"About how sure are you that you would want to marry me?" I asked, leaning across the kitchen island. "About one hundred percent! Now sit your ass down!" Danny shouted. The two of us had randomly woke up craving pancakes. He swore that my pregnancy symptoms were wearing off on him and I swore that it was a bit too late to be picking up Couvade Syndrome. Usually I'd spend my mornings standing in the mirror, trying to examine my body for any new stretch marks that had decided to make an appearance over night. Today was totally different.
I had spent more than a few days entertaining the idea of marriage. Actually, I had become obsessed with it, but this was the first day that I grew the balls to actually open my mouth and say something to him about it. In the past, I thought, HELL NO! I would never, ever picture myself being stuck with one person for the rest of my life. Like, how fucking boring would that be? I wasn't down with honoring to obey someone. I couldn't be tamed. No one's ever been able to tame me. Not even my own parents. Dean and I fought time and time again because he wanted me to lay low and stay tied to him.
But, it was like a switch had flipped. When I drifted off to sleep, thinking that Danny was just talking out of his head, I woke up to images of lace wedding dresses dancing around my mind. I pictured standing in front of all of my friends with my mom crying like a baby as someone laced up the back of a wedding gown and placed a veil over my face. With my mom being who she was, I just knew that everything would probably be draped in the whitest tulle you could find. There would be white feathers, pearls, and flashy little rhinestones all over the place. I saw white rose petals falling all around me with my arm hooked around my dads as I tip toed down the aisle. I saw everyone from my childhood, both young and old, surrounding me, watching me walk in awe of what was about to take place. Sydney Trent, the total fucking train wreck, was getting married. I imagined Danny, all cleaned up and neatly dressed in a tuxedo, which was shocking in itself, waiting for me beside some random preacher.
"I'm just in total shock that someone would want to be stuck with me for the rest of their life," I said calmly, glancing at him from the corner of my eye. "I don't see why. You're perfect," he said nonchalantly. He turned his back to me, continuing to stir the pancake batter like I never said anything. I remained frozen as I continued to watch his every move. I was staring blankly at him, practically gawking.
He thinks I'm perfect.
Even when it looked like the new Sydney, who was the size of a beached whale, had swallowed the old, tiny Sydney, he still thought I was perfect. Even when I was almost sure that I had my own gravitational pull, he thought I was perfect. Even after months of ridiculous mind games and emotional roller coasters, he thought I was perfect. Even when I had a different mood for every single hour of the day, he thought I was perfect. He sat through almost a year of seeing me in a shitty relationship with someone that he and all of my friends would have gladly killed and he was still willing to choose me and stick with me. He took off and disappeared for an entire year, leaving me behind to think that he no longer cared about me, he thought I was perfect and he wanted to stay by my side.
As usual, there was this imaginary list of defects that I always went over when it came to someone seeing something good in me. I was unstable and I'm pretty sure I always had been. Sometimes I was like one of the guys and that was neither good nor bad. I could drink a full sized, grown ass man under the table in less than a few seconds. I took a lot of pride in ending my nights blacked out on someone's couch with my friends babysitting me. I would go toe to toe with anyone, any day of the week, and at any time, and win, lose, or draw, I would do it over and over again without even giving it a second thought or considering the consequences.
Even though I was about to become a mom and was obviously a different and more mature person, I just couldn't accept the fact that someone found me as anything other than defective.
"I'm not! I'm moody and I can be evil as fuck! I've never been perfect!" I shouted, causing him to jump. "Stop yelling and take the damn compliment!" he shouted back. My hands flew over my mouth and my mind was finally catching up to me. "I've always thought you were perfect and if you want these damn pancakes, I suggest you sit there, be quiet, and keep being cute!" A smile was creeping up on his lips. I slid off of the bar stool and went around the island with the intention of wrapping my arms around him and hugging him as tight as I possibly could without crying.
I took in all of his features, just like always, as I walked up to him. My man and I'm probably gonna to be able to call him that for the rest of my life, I said to myself. Just the sight of him standing there in nothing but basketball shorts sent fire through my veins. I almost couldn't control myself at the sight of how low they hung on his hips. But, I couldn't let my hormones throw me off. They were raging more and more these days and sometimes they would get the best of me. Sometimes I was practically drooling over him.
