Page 43 of Wrong Number, Right Lion

If it were up to me, Arlo would have stopped working and been on paternity leave already. He still had a month left in his pregnancy, but he was done. He knew it, I knew it—but he was stubborn, insisting he could keep working until the baby came.

But something had changed today. He hadn’t said as much, but from the time we woke up, I could feel it. Over breakfast he assured me he was feeling great and excited to see me after work, but it wasn’t his health that was off. There was a clinginess to him, one that almost had me calling into work. But if I called into work every time he had a mood swing or a change in his energy, I’d have been out most of the semester

Pregnancy was wild like that. One day he was cuddly and relaxed, the next he was hypersensitive to noise, and the next he would kill a bear with his hands if it meant he could get the brownies baked faster. Of course my favorite was when he was all hard and needy, which during the second trimester had been pretty much nonstop. Who knew pregnancy made you horny?

When I came home from teaching my last class, I could hear him pacing in his office upstairs. At first, I thought he was justgetting some exercise. His smartwatch told him it was time to get up, and the midwife had reminded him to take advantage of that notification. But he was walking longer than normal, and I went with my second guess; he was on a call that was driving him bonkers.

I let him know I was home via text and worked on some random household chores. But when two hours passed—two hours of him walking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, something needed to be done.

Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I sent him a text, asking if he needed anything, not wanting to barge into his workspace. That was a boundary I’d set for us, and most of the time, it didn’t bother me. But today, all I wanted to do was go up there and make sure he was okay.

Instead of answering, he came downstairs, waddling adorably.

Not that I ever called it waddling to his face—at least, not anymore. I’d learned that lesson. He didn’t see it as the absolutely stinking cute thing that it was. To him it was the same as calling him fat. I never said it again after he confessed that.

My dear sweet omega still didn’t know how ridiculously sexy he was with his large belly showing the world that he was keeping our cub safe and sound.

“I think I can be done.” He rolled his head, stretching his neck, and then brushed past me into the kitchen.

“Did you want me to cook for you?” I hadn’t thought about dinner yet, but we had what we needed to make quite a few quick-to-prepare meals.

“No, we need to pack up sandwiches or something similar.” He opened the bread box. “Yeah, sandwiches. To go.”

“How come?” I wasn’t opposed to leaving, but I was confused.

“Because… because we do.”

That wasn’t very telling, but I’d learned early in his pregnancy that if his mood was off and there was no apparent reason, it was 1000% hormones and 0% about me. I tried my best to let it roll off my back.

“I can do that for you. Any particular type you want?”

He glared at me. “What do you think I want?”

His cravings changed frequently, but this week, he’d been eating a lot of BLTs, so I went with that.

“Yeah, thanks. That would be great. I gotta pee.”

He waddled past me again, and I went to work. By the time he came back, I had an entire meal packed. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but they were ready.

“Sorry about being snappy. I didn’t realize I had to pee that bad. I feel better now.”

“I’m not worried about it.” I hugged him as best as I could with his belly in the way and gave him a quick kiss. “So… we’re going somewhere?”

“Yeah, we’re going somewhere. I was going to say grab a blanket, but I don’t know if I can get up off the ground. Maybe bring one of the folding chairs from the garage?”

“Yeah, I can do that. I’ll grab a blanket too, in case you get chilly.”

I still didn’t know where we were going, but I packed up the car with our food, blankets, chairs, and a case of water.

He climbed into the driver’s seat, pushing it back as far as it would go so the steering wheel didn’t press against his belly.

“I can drive.” And lately I usually did. But for some reason, he wanted to. Either that or he didn’t want me to say no to our destination, as if I could ever say no to him.

“No, I need to.” So into the passenger seat I went.

It didn’t take long before I realized where we were heading—to the place where I first showed him my lion.

I wasn’t sure why, but it didn’t matter. Pregnancy mood swings were what they were, and in the end, they usually turned out kind of fun. That’s how we ended up going to a make-and-take glass class. That’s how we ended up eating at what had become our favorite restaurant. That’s how we ended up turning the nursery into the most adorable theme ever—featuring lions, unicorns, and a beautiful blue sky.

---