She saunters over, stretching her neck and tilting her head back in invitation. My hands cup her beloved face as I crane my neck down to kiss her. I expect her to draw back at a peck but she opens her lips, pressing against me until I follow her lead and kiss her until we’re both breathless.
“Grandma,” she mouths, rolling her eyes. Taking it as an invitation, I reach down and give her delicious butt a squeeze, then a caress, then a pat before I release her, swapping my bag for my daughter.
“You want to go straight home or pick up—”
“Straight home,” I interject. “That’s a fantastic idea. Can’t wait.”
Her eyes drift southwards, then flicker back up to mine, full of amusement. “Perhaps we should swap.”
“Get to the car, woman,” I growl, swatting her on the butt this time and smiling at her laughter.
I nod to the redheaded woman and her progeny as I walk past, since it seems she’s done me a favour. Then I forget she exists as I focus on getting my two favourite girls in the world safely into the vehicle.
While she fixes Leilani in her car seat, I watch Nadia’s efficient movements and wait for when she turns and smiles, like she does most of the time she sees me. Even when she’s upset, or stressed, or tired, or strolling down memory lane, a place as apt to mug her with a knife as be an enjoyable experience.
As I start the car, I wonder at the fate that threw the two of us together. How all the pieces of me I thought broken fit together so well with her cracked edges we become stronger than I ever thought possible.
How this relationship is so much bigger on the inside; something our daughter immeasurably expands and the baby bump that’s barely visible right now under Nadia’s flowery dress will expand again further.
The baby bump she playfully nicknamed ‘the change’ because she believed that’s what he was for far too long. The one that’s special to me, not just because he’ll be our last, one more than we dared to hope for, but because I’ve been along for the entire ride.
“You do have to start the engine to get the full effect,” she says as my eyes continue to linger on every inch of her beautiful body. “Don’t you want to get back?”
And the answer is yes. Always yes.
I start the car and steer it toward home.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
NADIA
In my lastmonth of pregnancy, there isn’t a sleeping position in the world that’s comfortable. Right now, four hours into my nightly tossing-and-turning marathon, I’d settle for anything that didn’t aggravate a thousand aches and pains in my distended body.
Somewhere slightly north of torture? I’m not greedy.
I’m currently face down, my belly twisting me to the side, my arms bent above my head and my legs… Well, goodness knows what they get up to any longer, I haven’t seen them in the past few weeks.
The proximate cause for all of this (apart from me and my choices, obviously) is slumbering next to me like the world’s gentlest giant. Five minutes after rolling away from me, he fell asleep and his soft snuffling snores are the target of my deepest desires, my most cutting envy.
Why can’t I careen into unconsciousness like it’s a slippery slide? The kind we used to wax during the summer so we could head towards broken bones with more speed and certainty. Metal slides that got so hot to the touch they could leave big welts if you grabbed them at the wrong time of the day. Set into concrete to assure you, no matter what type of landing you had, it’d be a hard one.
I spend five minutes rolling onto my back and immediately hate it. My foot hates it worse, toes curling for entirely the wrong reason as it tests out my enthusiasm for a cramp.
Not enthusiastic at all but it ignores the market research and goes ahead.
“Ugh. Ah!” I stretch my arm and fingers as far as they’ll go, but without the flexibility I used to take for granted, there’s no way I can reach the source of my discomfort.
Then Kai rolls over, blinks at me like a sleepy owl, and quickly tracks my distress to the offending limb, taking it between his large fingers and massaging until the intense pain eases.
“Who said you could stop?” I ask with indignation when he dares to pull his hands away. “There’s another one over here that would also like a rub, pretty please?”
“Mm-hm.” He rolls onto his back momentarily, to snag a bottle of baby oil from the dresser, then returns to work, easing out the muscles of my feet until they’re singing in praise.
“Anywhere else you need my fingers before I put this away?” he asks, cocking his eyebrow at far too jaunty an angle for my liking. “Any other bits of you aching for a nice, long rub?”
Instead of staying down where another area has expressed a vague interest, he sits against the headboard, pulling me back to rest against him.
He rubs baby oil into my shoulders and my head lolls forward in gratitude. So many bits of me ache that I rarely know what needs most attention, but this response has definitely moved to the top of my list.
