Page 24 of Snowed in at Santa's Lodge
Aspen was on paternity leave, but he sucked at it, sneaking around catching up on emails or meeting with people about projects they were covering for him pretty much every day.
I hadn’t expected that from him. He was really good about getting his work done in less time than needed and shutting down for the day. But, for whatever reason, he just couldn’t let go and be on leave.
And that’s why we were in my truck now, driving to the next county for a special event.
Lately, it hadn’t been easy to get him to leave the house—not because he wanted to stay at the lodge particularly but because he’d outgrown all of his paternity clothes. He felt awkward walking around in the super-sized flannel that I’d found for him in the back corner of the general store, and in the sweats that had to be rolled up because, in order to get them big enough for his waist, they went all the way down to the basement.
He refused to cut them, though, saying that the next person who used them might need the length when he donated them. I didn’t argue with him because if keeping them rolled up made him happy, that worked for me.
As embarrassed as he was about his clothes…which he shouldn’t be because he looked so good all the time, nothing was keeping him away from the annual ice cream festival.
Usually, it happened earlier in August, but this year, they were having it late because of some road construction they didn’t want getting in the way.
We pulled into the field-turned-parking-lot.
“You weren’t kidding. This is packed.” He looked out at the mass number of cars.
“It’s the best festival of the year.” And there were a lot of festivals locally, especially considering how rural it was.
I’d picked up our tickets online, and we scanned them at the entrance for our bracelets and walked around the festival.
They had homemade ice cream and varieties from small-batch places near and far. Pretty much if it didn’t come from a national grocery-store brand, the ice-cream maker was here. The bracelets got us samples from each and every one.
“How do we do this? Should we start at the far end and work back?” I asked.
No matter which way we went, we were going to hit crowds. My omega was intent on the map. “I want to start at booth seventeen.”
“Okay…curious. Why seventeen?”
“I saw them on the Food Channel, and they have broccoli ice cream.” Aspen rolled the map.
“And you want broccoli ice cream?”
“Not as much as I want to say I tried broccoli ice cream.” He grabbed my hand and took me in the direction of booth seventeen.
Remarkably, it wasn’t awful. I was glad to consume only a sample size, but I’d had worse. My mate disagreed. He liked it, asking for a second cup. Generally, the rule was one per flavor, but you could try them all.
I think they took pity on his very pregnant state, or maybe they were just excited somebody didn’t call it disgusting because quite a few commented that they were just being silly. It wasn’t bad, just not at all good. In any case, he received his second helping, and they went so far as to offer him a third.
We wandered through the booths, sampled maple ice cream, tried crème brûlée, cannoli, and even crab—surprisingly delicious—and more versions of chocolate than I knew existed.
I didn’t even make it a quarter of the way through. Even just the samples were too much for me. My mate? He conquered them all.
“I did it!” He tossed his last spoon in the trash and put his hands on his belly. “They should have a ribbon for that.”
They didn’t have a ribbon, but what they did have was a special photo op and a certificate. We stood in line to get it. The line was remarkably small compared to the rest of the booths, probably because most people were like me and called uncle partway through.
He held his side. “Probably should have stopped the ice cream sooner.”
“Let’s get you home, then maybe you can sleep it off.”
He was back to the sleepiness of pregnancy. It wasn’t as bad as the first trimester, but since he was only a couple of weeks away from his due date, it was probably for the best that he was getting rest. The midwife said our baby was probably going to be at least nine pounds, and pushing out a nine-pound baby was going to require some major energy.
Aspen fell asleep on the way home, and I hated waking him up, but it was far too hot to leave him in the car even for a few minutes.
I opened the door, reached over to unbuckle him, and whispered in his ear that it was time to get up. I didn’t want to be too loud and have him jump. Last time I did that, I didn’t hear the end of it for a week—which was fair because he did bang his knee after I startled him awake.
“Let’s go in.”
