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Jennifer sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. She eyed the pair of ankle boots sitting on the floor in annoyance as she braced her palms against the edge of the bed on either side of her. She’d finally managed to settle on a dress that didn’t make her feel like everyone’s eyes would be on her very pregnant middle, but she’d hit an unforeseen roadblock when it came time to put on her shoes.
That roadblock being that she couldn’t reach her feet to put them on.
And she’d be happy to slip into them and move on, but they needed to by zipped and tied and she couldn’t lean forward enough to do either of those things.
She picked absently at the bed spread and looked out the window across from her. Holly was busy buzzing around her backyard getting things ready for the party, while Andre struggled to coordinate with all the other professionals that Holly had hired for it.
This wasn’t their room--the only things that were actually theirs in this small house were themselves and what they’d brought from the Rouge. Holly had been adamant about the two of them staying in her guest house (the fact that she had a guest house continued to be something that Jennifer and Duke teased her about to varying degrees), and even though Duke had insisted that there was no point in them staying there, Holly had made a compelling point about how they were spending all their time at her place anyway.
Plus, their little guest house had a really nice bathtub that Jennifer spent most of her time in.
The last eight months had been better than Jennifer could’ve hoped--Duke seemed to have finally relaxed now that they were with people they trusted, Holly was so delighted to have them both there, Andre was just happy that Holly was happy (and to have Jennifer there, of course, though as part of their relationship, he wouldn’t ever say it to her face), and Jennifer was the most relax she’d been since she’d found out she was pregnant.
Excluding today.
She’d gotten dressed while Duke showered, settling on a long, yellow floral wrapped dress with green and faint pink flowers, that Holly had helped her to pick out earlier that month. And while the water had stopped running awhile ago and she’d long finished dressing, she now needed to decide what she wanted to do next.
The door opened behind her, filling the small room with what was left of the steam from his shower. His hair was down and still wet, his tie just resting around his neck as he studied his wife’s back, buttoning the cuff of his shirt.
“What’cha thinkin’, Short Stack?” he drawled.
She sighed again, her shoulders sagging slightly, before she turned her head enough to look at him, “I’m debating whether or not my pride can survive what I might have to ask you to do for me.”
Duke arched an eyebrow, already smirking, as he leaned against the door frame, “Are you enacting the No Judgement Clause of our marriage?”
“Hasn’t that been enacted since we had to leave Monaco in that rather surprising rush?” She shot back, also smirking now.
“It was not a rush .” Duke mockingly scowled.
She gave him an incredulous look, “Duke you waited until I was asleep before you set sail without even telling me.”
“You didn’t complain when you woke up.” Duke pointed out defiantly.
“I didn’t know where we were .” She shot back.
Duke squinted at her but didn’t reply to that, and instead asked, “So what do you need me to do?”
Jennifer sighed once more, before mumbling something softly to the point that Duke honestly couldn’t hear her.
“You wanna run that by me again?”
She groaned and pointed at the floor, “Your wife is too fat to put on her own damn shoes. Will you please come help her and put her out of her misery? One or the other, really, whichever you feel like doing when you get over here.”
Duke laughed as he crossed the room to her, kissing her head once he reached her, “I think I can do that.”
“Which one; putting me out of my misery or helping me put on my shoes?”
He chuckled, “Helping you put on your shoes.”
“Good because otherwise I was gonna start crying.” She said as Duke knelt down on the floor in front of her to help her into her shoes.
“This is the only dress that makes me feel nice,” she grumbled before he could ask her if another pair of shoes would be alright, “and it only makes me feel nice with these shoes so if I couldn’t get these shoes on then I wouldn’t be going anywhere.”
Once the first shoe was on, Duke kissed her knee and gave her calf a squeeze, “Well, I think you look beautiful.”
She smiled at him and reached out to stroke his cheek, “You’re sweet.”
He smiled back as he went back to help her into her second shoe.
“But you are so full of crap.” She continued.
Duke chuckled back, mumbling, “You have a terrible habit of calling me out on that.”
