Page 29 of Boy Business
It’d been a spur-of-the-moment decision that my mother would never let me live down, but I didn’t regret it for a second. Loretta taught me that sometimes in life you have to just jump off the bridge and have faith you’d land in the right spot. As long as she was with me, there was no destination.
She shook her head, disagreeing with me as usual. “There’s so many flowers. And what’s with the big muscular guys stationed randomly but not so randomly in the church?”
I chuckled. I warned Pierce there was no way people wouldn’t notice the presence of so much security at his wedding. “Just my cousin making sure everything goes off without a hitch.”
She eyed each of the men. They may have been wearing tuxes, but it wasn’t hard to realize one of them sat every two aisles and they darted their attention in different directions as if they were waiting for the bogeyman to jump out and surprise them.
“Is he worried the bride will make a run for it?” she asked, laughing because she didn’t realize how anxiety-prone Pierce had become in the weeks up to the wedding.
I squeezed her hand. “It’s one of his many worries.”
Katy changing her mind at the last minute after he worked so hard to win her over was definitely on the list. He also had a list of men he worried would try and interrupt his nuptials. I didn’t believe it existed until I saw the hard copy on his desk a month ago.
Loretta did one last glance of the place and then put her attention toward the front of the small white church. “I guess after the shit that happened in Pelican Bay, he can never be too safe.”
She had a point. For a small town, which boasted their picturesque views and ability to transport you back in history, they made sure to never mention the crime statistics. Pelican Bay had criminals crawling out of the woodwork. What did they expect when they openly accepted a member of the local mafia as one of their own? The whole place was crazy. I’d been more than happy when Loretta agreed to live with me in New York. The beginning of our relationship might have been plagued with drama, but since then we’d sailed through life happy and content.
She rested her head on my shoulder again as we waited for the wedding to start. I nuzzled her hair and gave her a quick kiss on the head while she scratched the side of her outstretched belly. “I wish they’d hurry and get this wedding over with because I refuse to have our baby in Pelican Bay.”
“You’ll be fine,” I said and chuckled into her hair, moving the strands.
“Promise me, Reg,” she said, holding on to my knee with a death grip. “Promise me that if I go into labor, we will jump in the helicopter and get to New York.”
My eyebrows rose. Was she crazy? Yes. I married her knowing her tendencies, but this time she’d hit a new level. “Blue, if you start labor, there is no way I’m putting you and my unborn child on a helicopter.”
“Fine we can drive, but I’m not having this baby here.”
“You’re still two weeks away from your due date and the hospital here is well-equipped.” Look at me, sticking up for Pelican Bay. And here Loretta wanted to get away. For someone who waited to leave home for so long, she sure wasn’t looking forward to staying.
She shook her head and gripped my knee even harder. Woman had fingers of steel. “It’s not the equipment or the doctors that worry me. It’s the gossip.” She leaned closer to whisper the next part in my ear. “What if I poop during labor? The whole phone tree will hear. Katy said one lady in the woman’s auxiliary put her birth on video chat. Who does that?”
Loretta wasn’t a woman who worried about things in life, but since becoming pregnant her few anxieties tripled. “That will not happen, blue.”
“You can’t promise that. Lots of woman poop during birth. It’s the whole pushing thing. I researched it.”
When she spiraled this far, there was no point in trying to talk sense into her, but I always tried. “No one will tell if you accidentally poop,” I whispered back.
Her eyes widened full of anger, relaying the message that she did not agree with me. “You’ve forgotten what it’s like to live here. I haven’t. You’re going to drive me out of this town, Reginald.”
The use of my full name denoted serious business, and I nodded my head in agreement. “Okay. I will drive you to New York if you go into labor before the wedding ends.” The odds were slim to zilch, so I figured I could easily keep the promise.
She smiled and my heart flopped. Nothing good happened with that look. “Good because I think my water just broke.”
“What!”