"Make me," I said, placing my hands on my hips and standing on my toes to try to challenge him. He turned around to face me with my belly in between us. "Not fair. It's two against one," he said, glancing down with a smirk on his face. It took everything in me not to burst into laughter. "Mama didn't raise no bitch," I said, narrowing my eyes. I dipped my finger into the batter and dabbed it on the tip of his nose. "You're too pregnant to wrestle with," he said with a more serious look on his face. I was hoping that he wasn't about to go into adult mode on me.
Slowly but surely, he proved me wrong when he boldly grabbed a handful of batter and smashed it on top of my head, causing me to yelp. "But if it's a food fight you want, then it's a food fight you'll get!" he shouted cheerfully. I paused for a second, trying not to freak out from the way the cool batter oozed across my scalp and down my forehead. I was in shock.
Without even giving it a second thought, the large white bowl was in my hands and I hopped as high as I could to bring it down on the top of his head. "HOLY FUCK THAT'S COLD!" he screamed. With a mischievous smile on his face, he gathered me up in his arms to pull our bodies closer. "You're going down with me!" he cried out. I held onto him as tight as I could. I was almost certain that I was going to slip and fall and bust my ass if I hit a patch of pancake batter that made its way down to the floor. "Nooooo!" I wailed, trying to pull away from him. My feet were slipping from under me when I felt one of his hands on the small of my back and the other was gently placed on my belly. "Careful, Humpty Dumpty!" he said, still smiling from ear to ear. He was always cracking jokes about how round I was getting and I would always argue with him or try to strangle him. But, I brushed off his smart ass remark and tried to regain my balance.
For a second, my heart had leaped into my throat. I was pretty proud of the fact that I had powered through this pregnancy without any of my clumsiness getting in the way. I didn't want to start now when I could have actually hurt me and Fauna. But just like always, he was there to catch me and that moment said everything that needed to be said about our entire relationship. I was a mess, but he was always there to catch me before I plummeted into the earth. He had always saved me from myself, even when I didn't want him to.
I pouted for a second when I realized that my plan back fired and both of us ended up completely covered in the sticky mess, but I hadn't laughed this hard in a long time.
I stood there for a second, pulling myself back to the now, and our clothes were completely covered in what was supposed to have been our breakfast. His large black t-shirt was decorated with huge white splotches, clinging to my belly. I could feel my hair clinging to my face and neck in a mess that was only going to be resolved by shampoo and conditioner. Danny chuckled as he tried to move the loose pieces out of my face. "Well, the rest of the kitchen survived, but we probably need to shower," he said as he wrapped his arms around me. "No shit. I can't stand outside and let you hose me off," I replied, still smiling from ear to ear.
Looking at the way his hair was matted on the top of his head caused me to giggle uncontrollably, causing my belly to shake like it was Christmas time. Fauna did the usual thing she did whenever she heard our laughter and continued with her acrobatics. On another note, my heart burst into a sprint when I went back to the thought of us showering together.
Despite all of my whining and objecting, Danny never made me feel like I had packed on over sixty pounds. He never put any emphasis on how I was inhaling an entire pizza almost every night. He would turn a blind eye when I would pout about my clothes being too small and over the course of the next few days, I would have a few outfits here and there that didn't make me feel like I was the size of an elephant. Mom said he was spoiling me. Jada was cheering in my corner. He was definitely earning brownie points with Dad because Danny was taking care of me and basically picking up where he left off.
Even when I was to the point of having a meltdown because my ass was completely covered in stretch marks and my hips were adding inches over night, he embraced it all and never made me feel like anything had changed. No one truly knows how fucking annoying it is to have your boyfriend smack your ass like a set of bongos when you're half asleep. And I could honestly kill him for referring to my boobs as "fun bags", but on the inside, it made me feel good about myself.
When we were in action after hours of his constant groping, it was mind-blowing. In the beginning, I would have mini panic attacks about the condition of my vagina after the baby came. Seeing how they hacked up Rachel during labor made my stomach curl and I know that things wouldn't be the same if they had to tear into me that way. But, throughout the pregnancy, he still claimed that it was good as new and sometimes, getting aroused was like turning on a faucet. Needless to say, my anxiety about how much my body was changing and how different things would be when it was all said and done were melting away. I was loving every single minute of the attention I got from him.
.
.
.
.
