Part of Me: Friendship, Texas #3

by Magan Vernon

  “No. It’s not that at all. I love it. I’m just really hormonal, and everything makes me cry.” I put my hand on his and pulled it off his face.

  He let out a deep breath. “Thank God. I was afraid I messed up again.” He finally smiled but then his face fell as Mama Conti rounded the corner of the end of the bar where we were standing.

  Mama Conti was short in stature with broad shoulders and a permanent scowl framed by her short black hair, but her presence could make a six-foot-five swimmer quiver in his Chuck Taylors.

  “Jonathan,” Mama quipped in her thick Italian accent, folding her arms over her apron that stretched across her large chest.

  “Mrs. Conti, good to see you,” Johnny said, leaning over and giving Mama Conti a hug and kiss on the cheek; her gaze remained steely even as she reciprocated.

  “I didn’t know you were coming in tonight. My waitresses, it seems, like to have their swimmer boyfriends visit without warning,” she muttered.

  “Technically, I’m just a stand-in,” I said.

  “But a very good stand-in,” Mama Conti added, raising her finger.

  “Yeah, Sofie’s pretty good at everything she does.” Johnny smiled, slightly biting his bottom lip. Now that I was over much of my morning sickness, my sex drive was going even crazier.

  “Um, Mama Conti, do you think I’d be able to get off before closing tonight? Or how long do you need me for?” I asked as I stuffed my hands in the front pocket of my apron and slightly turned toward her.

  Mama Conti looked at Johnny and me and then finally sighed. “Fine, fine, you all leave me for the boys anyway. Go. Have fun! But make sure you take some pasta home with you. You’re the skinniest pregnant woman I’ve ever seen!” She rubbed my belly—the only woman ever allowed to rub my stomach—then she smiled, but it fell as soon as she looked at Johnny.

  She pointed a crooked finger at him. “Don’t try any funny business. She may be pregnant, but many other things can happen! There could be twins!”

  I covered my mouth to stifle my giggle. I might not have been the best in my science classes, but I was sure that couldn’t happen.

  “Don’t worry, Mama Conti. I’ll take good care of her and make sure to feed her,” Johnny said, shooting her a wink.

  “None of that eye blinking! I know what that means, Jonathan!” Mama Conti yelled as Johnny took my hand before I laid my apron down on the bar top.

  Letting go of Johnny briefly, I turned and hugged Mama Conti. “Thanks for caring about me, Mama,” I whispered in her ear.

  “Always, Sofie,” she whispered back before kissing my cheek.

  Taking Johnny’s hand again, I followed him out to where he’d parked his car next to mine. “So are we going back to my place?” I asked, pulling him by the belt loops.

  “Well, we can go there to drop off your car,” Johnny said, the grin spreading on his face.

  “Oh? And we’re taking your car somewhere?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “That would be what I was getting at,” he said, opening my car door. “I’ll follow you home.”

  “Okay then...” I replied, getting into my car and wondering what in the hell was going on in his chlorine-covered head.

  The townhouse was less than a mile from the restaurant, so it wasn’t a long drive. Johnny was honking his horn at me before I’d even turned the car off. “I’m coming!” I yelled out the window.

  I turned off the car before grabbing my purse then running to the passenger side of Johnny’s car. “You know I’m starting to waddle, so you can’t rush me.”

  “Pft...” Johnny said. He flashed me a quick smile then backed out of the driveway.

  “Where are we going anyway?” I asked.

  “It’s a surprise. A surprise date.”

  “Why is everything a surprise with us?” I muttered.

  “Come on, babe, lighten up. It’ll be fun to do something that isn’t us sitting at your place or mine and eating takeout carbs,” Johnny said, putting his hand on mine on the console between us.

  “So we’re going to a restaurant for food instead of takeout?” I asked. “I mean I did eat at Conti’s, but I can always eat again, especially if it’s bacon. Oh, bacon! That’s a craving I should put in the baby book!” I said, pulling the book out of my purse where I’d put it just before we left Conti’s.

