Page 200 of The Baby Bargain
"It's eight thirty."
"I have to get dressed." I exaggerate my voice, so it's obvious my protests are empty. "And, well, I do need my chai…"
"I need you groaning over that chai."
"I might be able to arrange that."
He nips at my neck. "I might fuck you right here."
"I might be okay with that."
"You might?"
My lips curl into a smile. "I'd prefer the bed."
He hooks his thumbs in my pajama bottoms. "After the chai."
"And the coffee. You're even more miserable without it."
"Of course. I'm intolerable with coffee most times. Without it—"
"I don't want to imagine."
* * *
A perfect morningspills into a perfect day into a perfect night.
Chase and I fall into a routine.
After work, we meet at his place. I teach him how to cook a Vietnamese dish or he teaches me how to cook a… well, any non-Vietnamese dish.
We eat dinner, watch TV on the couch, break for, ahem, other activities, fall asleep in his bed.
Then it's chai and coffee and bacon and eggs and another day of texts about everything and nothing.
We go to the Huntington Gardens on his day off.
We hike in the Malibu Hills.
When I complain about his pace, he teases me that exercise is good for the baby. And neither of us has to say it. There isn't one yet, but there will be.
I keep thinking about that.
About this being our life. About us being parents. About us having it all.
Okay, so I don't think about it when we're actually trying to make a baby. It's impossible to think, at all, when Chase is ordering me around and growling into my skin and nipping at my neck—
But after—
Before—
All day, every day—
It's there, running through my mind, until it's time. Five days before my period.
Four.
Three.
