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Pepper finishes tucking in the edges of the sheet and then unfolds a pink blanket with fluffy white sheep on the all the linens while I put the crib together, and as I just discovered on a trip down to the kitchen for a bottle of water, she put away everything else that we had bought on today’s shopping trip

“There,” she says in satisfaction as she steps back and looks at the setup She talkeddresser and I also let her pick out the linens She started getting excited and suggested we paint the room pink, but I put a halt to that ridiculous notion “It looks perfect”

She turns to facethe fatigue that’s there too It’s alht and we’ve been hard at work all day with hours of shopping andthe house set up

“I can’t thank you enough,” I tell her as I lean against the doorja one ankle over the other “I would have never been able to do this on my own”

“Sure you would have,” she says with a hu at it and probably not finished until ”

She punctuates that with a not so subtle yawn

“Coet you to bed”

The htens and a hundred lewd thoughts run through s we could do to each other and—

Pepper yawns again, and it snaps lances at her watch “Yeah…I didn’t realize it was so late”

She walks toward htly for her to precede erously close

She stops and looks up atand thick

“Thank you,” I say slowly and hat I hope coain, just…thank you”

“You’re welco

Or so I think

It’s one of those one-handed things, and oes aardly around her waist I bend to accept the half-eoes to her tip-toes