The First Summer of Forever

Chapter 34- Snapshot

Conrad

"Are  you ready?" I said, taking her hand. "Our Uber will be here soon.",and we walked out the door hand in hand. "Where are we going?" Belly asked me as we got into our Uber. "This place Mr. Graves was telling me about. It's a local spot." We rode in the car for a while, taking in the scenery. My mind started to wander. I thought about last night, and sparks ignited again inside. It was... amazing...charged with electricity. I had to let those thoughts go before I got myself worked up again just thinking about it- imagining the feeling of her skin on mine. Her long, silky hair falling down onto me from above and tickling my face. The way she tasted. Then how she fell asleep so quickly in my arms.

  We both fell asleep almost instantly. After all, yesterday felt almost like three days packed into one. We had a really long day. Since we would be flying back to Miami tomorrow morning to check out the damage of our sailboat, I decided we should go out to explore the local spots one more time. This part of Florida was completely different from the Florida we experienced in Miami and The Keys.

We crossed over a large bridge that took us away from the visibly tourist-y spots and delivered us into the more local side of town. We turned right onto a street with a brick sign that said, "Welcome to Historic Downtown St. Andrews". The car took us down this little street by the water that was filled with antique shops, boutiques, and art galleries. We got out and started walking down the sidewalks, stopping to look at antiques, or bookstores, looking to see if we could spot her mom's new book.

We were in an antique store when Belly said, "Wouldn't this be cute in the baby's room?" She was leaning over examining a wooden rocking horse with yarn for a mane. "Yeah, that's really nice." I said. "Maybe when we get back home, we can start to look for things like that. We may even have some things like that in storage. My mom loved saving everything like that.

"Well, we need to know what we are having first, right?" She said, questioning me. "When do you typically find out the gender?" She asked me.

"Oh, not for a while. I think it's like 14 weeks or so. Maybe later. 16? I don't know, I'm not an OB, but I think that's about right. When we get back into town, we need to have your first appointment and ultrasound. Once we find out what our plan is to get back, we can call and schedule it." I said while I placed my hand on the small of her back and gave it a quick rub.

"Sometimes I forget that I'm pregnant, and then the nausea and exhaustion remind me that I am,in fact, pregnant."

"That's a good sign, Belly, it means your body is doing what it is supposed to do. Building and growing a human is a big job."

"I've never thought of it like that. I guess you're right."

After we left that store, it was lunchtime and Belly was getting hungry. Hungry Belly can turn into hangry Belly pretty quickly, so we walked to a nearby restaurant, Uncle Earnie's. The lady at the antique store register told us about it, and she said it was a good place where all the locals went. It was a two-story light-yellow house on the water that looked like it was converted into a restaurant at some point.

We sat out back on the deck while we ate and listened to the sea gulls. We watched them perch on the railing, fervently waiting for someone to drop a fry, or a crumb, even. We both had the seafood lunch special- a shrimp po-boy and a side salad. After lunch, we walked a little while longer, looking at the little shops. This part of town reminded me of Cousins. It was quaint in that way. Simple.

After a while, we ordered an Uber to pick us up, and it was there in no time. We headed back to the beach house. As we were getting into the Uber, Belly was dialing Laurel to check in. "Hey, Mom....yeah, I just wanted to let you know we are still okay. We will be flying back to Key West tomorrow to check on the boat, and see what repairs it needs before we head back- if it's even sailable...I know Mom. We will....I love you too. Hey, Con-my mom says hi...."