The Next Best Thing: Part II

Fifty-Five

"Zoe, we're almost home. Wake up, babe."

Eoin was parked in my regular supermarket's brightly lit parking lot. The little sun available that day was on the horizon, ushering in a great cloud of dark grey and a little drizzle falling softly on the car's roof.

"Why did we stop here?" I yawned sleepily.

"Min called. She needed some rice for dinner tonight. And you haven't had anything to eat today so I stopped at the first place I saw. I hope Doritos are okay," he smiled innocently. They were perfect. "There's lemonade at the back too if you'd like some. I know how much you like that stuff." If Eoin wasn't the world's best boyfriend, I would honestly lose faith in all humanity.

Min greeted at us at the door, a hot pink apron over her now rotund belly. As soon as she saw Eoin, her smile stretched a little further up her mouth and her eyes shone a little brighter. Eoin was hands down her favourite boyfriend of mine to date, although there weren't really many to choose from, let alone talk about. "I'm glad you could join us, Eoin," she grinned. "I made more than enough food anyways."

"Not that you wouldn't finish it all," I finished her sentence with a smirk.

After eight months of pregnancy, Min was all ready to pop and to finally be able to lose the great amount of weight she'd put on. She was still extremely gorgeous and a leggy raven haired goddess, but she was now the epitome of the everyday woman who struggled to fit into all her clothes and actually gained extra if she ate too much.

"The mouth on this one," she admonished to Eoin's amusement.

We had an amazing dinner of an Indian curry Min had gotten from one our neighbours, who, like her, was very pregnant. She was also a doctor by profession, and because of all the above mentioned things they spent most of their days trading recipes, stories and binge eating.

Eoin offered to clean up after dinner, leaving the two of us to gossip about how amazing he really was and me to blush at how lucky I was to have someone like him.

"Sebastian called me," I began. Immediately Min placed her hand into mine, encouraging me to continue with a sympathetic look. "I was frightened, Min. He threatened...he told me he'd come back and finish the job."

My words were coming out of my mouth as tiny whispers, afraid that I could be jinxing myself. I was terrified, and I would always be terrified until he was languishing in a jail somewhere, far away from my city, my friends. Me.

"Zoe, he's not allowed within two hundred and fifty feet of you. He wouldn't dare," Min soothed me in a voice laced with concern and determination.

"That's what Eoin said to me.”

“Eoin loves you and so do I. We would never let anything happen to you, okay? I have Officer Reagan on speed dial, so it's all good. Nothing will happen to you, not on our watch."

They all loved me, and they were going to protect me the best way they knew how.

I was already in bed when Eoin sauntered out of the shower, habitually half naked with a towel draped loose around his waist. He looked beautiful. He always did when he ruffled his wet blonde hair he'd let fall down his shoulders. He was beautiful. But I wasn't in the mood.

"Babe, are you sleeping already?" he asked, failing to hide his disappointment. I nodded my head under the covers, a smidge of the bedspread open to allow me to sneak a peak at him. "But you can hear me." I could hear his smirk even before I saw it, and it pissed me off how just a little facial expression could affect me so much: I wasn't sleepy anymore.

"Okay, since you're trying so hard to avoid me, I will just tell you what I wanted to do then. To do to you." He slowly took the few strides towards my bed and sat beside me. "So before you hid from me like a little coward, baby, I was going to kiss you on your lips, on your neck and that spot, my spot, behind your ear."