“Daddy said a bad word again!” Amorette giggles.
“Because. She was taken care of by him this morning,” Sylred says pointedly.
Sex code talk in front of a toddler has become a necessity.
Evert rolls his eyes. “Well, then we should’ve let the fucking lamassu open up the debate. She would’ve folded at twelve weeks right off the bat.”
“I would not have,” I argue. I probably would have.
Evert gives me a look. “You always cave to whoever…took care of you, last.”
I shrug. Okay, fine. He’s not wrong.
“Well, eight weeks. That’s the deal,” I say, taking another sip of buttermilk. Sniffing it slightly, I reach for the salt and pepper and dump some in. Swishing it around, I take another drink and sigh in contentment. Much better.
When my cupid boss mark starts glowing more brightly, my mates gives me sharp looks.
“Fine! I’ll call Sev and tell him.”
“Ooh! Can I play with Sev? He talks funny,” Amorette says excitedly.
“Absolutely not,” Evert says, standing and plucking her from her seat.
Her bottom lip pokes out. “Why not?”
“Because he’s a fucking terrible influence.”
Yeah, the irony is not lost on me.
“Daddy said a bad word again!”
“Sorry!” Evert barks, warding off all of our exasperated looks as he ducks out of the kitchen with a sticky Amorette in tow.
“Take care of it, little demon. Today,” Ronak says in his bossy tone, which he softens by using his draped arm to pull me close and land a kiss to the top of my head.
Then he stands and follows Evert out, while Sylred starts clearing the table. I get up to help him, but he shakes his head. “No. Sit.”
“I can help,” I insist. “I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”
“The last time you started helping with the dishes, you started dry heaving,” he points out.
“Yeah, well…as long as there aren’t any gross food particles stuck to any of plates, I can totally do the dishes.”
He cocks a blonde brow, the corner of his lip tilting up. “I’m pretty sure our dirty food plates are going to have food on them.”
“Fine. Then I’ll wipe the table,” I say, moving to grab the rag.
But the moment I pick it up, Okot reaches out and grips it. I don’t want to let it go, though, so we have a weird, super mellow tug-of-war contest before he gently peels my latched-on fingers from the rag and takes it from me.
“When you wiped the table down two days ago, you started crying,” he gently reminds me.
I huff out an annoyed breath. “That’s because I found a moisture ring stained into the wood! It was upsetting!”
“Wasn’t it just—”
I cut him off. “Yes, it just ended up being syrup. But still. It could have been a moisture ring.”
Now both of them are trying not to laugh at me.