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“You okay? Nauseated?” Elian asked, watching me with worried eyes.
We’d suffered through about nine weeks of absolute hell. Throwing up, migraines that I couldn’t control with my usual meds, just complete misery for me, and by extension, him.
But for the past five or six days, the nausea had disappeared, leaving ravenous hunger in its wake.
“Just starving,” I admitted, watching as he reached into the bag to push those almond biscotti things at me.
“You think of everything,” I said as I opened the package.
A loud sawing sound had Elian’s gaze sliding toward the hallway. “Were they doing that all through bookclub?” he asked.
The never-ending construction was a bone of contention with Elian, who was promised this project would have been done almost two months ago. Which, in city construction timelines, was practically on track.
Though, yeah, we were still a ways away. Including the worst part of the project that would have them cutting the wall open in the living room to open up the condos into one giant one.
I was just hoping they’d be done before the baby got here.
“It was background noise,” I said, shrugging. “Just think how nice it is going to be to have one, big home to bring the baby to,” I said, running my hands up his chest to wrap around his neck. “It’ll all be worth it in the end. And we already have the nursery,” I reminded him.
“Did you get the girls’ input on the wallpaper?” he asked. We’d been hopelessly deadlocked about the decision since we started looking at all the options online.
We wanted to go neutral, not because we weren’t going to learn the gender of the baby, but because we decided this would be the first of several, and we wanted it to be able to work for all of the babies moving forward.
“Lore liked the one with the castles.”
“And Saff?”
“Thought that the leaves look like pot leaves. And now I can’t see anything else,” I admitted.
“Back to the drawing board then, it seems,” he said, leaning his forehead to mine. “Expecting someone?” he asked when there was a knock at the door.
“No,” I said, shaking my head, but Islah was dropping by a lot since she learned she was about to be an auntie. Sometimes, it was with cute stuffies she saw in a shop window. Other times, it was with ginger lozenges for my nausea. We already had a small stack of books to read to the baby.
Elian moved away from me, striding over to open the door.
And there was Serano, gaze expectant.
“Saw you with the groceries,” he said, glancing toward the kitchen.
Elian shot me a smile.
“Would you like to stay for dinner, Serano?” I asked.
“Sure,” he agreed, walking in like it wasn’t his idea, stopping to pet Kevin and Richard before turning on the TV and cranking up the volume.
Serano, I learned over the past year, was someone who always stayed abreast of the news. So it wasn’t surprising when the newscaster’s voice filled the room.
What was surprising, though, was to hear a name I hadn’t heard in months.
“Former senator, Michael Westmoore…” she started, making Elian and I move in to stand beside Serano.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“They found his body,” Serano said.
“The senator’s body?” I asked, stiffening.
“Yep. Found ‘em strung up by his feet and gutted.”