Take care of me, Jake. Please take care of me. Just for a little bit.
“Where do you want me?” I ask.
22
Jake
The words “I want you on top of me” come unbidden to my mind. Instead, I point to the bed. “On your side, here?” I wait for her reply. She sits down on the edge of the bed and rolls, lifting her feet. She lies flat on her back, her big basketball of a stomach lifting up high and round. I laugh at her. I can’t help it.
“Are you laughing at my belly?” she asks, but she’s smiling too. It’s a tired, needy kind of smile, but still a smile.
“I love your belly,” I admit. I’m fascinated by it. I want to touch it and look at it, and… I kind of wish it was mine.
She lifts a brow at me. “You love my belly.” Her curiosity turns into a glare. “Be serious, Jake. I’m like a beached whale.”
I sit down next to her and reach down to touch her belly, but at the last minute I stop because I should probably ask for permission. I can’t just fondle her belly. “You’re getting an outie,” I tell her as I stick the tip of my finger against her belly button. She laughs and grabs my hand. I hold hers tightly. “Your belly button is like one of those plastic timers that come with a turkey.” I wriggle my hand free and poke her again. “Yours has popped.”
She rests the back of her head in the palm of her hand, her elbow pointed to the side, toward my nightstand. “You really know how to sweet-talk a girl, Jake,” she replies. “I’m all giddy with butterflies and shit, because you’re that smooth. Your milkshake must bring all the girls to your yard.” She lays a hand over her outie.
Sudden stillness falls over me. “I loved it when Laura was pregnant,” I admit. “I watched her belly every day, feeling to see if it was bigger, making her lie there for me so I could talk to her belly, no matter how big or how small. I kind of miss it.”
Katie lifts her other hand to rest behind her head, and now has both elbows pointed out. “You loved your wife.” Her voice is soft and low, almost like I’m a feral animal she’s trying to catch.
“Yeah, I loved her. Then, even after my feelings for her changed, I loved that baby. I loved the idea of a new life, and I was hopeful that it could fix us.”
“Is there a chance that you’ll reconcile?” she asks. “Have you tried?”
“No, there’s no chance.”
“Are you certain?”
“Positive.” She lifts one hand from behind her head and takes my hand. She places it flat against her stomach. The corners of my lips twitch. “Thank you,” I say.
I really, really wanted to touch her, but I didn’t want to seem like some creeper who gets off on pregnant bellies. I only get off on my pregnant bellies, and in this case, for some reason, Katie feels like an extension of me.
The baby bops my hand, and I lift another palm to lie on the other side of her stomach. I realize that even with my thumbs touching, my hands don’t cover all of her belly. “You really are huge, Katie,” I say.
She chuckles which makes her belly bounce. “There you go again with the flattery.”
I let my hand sweep down her side and she flinches and laughs. “Oh my gosh, you’re still ticklish right here!” Then I do it again. She giggles and when I hear it, it’s like falling back in time. “I remember the first time I ever tickled you,” I say. “Do you?”
“Clear as day,” she says. “You grazed my boob.”
“What little bit of boob there was.” I let my eyes fall on the nice rack she has now, which she definitely didn’t have then, and I lick my lips like a total perv. “Now I’d be hard pressed to miss your boob.”
She yawns, but talks over it. “Are you just about done groping my belly and ogling my boobs? You promised me a back rub.”
I give her belly a little nudge. “Roll over some, you killjoy. I can’t get to your back if you’re lying on it.”
She tips over, and I brush her hair over her shoulder. “That feels nice already.”
“You always did like having your hair stroked. You want me to start there?”
She sucks in a quick breath. “Would you?”
I don’t even hesitate. I brush my hand down the length of Katie’s hair. She relaxes, her eyes closing. “Nobody has done this for me in a long time,” she says quietly. “Not since the last time my husband was home on leave.”
Time stops. It’s like someone scratched a record in my head. “Would he be jealous if he knew you were with me?” I ask.
She yawns. “No. I think he’d be happy.”
My hand stalls in surprise, but only for a moment, because she reaches back and bumps me, like she’s kick-starting my strokes. I rub her scalp, massaging gently, tangling her hair around my fingertips until it pulls tight, and then I untangle it by stroking down again. She yawns and settles a little deeper into the covers.
“Tell me about your husband,” I say.
“Mm,” she mumbles. “Later.”
“You promise?”
She nods into the pillow, and tucks her hands beneath her chin. “I need to go home,” she mutters.