Page 44 of No First Kisses

“This package came for you today.” Nia holds out a small envelope, and I take it from her while I still try to catch my breath. “Are you okay? The baby’s not coming right now, is it?”

She watches me carefully, and I nod. “Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry. The baby is not coming right now. Hopefully not for another two months or so.” I laugh, trying to calm her down when it is clear she has immediately gone into panic mode. “I got some heartburn from eating a piece of leftover pizza in like two bites. It hurts.” Rubbing my chest, I sigh deeply when the pain goes away. “It’s my own stupid fault for trying to eat.”

“Okay, good.” Nia steps back. “I don’t need to be delivering any babies.”

“Thanks for bringing this.” I wave the envelope, ignoring the fact that I’m pregnant enough to actually go into labor in favor of the tiniest piece of mail delivered. “I don’t remember ordering anything to the department, so it must be a baby present.”

I’ve gotten a lot of baby shit in the mail since I found out I’m pregnant, and most of it is stuff that my parents or Logan’s parents have bought because they ‘thought of the baby’ and then bought it and had it delivered before I could tell them not to do it.

When Nia doesn’t immediately move to leave, I raise an eyebrow. “Oh. You’re staying because Logan thinks I’m gonna try to make a jailbreak and get out of bed rest if someone isn’t here to help keep me occupied.”

She smiles broadly, not a hint of guilt anywhere on her face. “He offered to cover dispatch so I could actually go pick up my own dinner tonight if I made sure you had everything you needed.” While I watch, she wraps her long blond hair in a braid that hangs over her shoulder. “He said that if he showed up, you might take a rusty spork and drive it into his eyeball or something like that. The threat was vague, but he seemed pretty terrified which would be hilarious if it were anyone but him.”

“Thanks for stopping.” I wave a hand over my pajamas, which are actually Logan’s since that’s all I can seem to fit into anymore if I don’t want to squeeze into leggings. “But you don’t have to stay. I’m not going anywhere. Honestly, I’m too tired to do much of anything except eat and watch reruns of my favorite movies at this point.”

“Okay.” Nia rubs her hands together. “This is my last shift before I’m gone for the weekend with my sister and niece. We’re headed to Belfast for a weekend of relaxation, fun, and birthday celebrations for the only kid in the world I can stand.” She winks before opening the front door. “You know, besides whatever hellion you deliver for Detective Pierce.”

“Pure demon spawn,” I tell her. “And it’s all his fault. Did you know I want freaking tacos now? Like actual tacos. I hate tacos. Hate them worse than anything else. But all Logan’s progeny wants is that disgusting stuff. Logan had it put on pizzas for me, so I don’t feel like I’m completely cheating on my favorite food.”

“If you get bored, you can FaceTime me, and I’ll walk around the bullpen with my phone in my pocket and we can scare the piss out of whoever’s in the shop,” Nia offers with a smile.

“Thank you, Nia.” When she walks down the front lawn, I close and lock the front door. Then because I’m not an idiot and I know something is bothering Logan enough that he has people checking on me, I set the alarm for good measure.

Once I’m as safe as I can be in Logan’s house, which is pretty much a fortress, I toss the envelope on the counter to open later.

Then I do all the laundry. And fold it. And put it away. I clean the house from top to bottom. By the time I’m done, I still have like five hours until Logan gets off work and all I want to do is crawl out of my skin.

Deciding enough is enough, I change into another one of Logan’s shirts and roll myself into a burrito made out of blankets. Once I’m nice and bundled up, I plop down on the couch, pull a pillow down under my head, and start to poke my stomach until my son pushes back against my intrusions.

The entire time, I’ve barely paid attention to the show I put on to get away from the silence all around me. Occasionally, I get up and check to see which of the patrol officers is sitting down the driveway, keeping an eye on the house from the tree line on the edge of the property.

I’m halfway through rewatching the first season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine by the time Logan walks through the door. Then I get to laugh and watch him struggle to disarm and reset the alarm that starts to blare in his ear when he doesn’t get it done fast enough.

“How did you even remember to set the alarm?” Logan sits down on the ground next to the couch, not disturbing my blanket burrito. “You haven’t set that thing once since you’ve moved in.”

“That’s not true,” I say lamely. “Well, okay, it’s true. But I was thinking about how crazy you’ve been lately. Like the type of crazy that has you watching over my shoulder constantly and sending patrol officers by the house to make sure that I’m okay. And when I called my mom about it, she said that every time there would be something dangerous going on with Dad and Sammy’s club and they thought she might be in danger, Dad would have one of the club members or a prospect keep an eye on things. So then I figured it had to be something important, and I turned on the alarm just in case.”

Logan listens to my entire spiel, his eyes never leaving my face even though my arms are waving around like I’m an absolute lunatic, and then he smiles.

“You haven’t once asked me to tell you what’s going on,” he says. “Why not?”

I sniff, closing my eyes, and burrow deeper into the blankets. “If you were ready for me to know, you’d have told me.” I crack open one eye and spear him with a harsh look. “But anytime you wanna get on that, I’m here and waiting. I’m just busy growing your child so it’s not like I’m doing something important or anything like that.”

Logan leans forward, pressing his hands against my stomach gently through the blankets, and then moves so that his forehead is lined up with mine.

“I love you. So damn much.”

“I know.” I quote Star Wars back at him, yet again, and hope that he won’t ask me to tell him I love him.

Yes, I love him. I will always love him. But I can’t say the words right now. Not when I’m essentially a human incubator and I’m frustrated. I’m also not about to dig too deeply into it, at least not until after the baby hormones are out of my body. And maybe not even after that.

Logan is still staring at me, and even though only a few seconds have passed after my words, I feel like I need to fill the empty space.

“I want you to be the Jake to my Amy,” I blurt out.

Logan looks over his shoulder, where two of the characters in my show are currently fighting their attraction to each other.

“They can be us,” he counters and then devours my lips in a punishing kiss. “I can’t start this right now, though, because I want to tell you what’s been going on.” His explanation after pulling back from the kiss doesn’t really do much.

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