Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 753 : Peace and Quiet

*Cat*

I never knew how adorable baby clothes were until I was pregnant and shopping for my little girl. I was wide-eyed as my mom led me through the cute baby clothing store we’d found. She pulled me past the adorable little dresses and tutus, the baby one-piece suits, and themed stylish outfits for toddlers.

“Mom,” I complained, wanting to stop by everything. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

But Mom held me tight as she pulled me to the back of the store where a big sign for size zero to one stood overhead. “You can look at those later once she’s past her first birthday, but she’ll need some actual clothes she can wear.”

“But I just want to look,” I pouted.

She whirled me around, hands on my shoulders as she gave me a stern look. “You’re my daughter and I know you better than anybody. You’ll buy everything in this store if I let you, so just stick with the essentials until I know your brain isn’t loaded up on hormones.”

I tuned out halfway, through, my eyes glancing at an adorable onesie behind her.

“Oh, these are adorable,” I gushed as I dashed over and picked up the hanging onesie. It was a purple one with a very soft fluffy fabric, fake bear ears, and paws pulling it all together. “I have to get it for her.”

“Sure, but she won’t fit in that until she’s six months old.” My mom chuckled, pointing to the tag. “You can get it but she won’t be able to wear it right away.”

“That’s fine,” I grinned, eyes twinkling with my heart set on the adorable little bear onesie. “Elio’s paying anyway and he’ll agree with me.”

Mom shook her head but I was already taking a photo of the onesie, sending it to Elio through text. Not even a minute later my phone came back with a sweet message.

‘She’ll be the prettiest bear in all the lands.’

As we searched through the store, I had to admit I probably went a bit overboard. But since we hadn’t actually gotten anything for the baby yet since we hadn’t known the gender but now we knew she was a little girl, I was ready to buy everything she needed.

While Mom threw in a few packs of just general onesies, short sleeves, and long sleeves going from newborn all the way to a year, my attention was caught by the flashy adorable outfits–like the romper set in polka-dots that came with a little bow or the cute baby sundress that came with little baby shorts underneath.

The pajama sets had ‘Mommy’s My Whole World’ written on it. I also loved the flower headbands and little hats, even a little swimsuit and seasonal attire, which I snagged half-off due to it being the middle of summer.

The little fall outfit with pumpkins was enough to tear my heart to pieces. After I’d nearly exhausted their newborn section of clothing, Mom had to drag me out, and I applauded myself for leaving a good bunch of clothes on the racks.

We went shopping for the bedding next, and I found the rest of the furniture to go into her room–a dresser, a changing table, a bassinet for our room, and a mattress for the crib with sheets and a cute little stuffed animal blanket of a frog.

I picked out a very nice wooden rocking chair and plenty of nightlights, a diaper pail and a bookshelf, and some baskets and bins for organizing everything. I also found a mobile with paper airplanes and hot air balloons that twirled over, a nice cotton rug, a baby swing, and appropriate toys for a newborn.

Despite the rising expense, I didn’t worry about that as Mom and I spent time together carefully picking everything out. I wanted a lot of color in her room while keeping with the theme of a lavender sky we’d chosen. Mom took care of my own necessities, thinking of me and how much time I would spend in the nursery caring for the baby.

After we packed everything into the car, which some very helpful and strong women at the front desk helped us to do, we stopped for lunch and then decided to go home. I was excited to get started on building the rest of the nursery now that the room was fully painted and the carpet was laid down.

I sent Elio a text letting him know I was going home, but it turned out I didn’t need to because the moment we pulled in, Elio was standing outside waiting for us.

“Elio?” I asked in surprise as I stepped out of the car.

He grinned, coming straight up to me and bringing me for a deep kiss. I heard Mom chuckling to herself, and I blushed bright red as he pulled away.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I asked, a little concerned to see him out of work so early. It wasn’t even one o’clock yet.

“I took the week off.” Elio gave me a smirk. “I have a trip out of town planned for the both of us.”

“Out of town? Now?” I looked down at my belly, which was growing heavier by the day.

He chuckled, pulling me into his arms. “That’s why I wanted to do it now before the baby comes. I checked with Dr. Manning already and she said to go for it. I want one last vacation before it’ll be the three of us. Is that so wrong?”

