Hunter told me to lift my dress—nothing she hadn’t seen before, a mother to three hellions herself—and retrieved a roll of bright green tape. It looked just like the tape Barry came home with on his shoulder sometimes. She walked me through Kinesio Tapingmy belly, starting with a strip across the bottom and then two on either side.
“Han? You up here?” Barry called from the hallway.
“In here,” I called as Hunter taped the last piece. “Wow, that is really better.”
“I know, like magic, huh?”
Barry peeked into the bathroom, shoes removed, and startled to see me with my dress under my armpits, green tape on my belly.
“Is that KT Tape?” he asked.
“Yes, I can’t believe Jacob didn’t tell you this trick. Absolute game changer for round ligament pain in the third trimester.”
Barry frowned. I hadn’t told him I’d been having any pain outside of the usual pregnancy aches and pains—generally sore back, tender breasts, etc.
“You can keep this on for three to five days and then replace it. There are other taping patterns to try, too. Here.” Hunter handed me the roll of tape.
“Thank you,” I said, and I was so overwhelmingly grateful all of a sudden I felt like I could start crying.
I pulled my dress back down, and Barry helped me straighten it out over the belly and my ass.
“Yes, thank you, Hunter.”
“I don’t really have any friends who’ve had babies, and my mom was pregnant so long ago, it’s been like…” I trailed off, no word feeling like the right one.
“A little isolating?” Hunter prompted.
I swallowed as to not actually cry and nodded. She squeezed my hand—her skin was so soft, her smile so kind.
“Well, I want you to call or text me any time. No question too small, okay?”
“Sure, yes.”
“Us WAGs gotta stick together,” Hunter said, and winked at Barry, who wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I didn’t chide him for acting like my boyfriend, still too tender from all the nicepeople and Hunter’s easy help for a problem I didn’t think had a solution other than suffering and birth.
I silently thanked Barry for begging me to come to this party and let myself imagine just for a moment that I really was in this group of WAGs.
What harm would it be just to let myself imagine it?
CHAPTER 31
THE GUEST ROOM DILEMMA
A few days before Christmas, Barry’s little sister Chloe decided she would take him up on his invitation to spend Christmas with him since the flight from LA to Utah was shorter than the one from LA to Toronto. I picked at my thumb while Barry got ready for bed, unsure how to bring up what I’d been thinking about since he told me she’d be coming to town.
In the bathroom, Junior meowed at Barry’s feet, loudly begging for food even though I fed him forty minutes before, and Barry sang one of the Justin Bieber Christmas songs that Kate and I had been playing on repeat.
“Hey, should I stay in the guest room while your sister is here?” I asked, aiming for casual.
Barry’s shirtless upper half appeared in the door frame as he patted moisturizer into his face. One of his old teammates had been really into Korean skincare and Barry had picked up some tips.
“And she takes our bed?” he asked.
“No, she’d take another guest room—you have like five?—”
“Two.”
“Fine, two. She would take one, I would take the other, andyouwould take your bed.”