She shrugged, “It’s why you married me.”
He chuckled, “Sure it is.”
She lightly tapped him in his side with the side of her foot in mock annoyance, earning fuller laugh from him.
Once both her shoes were on her feet, Duke kissed the tips of his fingers before spreading them again, like some sort of Italian stereotype, exclaiming, “ Et voila !”
She looked down at her feet as best she could. Once satisfied with his work she gave him a tired smile, “Thank you, Duke.”
He just smiled back, “You are very welcome. Now. What’s my prize?”
A laugh bubbled out of her before she could stop it, “My unending gratitude?”
He seemed to consider it for a moment, only to shake his head, “I think that covers just one of the shoes. And you have two, so ...”
“Look at you, being all cute.” She giggled at him.
“I am always cute, ma’am .” Duke replied disapprovingly as he sat up enough to kiss her as he stood up. She ran her fingers briefly through his wet hair, moaning into the kiss happily.
Once he was standing upright and he broke the kiss, she fell back against the mattress, groaning, “Ugh, I don’t wanna go!”
Duke laughed again as she continued, “ Please don’t make me socialize.”
He leaned over her on the mattress, “Sweetheart, this was your idea.”
“It was not! Holly was the one who decided to throw this big ass party for us--I just...kinda...y’know...” she trailed off for a moment before mumbling, “got swept up in it, is all.”
“Uh-huh.” Duke smirked down at her, “So you never once said that you’d like to have a baby shower in Holly’s presence?”
“No...” she said childishly dragging the word out. Duke narrowed his eyes at her, prompting her to say more firmly, “No! Not once! Cross my heart!”
He laughed at her, and as he did, her face grew softer. She reached up and stroked his cheek again, studying his face, before tucking some of the hair that’d fallen into his face as he leaned over her behind his ear.
He tilted his head to follow her hand as he studied her back.
“Whatcha thinkin’ about, Short Stack?” he asked again, his voice gentle.
“You.” She answered simply, still tracing his face lightly, “You’ve been different since we came here.”
“Have I?”
She nodded, “You’ve been more...relaxed.”
He tried to give her his best disarming smile, “I’m always relaxed.”
She gave him a doubtful look and his bravado deflated--like it always did for her, like she was always able to make it--and he lowered himself down so he rested on his elbows next to her.
“Well,” he said quietly, as if he were imparting some sort of secret knowledge to her, or as if they were a pair of teenagers doing something they both knew that they shouldn’t be, “I am just very... glad that we’re here. And that you’re happy.”
She smiled softly at him, and he returned it as he moved enough to gently rest his hand on her stomach--he always touched her carefully, as if he was afraid he was going to hurt her somehow, or as if he still wasn’t sure if he was meant to touch her at all--adding, “And that she’s happy.”
“And you?” she asked carefully, it was an opportunity for Duke to lie to her if that was his choice and she knew it, but she asked anyway, “Are you happy?”
He shifted, rebalancing himself, and removed his hand from her belly so that he could smooth her hair. He studied her face as she traced his lips then down to his throat. She was willing to wait for him to answer in his own time--she had this feeling that told her that asking him to say it out loud scared him, like saying it would make it real enough for it to be destroyed.
He grabbed her hand with hiss and kissed the back of it, “I am.”
She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and smiled at him.
He climbed back to his feet and moved to stand in front of her. He grabbed her hands and pulled her to her feet, “Now that that’s settled, let’s get you out to Holly’s big party for us.”
Jennifer groaned as she wobbled to her feet and leaned into him, “Do we have to?”
He wrapped his arms around her waist, “Well either we do it, or we take off in another ‘surprising rush.’”
She scowled up at him.
He moved his hands up to frame her face, “So what would you prefer to do? You know, if your best friend didn’t know where we were and hadn’t spent the better part of this month getting this ready for us?”
“And if we weren’t both just a little bit afraid of her?” Jennifer added, holding her hand up with her index and thumb about an inch apart from each other to demonstrate how afraid of Holly they were.