"Be very still. We don't need you taking a tumble today," Danny said as he herded me into the bathroom and turned on the water in the shower. I stood there, waiting patiently for the water to warm up. All of the excitement instantly hardened my nipples. Blood began to rush to all of my most intimate areas and I knew that I would soon be blushing. "Hold your arms up," he said quickly, taking a deep breath as he pealed the shirt off of my torso. He did it slowly, just enough to torture me. "Calm your tits," he said with a chuckle. I swatted at him playfully before holding his arm to brace myself as I came out of my shorts and panties.
He held my hand, ready to catch me if I lost my balance as I stepped in and then he joined me. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get the chance to attack him once he got undressed. The water was everything I needed to calm my nerves though. I had to put my focus on getting the mess out of my hair before it dried.
He beat me to the punch when he reached for my shampoo, squeezed a huge amount into his hand, and gently started massaging it onto my scalp. "Just take it easy. Don't I always get the job done?" he asked rhetorically. HELL YES! I wanted to scream. He was driving me crazy and the anticipation was making it worse. He knew exactly what he was doing.
I closed my eyes, deciding to enjoy the moment. He worked his hands from my scalp, tenderly making his way down my neck and then my shoulders. I was beginning to unwind and truly relax. My back was next and a moan escaped from my lips as he lovingly kneaded the tension out of my muscles.
Before I could get too lost, he turned my body around to face his when he held my face with both hands, crashing his lips against mine. Just like with all of my cravings, I was screaming internally because I was finally getting something I wanted so badly, I could taste it. We moved between smashing our lips together over and over again with our tongues occasionally dancing with one another, and our fingers getting tangled in each other's hair. He was my ultimate craving and always had been even before I got pregnant. I could never get enough of him. He was always rough, only enough to reveal true passion, but also gentle, just to make sure that his love for me was loud and clear.
Both of us were overwhelmed with lust. Before I could even open my mouth, he quickly shut off the water. He was definitely as wound up as I was.
He carefully stepped out of the shower, holding my hand to help maintain my balance. In the blink of an eye, he had bent down and scooped me up. He usually preferred to just pick me up to allow my legs to wrap around his upper body, but obviously my belly was a little too convex to make that work.
Our lips didn't pull away from each other. We continued to get lost in each other as he carried me into the bedroom. I couldn't wait any longer. I refused. As soon as I could feel him placing me on the bed, I sprung up to wrap my arms around his neck. I didn't know about him, but I was ravenous, even though it had only been a day or so since our last sexual encounter. I still wanted to be satisfied while still wanting more. Sometimes I felt like he drove me crazy and I loved every minute of it.
He eased my body back toward the bed while slowly climbing on top of me. I was laying flat on my back which would usually be a challenge. I freaked out when I learned that laying flat on my back at this point would cause the baby to press on the vein that returned blood to my heart. I would end up light headed and struggling to breathe, but right now, I was relaxed and trying to enjoy this moment. I didn't feel light headed and surprisingly, my breathing was under control.
"I love you," he managed to say between kisses. He moved his lips from my mouth and along my jawline, making his way down my neck, not giving me the chance to respond. I don't think I could have. Feeling his hands all over my body had turned my brain into mush. "I've always loved you," he added, "and I always will." My eyes rolled to the back of my head as his lips continued to brush over the surfaces of my skin. The feeling of his rough hands brushing over my sensitive nipples caused me to squirm which caused him to chuckle. He would nearly lose his mind whenever he was able to make me squirm. His teeth grazed the skin on my neck where he could feel my heart pounding and it caused me to giggle.
"You're beautiful," he continued to say. The smile on my face was priceless. I was never one to go crazy over compliments, but he was going above and beyond. His hand trailed down my body, stopping at my waist just before he slipped it between my legs. "And sexy," he said as he nipped the skin just below my ear. The pads of his fingers danced playfully over my bundle of nerves, causing me to moan. "And you're perfect." My nails were clawing his back and I was growing impatient.
He wanted to drag this out as long as possible, but I felt like I was going to explode before I even got to feel him inside me. I was getting truly annoyed, but I was fighting with myself to keep from spoiling the romance. He pulled his hand away, causing me to buck my hips for more friction"Just get on with it!" I snapped as I pulled my hands away from him to prop myself up. His lips were still attached to my neck for a second.
He pulled away and chuckled at the frustration on my face. "Marry me?" he spit out. I could only gulp to swallow the lump that sprang up in my throat and I couldn't even hide the shock on my face. As expected, my mouth couldn't form any words to respond. I sat there, wide eyed and completely speechless while he raised an eyebrow at me with a smart ass smirk on his face.
Oh shit.