  “You don’t have to do that. You think the book’s cheesy, I know.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think that at all! I think it’s sweet. I don’t think a guy’s ever gotten me a book, let alone a baby book. In fact, my dad’s the only man who’s ever gotten me presents.”

  “Really? You never had some cheesy middle school or high school boyfriend who got you cheap jewelry at a mall kiosk that said forever but was spelled with the number four or something?” Johnny asked, raising an eyebrow as he turned onto Highway 78.

  “Did you do that to a middle school girlfriend?”

  He laughed. “Maybe a few of them. There are probably many girls out there who were crying into their faux gold lockets with ‘Johnny and me 4eva’ engraved on them once they saw me in the Olympics. Of course, they probably weren’t actually doing that. I don’t think many people can name Olympic swimmers unless they get a DUI or end up on TNC.”

  “Well, you do hang out with Jay Morningstar, the golden boy.” Who also had the DUI and more sponsorships.

  “Yeah. It’s been a while, though,” he said, tightening his smile.

  “I know. I haven’t seen Lia either,” I mumbled.

  “I don’t have any ill feelings or anything toward Jay. I mean we’re completely different swimmers. I’ve only ever competed in the backstroke. Jay does butterfly, medleys, breaststroke, and fly. I think he was in like ten events in the last games. Scotty was the one who I think always harbored some jealousy. I actually thought he’d end up staying here instead of going back with Jay to Cali since they’re so competitive, but...” Johnny shrugged. “I guess it’s better this way. If he was here, I’d have a roommate.”

  “If that was the case...I’d suggest you just move in the townhouse with me,” I offered, my voice slightly rising at the end, not sure if I should make it a question or laugh it off as a joke.

  “I guess at some point we should talk about that. We have...what twenty-eight weeks, maybe even sooner until the baby’s here? Where is he going to stay? I assumed it would be the townhouse, and I can’t leave a baby and new mom...” Johnny’s words trailed.

  I turned to face him. “Are you saying you want to move in with me?”

  He scoffed. “No. I definitely did not.”

  “Then what are you saying?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m saying that...I don’t know...it may be convenient or something. You know if you needed to nap or something and someone to watch the baby...” he said, his palm sweating in my hand.

  “Oh my gosh, is the great Olympian Johnny Laughlin nervous to talk to his pregnant girlfriend about moving in?” I asked, laughing at that crazy fact and that I was actually saying that out loud.

  “I mean we haven’t exactly gone in order of things, and when Lia’s family was yelling at me in Italy, her older brother—you know the big scary one with the kid,” Johnny asked, glancing at me.

  I nodded. “Yeah, Nicky.”

  “Well, he told me all of this stuff with Dana’s delivery and the baby’s birth and how she basically didn’t sleep for the first four months. I think it was supposed to scare me, which I don’t know what that was accomplishing, but it really made me think. If we’re going to do this, we have to do it right.”

  “Are you going to propose again with a straw wrapper because I already said we don’t have to get married.”

  Johnny smiled, squeezing my hand. “No. What I’m saying is if you’ll have me, I’d love to move in with you. Even if it’s just for a few months after the baby’s born. I’ll even keep the apartment in case you need to kick me out because you get sick of me.”

  At that moment, staring a
t Johnny’s smiling face as it glowed in the reflection of the moonlight through the window, I knew there was no way I could get sick of him. I was falling in love with Johnny Laughlin.

  ***

  Johnny turned off I-30, and I thought we were going to a restaurant in Rockwall or maybe to a movie and dinner at The Harbor, but instead, he pulled into the Target lot and parked in a spot.

  “Uh, are we meeting someone here?” I widened my eyes, and my mouth opened. “Oh, my god! All that talk about Jay and Lia? Are they here? Are we meeting them and getting barbecue? Because barbecue sounds awesome right about now.”

  I looked around the parking lot but didn’t see anyone walking around or any cars I recognized.

  “Nope. This is where we’re going. Just you and me,” Johnny said with a big grin before he got out of the car then came around to the passenger side and opened the door.

  “A Target date? Is this what normal people do on dates?” I asked.

