Page 34 of Beast Mode Todd

Epilogue

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‘Todd come and see.”I rolled my eyes and dropped the hammer I was using to pound the last nail into the chest I was making for the nursery. “What is it now?” I wiped my hands and followed her from the little work shed into the house.

Our house had been finished just a few weeks ago, just in time for the baby. She grabbed my hand and pulled me along behind her, which was the usual these days. She was always dragging my ass off somewhere.

She led me up the stairs to the room next to ours. There were bags all over the place since she’d just come from shopping with her mother and mine. The damn room looked like a full case of Pepto Bismol exploded all over the walls. Pink everywhere.

She picked up this little thing she once told me was called a onesie and held it up to me. It said daddy’s little princess. I wasn’t falling for that shit again. Before we knew what the kid was gonna be, I’d made the mistake of telling her my kid wasn’t gonna be no princess. Boy or girl I was teaching this kid every fuck I know about surviving in the world.

That started a debate on the differences between girls babies and boys. In one ear and out the other. When I didn’t give into her asshattery, she called in reinforcements, her mom and mine. And proceeded to have a feminist movement at my damn kitchen table.

Those two old women left here pissed as fuck and she didn’t speak to me for hours, until I took her down and fucked the stubborn out of her. I took the little scrap of material from her and the shit barely covered myhand.

“She can’t be that small baby. Nothing is that small. Unless you bought it for one the dolls. She already had half a toy store in here; kid’s gonna be spoiled shitless. She nodded her head and assured me that yes, babies are really thattiny.

I looked down at what I held in my hand and felt a cold chill, followed by the shakes. After months of playing with her tummy and feeling my kid rolling around in there, it was this that brought shit home forme

This little being was going to be reliant on me. Her mother is already a fucking handful I can’t imagine what the fuck this kid is gonna do to my life. She showed me the other stuff she bought and I calmed down a little, but I kept taking looks at her tummy, silently making deals with the kid to stay in there a little bit longer. Have mercy.

Life had turned out pretty well for us. Once we got settled in the tongues started wagging, but pretty soon they were on to something else, when the whole sordid Doug mess came to light.

He’d been sent away for a little less time than I had after making a deal. I got the business because there was no way in hell I was ever doing shit with him again and financially we were on decent standing. My lawyer was still trying to sue the shit out of the state or some shit and I told him to have at it. He was more pissed than I was that he’d let an innocent man go tojail.

Asshole number two had tried for months to talk her into coming back and though she tried hiding those calls from me I always knew when she’d received one, because she’d always go back to being gloomy.

I got tired of his shit and paid him a visit. I explained that my ‘wife’ we’d been married two weeks after moving back, was having my child and didn’t need the stress and if he didn’t knock it off I’d make good on my threat and knock his lightsout.

He was gone the following month. Last I heard he was living with one of the women from his firm. I think it was the one he tried hooking me up with. Once he was out of the picture things calmed down and it was justus.

Everything was about the baby from the time she peed on the stick and it said yes. I didn’t mind, I was excited as fuck and secretly tickled when we learned months later that it was a girl. The boys would come later, but every badass needs a little girl to keep his ass grounded.

The way I was before, it was good that I had the two of them to keep my ass in check. Just knowing that I had these two in my life, needing me, depending on me, I steered clear of the shit that can trip you up in a small town likethis.

There was no hanging out in bars and going with the guys for long weekends, except for the odd fishing day here and there. But I never left her alone for too long. I was an overprotective asshole to be honest, but once you’ve seen the worse the world has to offer that’ shit comes naturally.

She eased her girth into the rocking chair that I’d built for the nursery and sighed like she’d taken a load off. “Feet hurt?” I put aside my fear and knelt at her feet to rub some life back intothem.

Not for nothing, but if my kids ever disrespect their mother I’d slam their asses. The shit this kid was doing to her body was beyond anything I could’ve imagined. Not to mention her damnhead.

I found her one day last week sitting on the side of the bed crying her eyes out. When I rushed into the room ready to end a motherfucker, she blubbered all over me and told me what all the fuss was about. She couldn’t tie her shoelace.

I did it for her and then held her on my lap for the next twenty minutes until she came back to her senses. When it wasn’t the shoes or underwear that she could no longer see to get into, it was her weight.

She’d bitch and moan about being fat and I wasn’t the one to tell her that maybe if she didn’t eat half the nasty shit she did maybe she wouldn’t have gained fifty pounds. No sir, learned my lesson there too. I once jokingly compared her to orca and she brained my ass. She didn’t care that it was a joke, or that she was the one that started that shit. Then I had to hear from my mom and my dad about being insensitive and got a lecture about hormones.

Afterwards dad had pulled me aside and schooled me like he seriously thought I found my pregnant wife unattractive. Nothing could be farther from the truth, which she could attest to if her head wasn’t fucked from hormone imbalance or some shit. As often as I’m in her you’d think she knows.

I rubbed her back and got up to get dinner started while she rested on het couch. I was in there fifteen minutes tops when her screeching sent me running. “What?” I saw what two seconds after I asked. There was a puddle between her feet on the floor. Awdamn.

Somehow Todd Rogers, husband and dad disappeared, and first lieutenant Rogers reported for duty. I was barking out orders to myself once I got her squared away with dry panties and a new moo-moo. Don’t tell her I said that shit, but that’s what the fuck itwas.

I called the doctor, my parents, and hers. I figured everyone else could be contacted later. I was talking to keep her preoccupied on the way there but couldn’t tell you what the fuck I said. She was quiet and her face was drawn so tight I could see her cheekbones. Shit was enough to scareme.

We made it to the hospital before the doc whose old ass should’ve retired some time in the last century. She came bopping in ten minutes later full of cheer and good humor and I wanted to strangle her. Mallory was hooked up to some ET looking shit that kept beeping every few minutes and digging craters in myhand.

“Hi doc, nice of you to come.” That shit went right over her head as she started telling me how exciting this shit was and how we’ll have a new baby in just a little while.

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