Artificial Insemination

Chapter Fourteen

One minute her stomach had been smooth to the touch, the next minute, red and angry looking stretch marks were scattered across it.

When she complained about it to Dale, he had taken one look at it and shrugged, "what did you expect? You have to make room for our pup somehow." 

And that was the last time she thought too deeply about the marks.

In all honesty, she had been liking some of the new changes to her body. Having always had hard time putting on weight, it was nice to see fluffiness in new areas like her thighs. It seemed like all the weight had either gone to her stomach, legs and ankles and none of it to her rear end. It was just about as bony as it had been before the pregnancy.

There wasn't much she could do about that besides ask Dale to help her shift positions when her bum became square from sitting on it too long.

College was over. She had finished with exams and had been spending the rest of the summer lazing around doing nothing, Dale doing the same thing whenever he wasn't at work.

He had definitely gained a few pounds of sympathy weight because of it.

Their days were mostly compiled of eating, watching movies, and sleeping. Layla knew that it was an arrangement that suited Dale since it meant that she wasn't doing anything he considered dangerous. 

He didn't want her doing anything if he could help it. She didn't mind for the most part, but she drew the line when he wanted to help her sit down on the toilet or shave her armpits.

She managed to convince him to let her join him shopping again. For once, she had enough energy to leave her house and she was going to take advantage of it.

---

"Your son is beating me up again." Layla deadpanned as they reached the frozen food isle. 

Her sense of humour had deteriorated so much over the last few months that she wasn't actually sure if she was joking or not. 

"Stop beating up your mother, Rupert." Dale said without missing a beat.

"Stupid joke..." She mumbled before gesturing to the frozen pizza in front of her and wordlessly telling the man to put it in their trolley. "And we're not naming our kid Rupert."

Dale threw the pizza on top of the pile of food and turned to grin at her. "You're so cute. You know that?" He reached out and pinched her nose between his two fingers.

She swatted him away with a grunt of, "get off." After he removed his hand, she put her hands on her hips and glared at him, "and of course I know. You think I'm blind?"

It took him a minute to realise that she was only kidding around with him and he laughed. "You really need to work on smiling a bit more when telling a joke."

"I was smiling on the inside."

Dale gave a playful growl and bumped the trolley out of the way so he could stand directly in front of her. He took her head in his hands and started to kiss her cheeks and forehead in quick succession, only stopping when the smile finally broke out on her face.

"Much better." He said, pressing one last kiss right to the centre of her mouth before pulling back.

He winked at her and she opened her mouth to say something, either about the stupid eye spasm or about how cute he was, but before the words could come out he was looking to the side and narrowing his eyes.

"Next isle." He clipped.

"We haven't finished here though." 

She stepped back in confusion when he reached out for her hand, only to bump into somebody behind her.