food moods were weird. Some days, it was all I could do to force myself to eat and others, like today, I was starving. In this case, starving for greasy, crunchy goodness.
“Sounds like a plan.” He stopped by, bought the fried chicken, and drove up the hill.
“This is much better than our first date,” I teased.
“How so?”
“Oh, you know. Chicken.”
“Silly me. I thought it was because we are mated, living our dream life together, and growing our family by not one, not two, but three little ones.”
“All of that, too,” I said, my mouth full, and I didn’t care. “I love you, alpha mine.”
“As much as you love Fred’s Fried Chicken?”
“Even more than that.”
Chapter Eighteen
Edris
I hated to leave my mate when he was so pregnant, especially with triplets, but I needed to go back to the city to handle the closing on the condo. The homeowners’ association, being the jerks they were, didn’t allow it to be done any other way. It was such a joke needing to be present when the new owner and I’d signed off on the condo association document. But I had to follow the rules or fight them, and fighting would take time. The last thing I needed was to be dealing with this when our little ones were here.
The second the papers were signed and the check delivered, I sent Zac a text telling him it was done. He called me immediately.
“Let me guess, you’re off to Disney World?” he teased, although I could see us heading there in a few years with our kids.
“Nah, not for a good five years. It’s time to put in a saltwater pool.”
I was joking, 1000 percent. Did I miss our saltwater pool at the condo? Absolutely. But I wouldn’t trade any part of my life now for it.
“As long as you stop home first. I miss you.”
I missed him too and drove straight through, arriving home as quickly as I could, to find my mate sound asleep in the recliner. Getting in and out of bed had been a struggle for him lately, but the recliner had been working…sort of. He still wasn’t sleeping well, but some hours were better than no hours.
The pregnancy taking a toll on his body. The healer kept telling us everything looked great, and I believed him that itlooked great for a pregnancy of triplets, but that didn’t mean felt great. My mate was exhausted, achy, and miserable.
“Hey, honey,” I murmured, brushing a kiss on his forehead.
He cracked his eyes and smiled. “It’s a long drive. I was expecting to find that you’d stayed over at a hotel on the way and to see you this afternoon.”
“I couldn’t be away from you that long.”
“You look tired.” He reached up to my chin.
“I think we’re twinsies that way,” I said. “I have to run into town, but I wanted to see you first. They gave me a paper check, and the quicker I can get that in the bank, the better.”
“Bring me back a cinnamon roll?”
“Absolutely.”
Layla would be expecting me after missing two days in a row. I’d been getting him one pretty much every day for the past month. They were the one thing he could always stomach. I teased that it meant we were having three girls because of the whole “sugar and spice and everything nice” nursery rhyme, but in truth, neither of us cared what gender our babies were, as long as they were healthy.
