Page 70 of The Jackpot Screwer
“But you walked out on me because you were mad.”
Shifting his position so he sat on the floor—I was grateful for Penny’s almost anal cleanliness of her bathrooms—he moved in front of me and crossed his legs. He then reached for my foot and lifted it into his lap.
“What are you doing?” I asked through a shaky giggle.
Looking up at me through his lashes, he smiled and winked before removing my shoe.
“Carter?”
“You said you couldn’t paint your toenails, right?” I nodded and he reached into his pants pocket and produced a bottle of bright pink nail polish. “So, I’m going to do them for you.”
I had never felt so much love inside my chest. Too much. I was in danger of my heart combusting. He smoothed his hand over my foot and then unscrewed the cap of the polish.
“I could have asked Lilah you know,” I said, leaning down so our heads were inches from each other.
With a brilliant smile he said, “Yeah I know, but I wanted to do it.”
“You didn’t walk out on me?”
“No, Lollipop,” he said focusing on getting the right amount of polish on the brush. “I went home to get this.”
With the tip of his tongue poking out from his lips, Carter made the first sweep onto my pinky toenail. He then sat back, examined it, using his nail to scrape away a little bit of the polish that had touched the skin. Once he was happy, he put the brush back into the bottle and then moved onto the next toe.
“Carter,” I said softly.
“Yeah, Lollipop?” he asked without looking up.
“I love you, baby.”
Then I got the eyes and the smile.
“Love you too.”
He squeezed my foot gently and then went back to work.
“I think our boy is by far the most handsome, don’t you?”
Bronte smiled and rolled her eyes. “He is baby, but you have to stop telling the other moms and dads.”
I looked around at the other couples with their dogs of varying age and size and shook my head.
“Nope. Not possible not to boast about Mani. Look at him.” We both looked down at Mani who was happily chewing the end of his tail. “He’s damn handsome.”
He’d grown a lot in the month or so that Bronte had been living in the apartment. Mainly outward and I had to keep telling her to stop with the treats. It would not look good to see the local vet carrying around his pup because it was too fat to walk.
“I have to admit,” Bronte whispered into my ear. “He’s the most well behaved here.”
“True.” I leaned down and rubbed Mani’s ear, earning a little grunt from him. He hated to be disturbed when he was chowing down on his tail. “Look at that one over there, with the big woman and her tiny husband. It’s crazy.”
The large woman was wearing a pair of tailored shorts and a Hawaiian shirt that looked like it might fit her, her husband and any kids they might have. The husband on the other hand was small, balding and wearing mirrored shades. His pants and shirt, in matching khaki, looked like they might be polyester, and in the mini heatwave we were having you could most likely fry an egg on that bald head of his. As for their pooch, well he had them both tied up with his leash as he weaved in and out of their legs, only stopping every few seconds to howl.
“It’s probably worried his owner is going to die of heatstroke,” Bronte giggled. “He’s sweating like a whore in church on Sunday.”
“And maybe he’s worried his wife is going to suggest sex when they get home and,” I said with a smirk, “she likes to be on top. I reckon the guy is scared as all get out.”
Bronte leaned into me, laughing, and I dropped a kiss to the top of her head. She’d been feeling much better the last few weeks, embracing the changes to her body and feeling calmer about everything. We were coming up to the final trimester and getting more excited each day about the new arrival. We’d decided not to find out the sex of the baby mainly because I’d not been able to make the sonogram where Dr. ‘Hollywood Smile’ Baskin was going to tell us. I’d been stuck doing an emergency operation on the twisted gut of an Irish Wolfhound and so Bronte has asked not to be told. After that, we agreed that it was kinda more exciting to be surprised on the day. Didn’t stop me thinking though, and I was still convinced it was a boy—I’d definitely seen a Johnson on that first sonogram.
“Are we ready, everyone?” A tall guy, with a mop of black hair that fell to his shoulders, beckoned us all toward him. “Please make a circle around me.”
