“I’m sure he’ll appreciate it. But he’s probably reported us already. I’m surprised Lila hasn’t texted.”
“I turned my phone off after Ricki’s text. Last hurrah day means no pissing on our cloud.”
“I like how you think.”
“Really? Is all that okay?”
“Absolutely. You’re too easy to please. Here I’m thinking you’ll want to go shopping all day, and instead, you want to do stuff I’d pick myself.” He gripped my hand and rubbed my knuckles. “Though stopping by La Perla would actually be a gift for me.”
It was time for me to raise my brows. “Wait, you’re volunteering to go shopping?”
“La Perla,” he repeated. “That’s the kind of shopping I’ll never tire of.”
Which was how we ended up there right after lunch.
“Whoa, this place is…whoa.”
“Your powers of speech never fail to impress me.”
I cupped my stomach. Thank God I’d worn a rather loose dress today, because I would’ve probably popped a button on my jeans. “You know, shopping after I have a food baby is not advised.”
He turned to me where we stood between racks of skimpy lingerie and flipped up my shirt to kiss my belly.
A woman studying bustiers nearby turned toward us and cooed. “Oh, isn’t that the sweetest? When are you due?”
I was so flummoxed I couldn’t even lie colorfully. “The only thing I’m giving birth to is a Greasers’ double stack with extra pickles.”
The woman frowned and scuttled away.
Cooper grinned. “Good thing you answered, because I was just about to make up a story about quadruplets.”
“Do not even joke about such. Hey, they have bra fittings? Score.” I leaned up on my tiptoes to give him a kiss. “This was a brilliant idea. Remind me to blow you on the way to see my parents.”
“Sentences a man never expects to hear yet rejoices when he does.” He tugged on a handful of my curls. “Can I watch your fitting?”
“It’s not porn. No. Go find me some sexy things that won’t feel like floss between my butt cheeks.”
I noticed another woman staring at us as she hurried past and stifled a giggle. “I don’t think I’m classy enough for this store. They probably don’t think I can afford anything here.”
“Big mistake. Huge.”
I put my hand over my heart. “Do you know what it does to me when you quote Pretty Woman to me?”
“I tried to remember it since it’s the only rom com you’ve ever made me watch.”
“Well, I’m highly selective. How good are you at carrying many multiples of bags?”
“Expert level.”
“I don’t doubt that.” I craned my neck to see a teddy on a form above more racks of the same. “Oooh, I like that one. What color?”
Cooper turned to look. “All of them?”
“I like the way your mind works. Are you going to say the same thing when I ask what color bra?”
“Probably. Hey, think they have those crotchless panties here?”
“I can’t wear your torture device without a crotch to keep it in me, smart guy.”
“You have a point.”
A saleslady glided up to us, appearing as if she’d swallowed a summer squash sideways. Her face was bright red. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, please. Can you help me fit these double Ds?”
“I can,” Cooper muttered, and I jabbed him with my elbow.
By the time we left the lingerie store, I was fairly certain they’d put us on a watch list never to be allowed back. Along with making any number of loud, lascivious comments, we’d gotten into a minor scuffle near the corsets that had led to one of them being trampled.
In my defense, while a woman has a food baby is not the time to innocently “suggest” she should shove everything into an implement of sensual suffering.
I got my payback by making Cooper practically crumble beneath a tower of bags. At least ten. Alas, he didn’t even have the decency to look like he was overburdened. No, he just marched out proudly with his metric ton of bras, panties, teddies, peignoirs, and things I didn’t have names for but were Italian and expensive.
Me? I carried one small bag with a bottle of perfume for my mom.
“I like that almost no one knows us,” I said as we walked up the street to the garage where Cooper had parked his Charger. “Sure, sometimes we’re recognized, but if we wear sunglasses and I tuck my hair under a cap and you’re especially beardy, we’re practically inconspicuous.”
“Except when you talk really loudly about it.”
“Do you know how easily I could trip you?”
“And I’d end up with a faceful of lingerie sized to your perfect body. Am I supposed to mind?”
“Okay, forgiven.” I tucked my arm through his, though it required a little bag shuffling. “Music store next? Then parents. Then grocery store. Then steak for Cole.”
“What’s for me?”
“Lean down.”
He tilted toward me so I could more easily reach his ear. “Remember all those ideas you had for me beside the pool? We’ll lead into them after I model an array of my new purchases.”
His stride lengthened until I laughed and scrambled to keep up with him.
After we dumped off the bags at the car, we walked back to the music store hand in hand. The sun was bright, and the temperature was climbing seemingly by the minute. My dress was sticking to my back, and we had to stop for ice cold drinks, but just strolling through the city with the man I loved was incredible.
I stopped dead in the middle of foot traffic on the sidewalk, making quite a few people swear and detour around us.
Cooper stared at me. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Oh, look, there’s the music store.” As if I hadn’t noticed it before, I darted up the block and hurried inside.
I fanned my face with the small purse I’d dug out of one of the bins of stuff from my place. It didn’t smell too bad after dousing it with Febreze.
When someone called their life a dumpster fire, they didn’t know the half. Yet in the middle of so much chaos,