“Of course not, but you know it’s already the three of us,” I reminded him, gesturing to my stomach, but I leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. “But I appreciate it anyway. Where are we going?”

“Looks like you guys bought the whole store. I’ll help take everything inside,” Elio easily changed the subject, dodging my pointed look as he headed to the car.

“You better,” Mom huffed, giving him the stink eye. “I’m old and she’s pregnant. This is on you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Elio laughed, then his smile dropped as Mom smirked and opened the car door. Bags that were overflowing with clothes and toys fell out onto the pavement, and even Elio gaped at the amount of stuff we’d bought.

“I was joking.” He turned to me with wide eyes. “Did you actually buy the whole store?”

“Of course not,” I rolled my eyes, then couldn’t help but tease him a bit. “Just everything in it.”

Elio groaned but like the dutiful fiance he was, he and some of the staff started lugging everything inside. Meanwhile, I grabbed what little I could without overdoing it and then invited Mom in for some iced tea.

“Once everything is out of my car, I’m gonna head back to my cottage and leave you two to it. It’s a special moment, building the nursery for the first baby, and I want you both to experience it,” Mom said smiling, a bit of a devious glint in her eyes as she watched Elio climb the stairs, groaning with the large furniture boxes on his back.

I laughed, saying goodbye to my mom as we finally got everything up into the nursery. Elio settled down on the floor to build the new furniture while I sat on the new rocking chair, sighing immediately from how cozy it felt.

“So, where are we going?”

“Do you think this is Piece A or is this Piece A?” Elio asked, holding up two identical pieces of blue-colored wood. With the directions spread out in front of him, I wasn’t much help, so I just shrugged.

“Maybe try that one over there.” I pointed to the far one. “So is it going to be sunny where we’re going?”

His lips quirked upward. “Dunno. Here, read the directions.” He passed the directions over to me and I took one glance at it and gave him a stare.

“These are in Spanish.”

“Oh, whoops.” He laughed under his breath, not even pretending he didn’t do it on purpose as he had the English ones in front of him. “My bad.”

I rolled my eyes, looking over the Spanish one with a critical eye. I didn’t know Spanish, but these were mostly images anyway, so I turned it upside down, with a little, “Ah.”

“This is Piece A,” I declared, pointing to the piece with two grooves on the end that matched the picture exactly.

Elio raised his eyebrow at me, clearly surprised but I only sent him a smug smile over my Spanish instructions.

“Well, damn,” Elio muttered to himself, grabbing the piece.

One by one, we built the furniture together, placing everything in its right spot until the room was finally coming together. While Elio built the last piece of furniture, I spent time going through the clothes, pulling off tags, and showing him all the adorable things we’d bought for our baby girl.

Elio loved it all, grinning like a fool once I showed him the onesie that says ‘Daddy’s Little Princess’ on it. He especially adored the socks and shoes I showed him.

“It’s so little,” he cried, his eyes wide and teary as he held the sock with little red fishes on it against his face. It wasn’t even as wide as his mouth.

I happily told him about the store and we planned a second trip once the due date was closer to get all the perishables we might need. We talked about the baby late into the night, about our future, and what our family would look like.

But most of all, we talked about how excited we were to meet our baby.

I already loved her more than I could possibly put into words and I knew that Elio felt the same. We had dinner and then cuddled up on the couch at night.

I was relaxing, watching some random cartoon and narrating it for our baby girl because she didn’t have eyes to watch it yet, when I suddenly remembered something.

“Is work going okay?” I asked Elio, curling in his arms so I could see his face.

“It’s fine.” He shrugged. “Nothing new.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, trying to see if he was telling me the truth, but he just raised an eyebrow challengingly back at me, like he knew what I was trying to do and was playing the part of an open book.

“Okay,” I relented, deciding he was telling the truth and giving him a quick kiss before I snuggled back down into his arms. I trusted that he wouldn’t lie to me, not after all the fights we’d had about it.

But most of all, I wanted to believe that everything was really okay now, that the hard times were past us and there was nothing but blue skies ahead.

After everything we’d been through, we deserved some peace and quiet at last.