Six days.
Nerves threatened the haze we’d cocooned ourselves in.
I shoved them away with Saint’s unspoken words wrapping around my heart.
Have faith.
Nash left the bed to clean up.
Locke checked in with my comfort, then sprawled beside me. “You two are gonna be the fuckin’ death of me.”
“I’m not sorry and you’re not dying.”
He chuckled, but he was already half asleep, so I hustled him into bed, leaving room for Nash on his other side—whether Locke knew it or not, he needed us around him tonight. Didn’t stop him taking a breath to say otherwise, but I silenced him with a kiss. “Shh. Sleep.”
No chance, not until Nash was safe beside him, but then he was gone, breathing slow and deep with one hand on me, the other entwined with Nash. My sweet boys. For a while, me and Nash stared at each other in the dark, those nerves dancing between us, battling the excitement we feared so much.
Then fatigue got the better of me and I slipped into the kind of doze that was nothing like the blissful nap I’d squished Ranger with.
Sometime later, I woke to a full bladder and a blistering Braxton Hicks contraction, tension eviscerating any post-orgasm bliss lingering in my body. JesusChrist, if there was anything to look forward to about a looming C-section, it was kissing goodbye to these bastards.
The contraction faded, but I was awake now.Wideawake, and the need to move was irrepressible.
I cinched my knees together and swung my legs out of bed, careful not to jostle Locke, though I knew I had little chance of being up for long before he noticed. Deep sleep—safesleep—continued to elude him, and I had to accept it probably always would.
Clutching my cumbersome belly, I slipped out of bed and crept from the room, shutting the door behind me in the faint hope that Nash dead asleep beside him might keep Locke down a little while longer.
I staggered to the bathroom I kept at my place forboys, all of them knowing better than to leave it anything but pristine. I peed. Immediately needed to pee again. Fuck my life.
Dayslater, I was finally done, and I shuffled to the living room, swiping my phone from the coffee table. Group chats let me know everyone was home safe, even Viktor and Ranger with Jake in tow. Even Rubi who’d been out for the count when we’d left Cam’s house, without me drawing anything rude on him or my comatose older brother.
I put the phone down. A spec of dust marred the table beside it. I blew it away, but more mess caught my eye, a streak on the window, the barest hint of a foot imprint on the rug.
It had to go, all of it. Before I knew it, I was up to my elbows in bleach, terrorising the kitchen—the counters, the fridge, the sink.
The goddamnfloor.
Locke found me there, filling the doorway, tracking my every move with zero fatigue in his gaze. “Whatcha doing there, queenie?”
“Cleaning,” I snapped, irritation eclipsing any fondness for him repeating my earlier words to me. Wasn’t it fucking obvious? “It’s a shithole round here.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.” I sloshed a cloth in the bowl, the scent of bleach so strong my eyes watered, and scrubbed another floor tile. “This whole flat needs sorting out. We don’t even have cots.”
“You want cots? We can go get them tomorrow.”
“No.”
Locke said nothing. Just watched as I crawled forward a few inches, the hard floor harsh on my knees but worth it for the relief in my back as a false contraction seized me. A big one that had me rocking with my head bowed like a wild animal.
Six days.
Six days.
Six days.
Or was it five now?