Page 46 of Bossy Grump's Secret

"You're right. I'm overreacting, aren't I? I think it's the pregnancy, don't you?" I look up and then at my body, trying to verify the root cause of my hypertension. “It’s definitely the pregnancy. I should start craving something by now…." I taste my tongue, imagining what I would supposedly desire so badly. I won’t think properly without having sated myself with whatever it is.

All the while, Lily sits on her bed, regarding me in silence. When I finally pause from my anxiety attack and look at her, she cocks a perfectly shaped brow in a humorless questioning.

"It's literally not up to a month. If you're developing these signs early, I'm terrified of what you'll become in the most trying time of my life… you'll be lucky if I don't attempt murder while you sleep.”

Wow. I’ve definitely rubbed off too much on this one. Still, I'm determined to prove that I'm stubborn and can whine and cry the rest of the evening, which seems to annoy her only mildly. By the end of the weekend, she must have attempted to suffocate herself with her pillow at least a few times. By the time Dylan returns, Lily is already transitioning to suffocating me instead.

The only thing that saves her is the irk she feels over Dylan's behavior toward me. As a pregnant girl still in the nausea phase, it is surprising that I haven’t thrown up yet.

"What the hell are you doing?" I ask, confounded, when he takes my feet off the ground and massages them shortly after he arrives in our room.

“Shh. They say it helps with circulation,” he insists and continues rolling my feet like a ball, one leg before the other.

“Whoever they are, they’re creeps," I huff but keep my feet on his thighs. Feeling myself touch this sensitive part of his body makes me realize the pregnant craving I have…for now.

Touch. I salivate when he touches me and rubs his smooth, experienced hands along my feet and ankles, sometimes trailing up just below my calves. And not with the mouth you think regular saliva should come out of. This is a tighter mouth with more viscous, tastier saliva. He stops right before I throw all cares to the wind and stop him.

Honestly, this is the best decision I know he has taken so far…and the luckiest. Lily would have lost her optic virginity today if she hadn’t already.

“That almost took my bowels out," I tell Lily, still frozen on the bed, attempting to process what happened.

“Hey, at least I got a massage. Not bad, huh?” I wave my feet at her, and she waves them off.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I didn’t know you even needed a massage,” she laughs.

“Yeah, me neither. Hopefully, he’ll be back to his former self by tomorrow.”

Tomorrow comes, and he's the same nice guy. He tells Lily and me to wait and stand back when he addresses anyone. "Which area do you think is easiest to do? ” he asks.

“Anything but the public areas,” Lily pipes up and looks at me before slyly adding, “…If you reduce the intensity of the workload. "

“Alright, Lily, but you’re not getting reduced work along with your friend,” Dylan barks.

“I know, I know…” she mumbles.

“But we’ll still be together, right?” I ask politely.

He chuckles in response, “Definitely. She’s your mother in this scenario.”

"Don't let it get into…."

I’m too late. I feel her arms snake around my waist as she pulls me close. The grimace on my face cannot be better emphasized.

“My baby,” she purrs at me, and I shudder when her breath hits my shoulder.

Dylan shakes his head to clear it. “That said, how you both would like to assist Matilde again in the laundry department?”

“Yay?” I tilt my head, not knowing what to say. “Now, misunderstand me. I’m perfectly fine. I do not know why you’re doing this.”

"Yeah, you're fine, but you're pregnant. You could go from fine to not fine, very fast. You need to be in a place where you can handle yourself if that happens. That's all I'm doing. No chivalry involved,” he says with a straight face.

“Oh, please. You have little to no idea how to handle a pregnant woman, and I’m sure easing a workload that wasn't particularly stressful is not the way to go." I am scathing mad, but he just gives me a dry look.

…the same dry look he gives me when I open my eyes some hours later, working the ‘easy’ laundry department. He doesn’t utter a single word. His eyes do all the judging. Uh-un, as they say, you’re perfectly fine, and I know nothing about handling pregnant women.

I swat his fingers away from my face when he reaches to feel for my temperature.

“You need to cool off for the day. I’ll take tomorrow off so you and I can go to a proper gynecologist to see what we can do to quell the spells…or if we just wait it out.”

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