  Johnny put his arm around me, closing my door before we walked toward the red and white building. “Is there anything about our relationship that’s normal?”

  I smiled, shaking my head. “Nope. I guess not.”

  Johnny grabbed a cart from the front, and I took in the smell of popcorn and the nearby coffee bar. “So how about coffee and cake pops first then we can head on over to kitchen then bathroom supplies?” Johnny asked.

  “Coffee? Toilet paper and spatulas? What kind of date is this? You do know I’m pretty much broke, and since I’m not getting tip money tonight...” I trailed.

  Johnny smiled, kissing my forehead. “It’s on me tonight, babe. You need new stuff for the house and coffee.”

  I shook my head. “No. You don’t need to do that.”

  I’d never had anyone but my dad buy stuff, and it felt weird for my boyfriend to be doing that, even if he was the father of my unborn child.

  He put his hand on mine on the cart between us. “Yeah. But I want to.”

  ***

  After sipping a large caramel apple cider and filling a cart with everything from picture frames and rugs to a new shower curtain, bath towels, and everything between, we pushed the cart toward the homeware aisle.

  “Think we need paint too? I didn’t even know they sold that here,” Johnny said, pushing the almost overflowing cart down the florescent-lit aisle.

  “Are we going to paint the rooms now too? Don’t you think we have enough in this cart?” I asked, looking at the polka dot throw pillows teetering on top of a lamp box.

  “I guess we can wait on that...but I don’t think I can pass up this section,” Johnny said, veering the cart to the left.

  My eyes followed where his cart was pointing and saw the giant red sign that read “Baby.”

  “Johnny! We don’t even know what we’re having.” I tugged on his shirtsleeve.

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t hurt to look at this stuff,” he said with a huge grin.

  Before I could stop him, he’d pushed the cart down an aisle with different plastic items. I wasn’t sure what was what. I picked up a small box with a cartoon woman and a baby on it. The mom had some sort of long blue string going from her mouth to the center of the baby’s face. “What the hell is this?”

  Johnny turned toward me and picked up the box, turning it to the back. “I think you suck the boogers out of the baby’s nose with your mouth using this tubey thing.”

  “What? Ew!” I scrunched my nose and grabbed the box from him, putting it back on the shelf.

  “I guess how else do you get boogers out of a baby’s nose? Maybe we could just get some straws. Those will do the same thing.” Johnny shrugged.

  “I didn’t even know some of this stuff existed,” I muttered, looking at the different ointments and gas relief drops. Babies have gas? Like humans? How much were they going to stink? I was going to have a man and a gassy baby in the house. I probably needed to grab more candles and air fresheners.

  “Holy shit,” I heard Johnny yell from around the corner. I was so lost in staring at finger toothbrushes and nasal spray that I hadn’t noticed he’d wandered down a different aisle.

  I ran as fast as my short legs could take me and found Johnny standing two aisles over near a display of baby clothes. He was holding up a little blue sleeper and looked from the sleeper and back at me. “Is this really how little zero-to-three-month-olds are? Do they stay the same size for three months? How does all of this work?”

  I took a small swatch of fabric from the stack next to him and opened it up, feeling the soft white material of the onesie. “This one’s three-to-six months and looks just as tiny,” I muttered.

  Johnny held up the sleeper to my stomach. “Something this size is going to come out of you, and then we’ll be dressing it in these little clothes and holding him and...” His voice trailed off.

  I looked up to see his eyes still trained on my stomach, his thumb fingering the tiny sleeves.

  “Johnny, are you getting emotional right now?” I asked with a smile.

  Without saying a word, he slowly knelt down and pulled the onesie away from my stomach and then kissed the tiny bump through my shirt before he looked up, his eyes meeting mine. “I am.”

  Without even thinking, I smiled and whispered, “I kinda, sorta like you.” It wasn’t what I wanted to say. The other word still started with L but definitely carried more weight. I’d never felt this way about anyone before, and if I would feel that way, it would be about Johnny. But I wasn’t ready. I should have been, but I still had all these lingering thoughts, mostly having to do with the fear of him leaving me when his hot swimmer neighbor came over. But now that he was moving in with me, maybe there would be less of her, and maybe, just maybe, I’d get the courage to go in with the L-word.

