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MAGGIE
I hurried along as quickly as my gigantic belly would allow, maneuvering around the various pedestrians who crowded the sidewalk. It was amazing the number of people who didn’t move out of the way for a pregnant lady. Most gave me irritated looks when I ran into them. Well, screw them. I was the size of a house, moving faster than most of their lazy asses could.
My target slowed in front of a store window, turning just enough that he would see me if he glanced in my direction. I quickly shuffled into the doorway of the nearest shop, doing my best to suck in my belly so he wouldn’t see me. I winced as I looked down, seeing a good portion of my belly couldn’t be hidden. The bell over the door behind me rang out and a man appeared, his eyebrows raised in question.
I chuckled slightly, staring over my shoulder at him. “Hey.”
“Hey. Can I get through?”
“Um…hold on.” I peered around the corner and saw my target still staring into the window. “Not yet. Give me another minute.”
“Another minute? This is a shop entrance. You can’t just hang out here blocking the entrance.”
Shooting him an irrationally angry look, I thrust my hand on my hip. “Excuse me, but do you or do you not see the gigantic baby growing inside my belly?”
“So, you expect me to stand here and wait for no reason other than you’re pregnant?”
I huffed in disgust at his blatant disregard for the fact that I was growing a human inside me. In reality, if the situation was reversed and it was me waiting, I would have the same reaction. But I was trying to solve a case right now, which trumped my own personal feelings on the subject.
“This is what’s wrong with society. You have absolutely no regard for an expectant mother who is doing nothing other than trying to reproduce—to bring life into this world!” I peeked around the corner, but saw my target still standing in place. “Do you have any idea where we would be as a society if we all cared a little more for the mothers who just want to bring a decent human being into this failure of a planet? Where is the love and respect for the women who struggle to fill this empty hole with loving and nurturing people who?—”
Target on the move.
I smiled up at the man, patting him on the shoulder. “You have a good day.”
“What? What about bringing decent people into the world?”
I spun just enough to see him over my shoulder. “That’s a bunch of crap. To each his own!”
And with that, I took off after my target, weaving through the crowd as best I could. Except while I was talking to the man, trying to distract him, I forgot that this particular man—my target—was great at slipping a tail. Two women walked out of a coffee house ahead of me, stepping right in my path. I tried to worm my way past, but the oncoming traffic made it impossible to pass them.
“—and then I said, if you want me to clean the house, take care of the kids, and put out on a regular basis, then you have to do something other than sit around and watch football all weekend.”
“Ugh, men are so stupid. What did he say?”
“He had the nerve to tell me that this was what I wanted.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope, he said the kids and the house were all my idea. As if this wasn’t something we talked about for the five years before we even had kids.”
“Rick does that too. Whenever things start to go even slightly wrong, he blames me for all the choices we’ve ever made.”
I rolled my eyes as I tried to get around them. I actually commiserated with them, but this was not the time to get into a philosophical discussion about men and their annoying habits of running when things got tough.
“Excuse me,” I said, trying to be polite, but they continued to chatter away as if nobody else around them had anything important to do.
“So, what did you do?”
“What I always do. I lost my shit and yelled at him for being a coward.”
“Did it work?”
“Are you kidding? He finally lost it and started yelling at me about how he was always the bad one and I blamed him for everything.”
“Right, because God forbid he recognize that he brought this argument on himself.”