Duke laughed but nodded.
Jennifer sighed wistfully and wrapped her arms around his waist, “Sweatpants. A foot massage. That pint of ice cream in the freezer. The baby not kicking me in the gut every couple of minutes. Maybe you helping me rub coconut oil on my stretchmarks.”
Duke scoffed unintentionally, earning a sharp look from Jennifer. Duke scrambled to explain himself, mostly through a series of, “um”s, “uh”s, and “what I meant was.”
Jennifer broke first and smirked at him, patting his chest lightly, “You’re good, honey. I know that my wants are pretty simple.”
“Not according to Holly,” Duke pointed out, nodding towards the windows and the increasing number of people starting to surround the pool.
Jennifer sighed, “She’s always liked a big party.”
There was a rather insistent knock at the door, prompting Duke and Jennifer to look at each other knowingly.
“Alright Lovebirds!” Holly yelled from the other side of the door, “Quit ruffling each other’s feathers and get out here! If one more person asks me when I’m due I’m gonna punch 'em.”
Jennifer laughed as Duke rolled his eyes in time for Holly to yell, “I am not going to prison today for assault; get your asses out here!”
Jennifer opened her mouth to reply but Duke beat her to it, “Yeah yeah, we’re coming!”
Holly banged on the door twice more but then left. Duke looked back at Jennifer and tucked some of her hair behind her ear, “You ready?”
She sighed, “As I’ll ever be.”
Duke started towards the door, tugging Jennifer along with him by her hands. At the door, she pulled on him to get him to stop, “Hang on.”
Duke stopped and looked at back at her. She reached up and adjusted his collar, tsking at his tie, “Where did you even find this thing?”
“What?” Duke asked, looking down as she started to tie it, “I like this tie!”
“Duke this thing should’ve been put out of it’s misery in time for the new millennium.” She laughed as she finished, tweaking it just a little more to make sure it right. She looked at him and then her eyes traveled to his hair. She tsked again, “You’re hair’s still--”
Duke held up his right wrist, revealing a hair tie, “I got it.”
He quickly pulled his hair back into his usual ponytail, gesturing when he was finished in a “ta-da” gesture. Jennifer huffed through her nose as she looked him over again, absently tugging on his tie again and tracing his hairline to behind his ear.
She sighed, “I don’t wanna do this.”
Duke reached up and took her hand, kissing her fingertips, “Listen, you know I’m not much of a party person either--”
Jennifer huffed out a laugh, widening her eyes and nodding slightly in agreement.
“-- but ,” Duke continued, scowling at her briefly, “if we survive today, we’ll be right back here and we’ll do all that stuff you want--the sweatpants, the foot massages, the ice cream, the coconut oil--hell I’ll even try talking to her in there--,” he placed a hand on her stomach, “--into calming down for the night.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, “That is very compelling.”
“I can be,” he smiled at her, straightening and standing a little taller, “when I want to be.”
She rolled her eyes at him before she tugged on his tie again. She looked him in the eye, giving him an indulgent smile, “You really do look good, Mr. Crocker.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close and tucking her under his arm, as he mumbled, “And you really do look beautiful, Mrs . Crocker.”
She perked up onto her tiptoes as best she could into the anticipated kiss, and felt Duke smile against her lips.
There was another series of loud banging on the door, this time with a gruff male voice saying, “Pee-Wee get your man and get out here; Holly’s losin’ her damn mind.”
Jennifer rolled her eyes as she broke the kiss, “We’re coming , Andre; tell her not to get her panties in such a twist.”
“I’mma tell her you said that.” Andre grumbled on the other side of the door. Jennifer kicked the door in response.
Duke kissed her head, “C’mon, ‘Pee-Wee;’ let’s go show ourselves off.”
Jennifer elbowed him in the gut, “Do not call me Pee-Wee. Andre gets a pass, but I’ll fight you.”
“Who’s the one who needed help putting their shoes on today?”
“I will kick your ass, so help me, Crocker.”
Duke just grinned as he opened the door for her, “Promises, promises.”