“I can’t,” she muttered. “He won’t let me.”
Her dad handed out the beverages and Beth took a long drink of water, hoping to knock the last of the lump out of her throat. She was tired and uncomfortable in the chair. Plus, she hadn’t slept worth a damn since Kevin, the rotten bastard, had whispered naughty things in her ear about chocolate cake and licking sticky frosting. He’d done that on purpose, hoping she’d get so wound up she’d fall back into bed with him.
Instead she was just wound up with no intention of falling back into bed with him, which meant staying wound up. Payback was a bitch though and, since he’d insisted on being her birthing partner, she was going to have the satisfaction of watching him suffer through childbirth classes. If anything would kill the mood, that would. She hoped.
Much too soon, it was time for her parents to go through security and they each wrapped her in long, lingering hugs. She kept the tears back by sheer willpower, but it wasn’t easy.
“We’ll be back when it’s time for the baby,” her mother told her. “But if you have any problems at all, just call. We’ll come as soon as we can.”
“I’ll be fine, Mom. You met Kevin’s family. Even if I wanted to be left alone, I wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Take care of my grandbaby,” her father said gruffly and then he wisely pulled his wife away before both women could dissolve in puddles of hysterical sobbing.
When she couldn’t see them anymore, Beth turned and, after a trip to the ladies’ room for a pit stop and quick cry, she walked out the front entrance of Manchester’s busy airport.
Kevin was there, down the curb a bit, leaning against the Jeep. He smiled when she saw him and she shook her head. “I don’t think you’re allowed to park here.”
“Yeah.” He opened the door for her. “The guy started to tell me that, but he got distracted by Red Sox tickets. Seems his son’s sixteenth birthday happens to fall on a night we’re playing the Yankees.”
“Do you just carry sports tickets around with you?”
“Only if I think I might need them.” He closed her door and walked around the front of the Jeep.
Once they were out of the parking lot, he looked over at her. “I thought it might be hard, your parents leaving. Didn’t want you stuck being emotional with some strange cab driver.”
“Why do you have to be such a nice guy?”
He flashed his dimples at her. “You’ve met my mother. Too scared not to be.”
It made it so much harder to resist him, though. “Thank you.”
“You know what would cheer you up?”
Licking frosting off his stomach before having hot and sweaty and sticky sex?
“Ice cream,” he said.
“Strawberry?” Not nearly as good, but better for her in the long run.
His grin was on the wrong side of naughty. “Not chocolate?”
“No chocolate. Strawberry.”
“With hot fudge? And whipped cream?”
She couldn’t help laughing. “No. Just plain old strawberry ice cream.”
He looked like he was going to say something else, but then he just smiled. “I know just the place.”
***
Kevin was ruined. No way in hell was he going to have a normal relationship with a woman’s vagina ever again.
Shit. He was even using the word vagina. He was totally, irretrievably ruined as a man.
Even if his balls should ever relax and leave the shelter of his body, he was pretty sure they’d beat a fast retreat next time he encountered a…vagina. He needed to scrub that word—and the instructor’s chipper voice—out of his mind. Or drown it out with a beer. Or tequila shots. Hell, he’d take the whole bottle.
“Are you okay?” It didn’t sound like Beth was even trying to hide her amusement.
“No.” The instructor’s voice bounced around in his mind like a rabid, chatty chipmunk. Vagina. Dilation. Effacement. Mucous plug, for chrissake.
“Do you want me to drive?”
He shook his head and forced himself to loosen his grip on the steering wheel. Having to drive was the only thing keeping him from curling up in the fetal position.
Fetal. Baby. Vagina. Dammit.
And Beth was laughing at him. “You’re the one who bullied your way into being my birthing partner.”
“I’m the baby’s father,” he said through clenched teeth. “I have to be there.”
“I was going to ask your mom, actually.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to bail. His mom being her birthing partner was the best idea he’d heard in a long time. She was a woman. She’d given birth to four kids of her own, raised one daughter and had five grandchildren. Certainly she couldn’t be a stranger to the workings of the…female body part that couldn’t be named.
That would be a huge step for Beth, too, as far as accepting she was a part of his family. Who was he to stand in the way of progress?