Gavril slipped his hand down my stomach and swiped at my center, and suddenly I was a bit worried my mom would hear something. He circled over my most sensitive area with the pad of his thumb while his finger slipped inside, and I arched my back to give him better access. He trailed kisses up my neck and across my jaw while his hand wrecked my world and rebuilt it.
Wave after wave washed over me as my body contracted around him, and I cried out. When I was finished, he rolled me onto my side and wrapped himself around my back. I rested back into his warmth with my eyes closed.
“It should be illegal for anything this good to happen at three in the morning.”
He laughed and pressed a kiss to the shell of my ear. Everything about Gavril was gentle now. He assured me that we would be much more acrobatic once I was no longer pregnant, but while I was, he touched me tenderly and pressed into me softly. And while I missed the wild animal-like sex we had before, I liked that I had both sides of him while the rest of the world only got one.
He entered me from behind, spooning me while he pulsed in and out of me, my legs parted slightly to allow him access. The feeling of him stretching me was unbelievable in any position, but then his hand traveled around my side and back down to my center. The sensation of him behind me and in front set my entire body trembling.
I rocked my hips back into him and placed my hand over his, holding him to me while my body peaked for the second time. Except this time, Gavril came with me. He groaned and stiffened as I clenched around him, his thrusts growing longer, more languorous until he collapsed against my back, his warm breath washing over my skin and lulling me back to sleep.
***
Gavril was standing beneath two bundles of giant pink balloons and a banner reading It’s a GIRL! when I walked into the living room.
“The place looks great,” I said, admiring the decorations.
My mom popped her head in from the kitchen. “Thank you. Gavril helped hang the banner. Does it look centered?”
“I measured it twice,” Gavril said, rolling his eyes at me, though he was still smiling.
“It looks straight to me. Everything looks perfect.” And it did.
My mom’s nurse walked in pushing her empty wheelchair. “Good, because your mom needs to rest for a while. She has been way too busy this morning.”
My mom and her nurse both lived with us in Gavril’s house. Mom was doing a lot better now that she had quality care and the best doctors money could buy, but she was still sick, and so far, no one had suggested it would ever be any different. She was terminal, so we just wanted to buy her as much time as we could.
The guests started arriving, and before I knew it, the living room was stuffed with both of our families and friends. Even though it had been a few months, I still caught myself looking around the room for Devin. In the end, Gavril and I decided to tell my mom a version of the story Devin had told her about me.
I told her that he was mentally ill and confused. He got himself in trouble with the wrong people and couldn’t tell what was real or fake anymore. His confusion led to an argument, and he pulled out a gun but was shot by someone else before he could use it. My mom was taking it understandably hard, but this pain was better than the pain the truth would have caused.
A pile of gifts in pink and gold wrapping paper and bags was stacked in the corner nearly to the ceiling, and it took us most of the party just to unwrap them. Gavril read the names on the cards while I tore through the wrapping paper and tissue paper, passing all the trash on to my mom’s nurse, who stuffed it in a trash can. My mom wrote down each of the gifts and the person who gave it to us in a notebook so I could send out thank you cards later. She filled in ten pages, front and back, before we were done.
I’d been to baby showers before, but they were always small, modest affairs. No one in my family or friend circle was rich, so people gave what they could, but it wasn’t extravagant. Gavril’s family, however, gave gifts that could have made the Queen of England blush. Someone gave us a wooden bassinet with an electronic mobile attached to the top that was operated by a golden hand crank on the side. One of his aunts gave us a stroller that looked more like a mini-spaceship. And every member of his security team pitched in to give our baby girl a literal suitcase full of cash. It was more money than I’d ever seen before in my life, and my mom had to stop my uncle Christopher from “accidentally” mistaking the suitcase for his own on two separate occasions and leaving the party with it.