Page 141 of Nanny for the SEALs

I sank into the couch and sighed. “It would be a whole big thing. I didn’t want to ruin his night with Jason. Who seems nice, by the way.” I looked sideways at Brady. “Is it really that big?”

“It should have its own zip code,” Rogan said dryly.

Brady pointed a finger at him. “Hah! You noticed it too!”

“I really wish I could have a drink,” I said. “I guess it was a mistake to have sex without a condom, huh?”

Asher sat next to me on the couch. “Only if you regret it. Do you? It’s okay, you can tell us.”

I laid my hand across my belly. I didn’t have a bump, but I imagined I could feel the tiny little person growing inside of me. It should have scared me, but it didn’t.

I rested my head on Asher’s shoulder. “I don’t regret a single thing.”

55

Heather

I regretted everything.

And to all those women out there who pretend like pregnancy is beautiful and natural and glorious: you suck. I’m blaming you for this.

The first few months of pregnancy weren’t bad. I had morning sickness once or twice a week. I became sensitive to certain smells, like licorice or lavender. If I caught a whiff of those, I immediately became nauseous. The toughest part of the first few months was not being allowed to have caffeine. I missed coffee more than I missed alcohol, honestly.

The guys had never been more attracted to me. I thought they had been affectionate during the first month I was nannying, but it paled in comparison to the way they treated me now that I was pregnant with one of their children. They told me I was beautiful. They claimed I was glowing. They couldn’t keep their hands off me, and insisted they wanted to make love to me every hour of every day. The three of them started taking turns visiting me while the children were napping so we could have someafternoon delight.

But they treated me like I was made of glass. It was like they were afraid toreallygive me some hardcore, toe-curling, sweaty sex. Brady was especially bad about this. After having missionary sex three times in a row, I finally broke down and told him to treat me like normal.

“You don’t have to be gentle,” I insisted. “I’m fine! The baby is fine!”

“I just really like going slow, and loving,” he replied, but I knew that was just his excuse.

Fortunately, Asher was willing to give me exactly what I wanted. After a little encouragement, he was bending me over the guest bed and pounding me like one of those carnival strength-measuring games, where you hit a target with a mallet and try to get it to ring the bell. And oh baby, Asher knew how to ring my bell. It was always the quieter ones who really knew how to do it.

Sometimes a girl just needed to be properlyfucked.

So, yeah. The first four months weren’t too bad. But as I waddled toward the end of my second trimester, and into the third, the pregnancy stopped being all rainbows an kittens.

I was bloated all the time. Not just in my belly, either: I was bloatedeverywhere. I had to buy new shoes because my feet swelled three sizes. My toes looked like pudgy little Vienna sausages. My hands were onlyslightlybetter.

The rest of my wardrobe quickly became unwearable. Going shopping was a pain in my condition, so I bought five Empress-cut dresses online and rotated through those.

Then came the menopausal symptoms. Yeah, they don’t mention that part, do they? One minute I would have a blistering hot flash, and the next minute my entire body would feel like it had been dunked in ice. Rinse and repeat approximately seven thousand times per day. I had to change clothes about as often as I went to the bathroom, because I kept sweating through the dresses.

Speaking of bathrooms, I was peeing every two hours. It didn’t matter if I had drank anything that morning: my body still found pee to get rid of. Hell, if I so much aslookedat a glass of water, I had to pee. The little rugrat occupying my belly was taking up all the room my bladder normally used to expand. Thanks a lot, future child.

I was very gassy. I will not elaborate further, and I will not be taking questions at this time.

Then there were the emotional swings. The smallest inconvenience would send me into a white-hot rage. Then I would see a puppy on a commercial and I would start to bawl my eyes out. Ten seconds later, I felt giddy and laughed at even the dumbest jokes on the cartoons the children were watching. I ran the full gamut of emotions.

Hormones were dumb. Want to make a billion dollars? Invent a pill that flattens all those emotional peaks and valleys out.

I was certain the baby was a member of the next generation US National Soccer Team, because he or shelovedto kick. I reveled in the sensation at first: it was proof that my baby was healthy and alive! They were feisty, just like their momma!

Soon I grew to hate it. This baby must have been bored, because they did nothingbutkick the walls of my uterus. They kicked in the morning, they kicked in the afternoon, and then, just to change things up, they kicked in the evening. Don’t forget kicking in the middle of the night, when I was trying to sleep. Babies don’t adhere to normal sleep hours, even when they’re still in utero.

“I’ll give you a million dollars to leave me alone,” I groaned one night.

“Deal,” Brady murmured next to me. He was half-asleep, becausehedidn’t have a soccer player practicing inside his scrotum. “No take-backs.”

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