  If I thought he was emotional before, nothing could beat the glimmer in his eyes as he stared up at me and whispered back, “I kinda, sorta like you, too.”

  Chapter 16

  It didn’t take long for Johnny to make himself at home, or for the house once occupied by a hoarder, then empty, to become full again with random swim gear and the decorations we found at Target.

  I thought living with Johnny would be a sex-filled dream. Or something.

  I’d never actually had a roommate before or lived with a guy. That was way past any relationship milestone I’d ever reached, and I still wasn’t even sure what this relationship was with Johnny.

  At fourteen weeks of pregnancy, I was starting to feel it. Every day after school, I’d come home and nap on the king-size bed Johnny brought from his apartment. He wanted us to move into my dad’s bedroom together, but that felt super weird, so we agreed to make that the baby’s room. I had a giant king-size bed in my room with a new chevron comforter always calling to me no matter what time of day.

  “Sofie! Sofie! You up or still napping?” Johnny’s voice carried through our small townhouse.

  The gray blanket wrapped around me like a cocoon, and I barely poked my head out to see Johnny standing there in his warm-ups, grinning from ear to ear as he dropped his duffle bag at the end of the bed.

  “I have something new to try...” he sang, crawling up the bed until he was next to me. He wrapped his long arms around my waist and pulled me closer before kissing the back of my neck barely sticking out of the blankets.

  “If you’re going to stick it in, just crawl under the blankets and let me lie here. I’ll let you finish, I promise,” I mumbled, burying my face in the pillow.

  Johnny laughed, the stubble on his cheeks tickling my skin. “Not sex, but something maybe equally as fun.”

  I blew out a breath of air, pulling my head out of the pillow. “I can’t do oral either. Your chlorine-covered penis makes me gag, so you’ll have to take a shower, but if you return the favor...”

  Johnny sat up then pulled me to his lap with the blanket still wrapped around me. “I would say yes to that, but I read that you can’t go down on a woman who’s pregnant because blowing air on the cervix could cause
harm to the baby.”

  I leaned on his chest. “Then I guess you’d better not come up for air, and you’re pretty good at holding your breath.”

  “As much fun as that sounds, I wanted to try this first, and if it works, then maybe you can hop in the shower with me afterward,” he said, kissing my forehead before he slowly inched me off his lap then stood up.

  “What are we doing?” I asked, opening my eyes and looking up at the man standing over me.

  Johnny crouched down and dug through his bag before pulling out a small white container. “Emily told me she swears by this stuff, and it’s less painful than waxing and lasts longer than shaving.”

  I winced, hearing Emily’s name. I thought with him living with me, I wouldn’t have to hear about her as much, but since they were still training together, she was always around. Always texting with stupid swimming jokes.

  I shot my arm out of the blanket cocoon and grabbed the container. “Sugar gel?”

  “Yeah. It’s this ancient Egyptian thing I guess that we heat up and use this sticky ball of sugar to remove the hair.”

  “That sounds...weird...and oddly sexual,” I said, looking at the directions on the container.

  “Heat up in the microwave for ten-second increments until sticky substance warms to mold in your hands,” I read out loud, furrowing my eyebrows.

  “I’ll get this microwaved,” Johnny said with a big grin, grabbing the container and hopping up before running from the bedroom like a kid with a new piece of candy.

  Before I could even throw the covers off me, Johnny was back in the room, holding the container with a fiery smell permeating from inside.

  “Ugh, I thought burning sugar smelled good. That smells like fire!” I whined, plugging my nose.

  “I think it smells good. Like burned cinnamon rolls or something,” Johnny said, taking a big whiff.

  I shook my head, still keeping my fingers on my nose. “Well, it doesn’t smell good to me. I’m sorry. I can’t put that on your back unless you’re prepared for me to throw up on you in the process.”