Work Text:
“Baby?” Clint closes the door of the apartment behind him, then slides the chain into place. The deadbolt makes a sturdy clunk as he turns it but he double-checks the knob anyway – the door doesn’t budge even with a solid pull. Satisfied, he calls for her again. “Baby, you here?”
Worry has just started to prickle the back of his neck, his fingers tightening on the handles of the bag in his hand, when he hears her answer echoing off the tiles of the bathroom. “In here, amor.”
He drops his jacket on the sofa as he passes, his eyes on the steam curling from the open bathroom door. It smells almost too good, sweet and floral, like walking past the perfume counter at the department store in the mall. He inhales, already smiling as he rounds the corner.
“There you are.”
“Here I am.” Grace is in the narrow bathtub – cornflower blue porcelain, the same shade as the tiles on the walls. Bubbles are mounded high, threatening to overflow onto the bathroom floor, but still her body lifts above the water like a chain of golden islands: the bend of her knees, the tops of her breasts, the smooth round curve of her belly. She’s twisted her curls into a pile on top of her head, but tendrils have slipped down to cling in damp ringlets to her cheeks and neck.
“Afternoon bath?” He leans into the doorframe, the bag in his head thumping solidly into his leg.
“My back –” she grimaces, arching, and more of her stomach rises from the suds – “was killing me.”
“Bath’s helping?”
She sighs, her hands lifting from the water to rest gently against her belly. “It’s helping. What’s in the bag?”
“This –” he tips the bag onto the countertop and a half-dozen tubes and bottles and jars tumble out— “is for you.”
Yesterday morning he’d found her here in the bathroom, frowning at her reflection in the mirror that hangs on the back of the door. Her t-shirt – one of his undershirts, claimed three months ago when none of hers would stretch enough anymore – was pulled up to just beneath her breasts, bunched on top of the curve of her belly. Her maternity underwear – shiny satin things so big they’d both laughed when she’d opened the package the day she bought them, neither of them guessing how quickly their baby would grow to make her fill them out – were pushed down low.
She’d huffed out a sigh, her fingers trailing beneath her navel. “Look.”
“Look at what, baby?” He’d stepped behind her, gazing at their shared reflection in the mirror.
“These.” Her fingertips had traced the fine lines that had begun to spread over her smooth skin – thin streaks of purple against warm gold. Another frown. “They’re so ugly.”
He’d reached around her to trace the marks with his own touch. They were faintly indented, little paths he could travel from the edge of her panties to the crest of her stomach. “I don’t think they’re ugly, baby.”
He didn’t. She was beautiful: since the day he’d met her, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. And now, with his baby growing in her belly? He couldn’t get enough of her. The thicker thighs, the heaviness of her breasts, the sensitive nipples that made her soften in his arms at the faintest touch – her pregnant body was a marvel, a miracle. He’d noticed the stretch marks – had been watching them spread and grow, would admire the patterns they were embossing on her skin as he rested his cheek on her stomach and whispered words to their child.
He loved them.
But standing there with her, her face in the mirror had soured, lips squinching to the side as she’d sighed again. “Maybe they’ll go away.”
He’d asked their downstairs neighbor first. Mrs. Flores had twelve grandchildren and had been watching Grace’s pregnancy like this baby was going to be her thirteenth. She had sworn vitamin E was a wonder.
“Just pop the little capsules open, the ones you get at the pharmacy? Rub it right on. That’ll help.”
Marina Rossi at the corner store said olive oil worked better.
“Three times a day, every day.” She’d handed Clint his change with one hand and the bag with the good tortillas with the other. “And give Gracie my love.”
By the time he’d made the rounds of the women in their lives, he had seven recommendations. One trip to the pharmacy and another to the grocery store: and then home, to surprise his wife.
Grace lifts her chin, trying to see the bounty of oils and creams and lotions now heaped on the bathroom counter from her spot in the tub. “What’s all that?”
“I think you’re beautiful. But I asked around and these—” he gestures to the pile – “might help with the stretch marks.”
The corner of her mouth curls, a half-smile rounding her cheek. “You asked around?”
He nods, and she laughs.
“I would have given anything to see those conversations.” She holds out her hand. “What should we try first?”
He lifts a towel from the bar – white terrycloth, fluffy and soft – and takes her hand, helping her stand from the tub. Water cascades down her in rivulets, foam sliding from her skin, and he has to swallow hard not to let his mind off the task at hand. He steadies her as she steps over the side onto the plush rug then begins to gently rub the towel over her skin.
“There.” He hangs the towel back up, damp now, and then sits on the lid of the toilet. Squinting at the pile of remedies, he chooses one. “Cocoa butter?”
“Why not?” She steps into the space between his knees, her hands light on his shoulders.
He uncaps the tube of lotion – squeezes a spiraling swirl into the palm of his hand. He rubs his hands together, warming the cocoa butter, then begins to smooth it over the sphere of her belly. He starts low – just above the dark hair that dusts the vee of her thighs, then gradually moves up, up, up. The heat of her skin from the bath makes the lotion soften, turn slippery and slick. With his fingers spread wide, he gently strokes it into her skin until it has absorbed, until her belly is supple and silken and shining.
He leans forward – presses a kiss to the fading dip of her belly button. “All done.”
“Are they gone yet?”
He looks up at her. “Not sure it works that fast.”
“Oh, good.” Her smile is playful as her fingertips undo the first button of his shirt. “Then we’ll get to do this again.”