“Reeeeek!” I called out.
He was right there before I could say anything else with a glass of water still in his hand.
“What you need, BB?”
“My back,” I hissed.
He sat the glass down, came behind me, and placed both hands on my lower back right away. “This spot?”
“No. Lower. More to the left.”
He adjusted and started pressing into the ache with those strong hands of his. I let out a shaky breath and dropped my forehead to my folded arms on the couch.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“Yes,” I sighed. “That’s it. Don’t stop.”
He kept rubbing and pressing while I tried not to cry over something as simple as relief.
After a minute, the pain eased enough for me to straighten back up. Reek handed me the water, and I drank while eyeing him over the rim of the glass. He looked more stressed than I felt. His eyes had been on me all day in that quiet, panicked way he got when something about me or the baby felt out of his control. He was trying hard not to show it, but I saw it.
“You look nervous,” I told him with a weak chuckle.
He crossed his arms. “I’m not nervous.”
I smiled through my discomfort. “Yes, you are.”
He ignored that. “How far apart are they now?”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my stomach and frowned. “I stopped timing them because the last time I thought I was in labor, they sent me home.”
He came over and crouched in front of me with his hand on my knee. “That was a few days ago. This could be different.”
“I know.” I let out a breath and looked away. “I just don’t want to go up there too soon again.”
He nodded. “A’ight.”
That was what he had been doing these last two weeks that kept throwing me. He listened. He still had his controlling little moments, but mostly he listened. He stayed. He adjusted. He acted like being my man and standing in partnership with me was the most normal thing in the world now. He had been damn near perfect, and that was hard for me to even say because Reek being perfect was not a sentence I ever thought I’d think.
He was still too controlling sometimes, still too quick to decide what was best and then tell me after. But with the war going on and the danger that came with his life, I understood.
Either way, he had been good to me. So good that it made this fear feel even worse.
Another pain hit then, sharp enough to interrupt my thoughts. I sucked air through my teeth and grabbed the edge of the couch.
Reek stood up fast. “That one stronger?”
I nodded.
“Wanna walk?”
“No.”
He held his hand out anyway. “Come on. Just around the living room.”
I glared at him, and he just stared right back, as if I didn’t have a choice.
Then I took his hand and let him pull me up. I shuffled slowly around the living room while he stayed right there at my side with one hand ready at my elbow and the other hovering by my back like I might drop to my knees at any second.
