Chapter 7 Feeling Left Out

Over the next month, the gang pulled off several impressive theft jobs. Now that Sly had his mojo back, and wasn't hiding his life choice from Carmelita, he performed better than ever with newfound purpose. Secretly having all the valuables that were taken from greedy ignorant aristocrats and noblemen in the gang's possession, Sly knew that he could easily support his growing family.

Now about five months along, Carmelita was getting bigger each day, and was sleepier than ever. Most days she would sleep the day away while the gang was out investigating their next criminal to steal from or staking out the next place to execute a theft.

Late one evening, the entire team, minus Carmelita, had pulled off a robbery at an illegal stockholder's penthouse. And the four burst into the Safehouse victoriously, praising each other in the great job they'd all done.

"Woo! That was awesome!" Sly exclaimed. "What a blast!"

The rest were laughing loudly and high-fiving. "Totally!" Murray agreed. "Fighting off puny guards always gets me so pumped!" He brought his large fists together excitedly.

"Good job on those distractions, Murray," Bentley said, enthusiasm in his nasally voice.

Penelope giggled. "I don't think any of those dense Dobermans were prepared for your 'Thunder Flop' move!"

Murray smiled and shrugged. "What can I say? You don't have to be small and sneaky to catch a guard off guard."

The rest laughed at Murray's lame attempt at a joke.

During the commotion, Carmelita had awoken and came downstairs, listening to them and how passionate they were about the evening's heist.

Sly finally looked over and noticed her at the bottom of the staircase.

"Hey lovely lady!" he greeted her with a smile and a peck on the lips. "About time you woke up," he teased.

She did her best to smile sincerely but couldn't help feeling very unhelpful at the moment. "Hey handsome," she said. "I'm guessing it went well?"

"Did it ever!" Sly exclaimed and swept her up in his arms and carried her to the couch, leaning back and placing her onto his lap. "We raided Sir Reginald Jaguar's penthouse suite. And we scored big!"

Bentley wheeled into the living room to join the two. Penelope followed close behind, carrying bags of gold and multiple stacks of cash balancing atop them. "And here's our reward for all our hard work!" She set the riches onto the small coffee table. She then pulled a nearby chair up and happily sat next to Bentley, who was looking quite thrilled as well.

Murray was in the kitchen, grabbing a bite to eat, as usual.

"Hey Murray," Sly called. "How's about we all have a round to celebrate?"

"Great idea Sly!" he searched the fridge and pulled out drinks for everyone. He threw one to Sly, who caught it effortlessly, and to Bentley, but his grasp on the bottle wasn't as skilled as he fumbled with it slightly. He handed one to Penelope who thanked him, and was about to hand the last one to Carmelita, but then he drew back awkwardly.

"Oh, I uh, almost forgot," he said. "You can't drink. That's right. Uh, my bad Inspector."

Carmelita's ear flattened as she sighed, one hand resting on her midsection. But she smiled lightly. "You can just call me Carmelita, and that's alright, Murray. No harm done." she assured him.

Sly smiled. "Yea. She can do without, can't ya?" He was teasing of course, but in truth, Carmelita really did miss being able to drink a little here and there.

Hoping to coax her out of her hormonal mood, Sly wrapped his arms around her distended belly and kissed her on the back of the head. "How about a soda? Would that option suffice?"

Her eyes looked sad as she folded her arms across her chest. "I guess. I don't really deserve to celebrate with you though. I didn't really do anything to help."

Sly nuzzled her cheek. "Oh nonsense!" he said in a playful tone. "You're doing a great deed. You're helping me continue the Cooper legacy!" he said excitedly as he rubbed her stomach in adoration, doting over the unborn kit. "That's a job no one else can pull off!" He then leaned in and jokingly whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear, "And it's the best one in my opinion. But don't tell the gang I said that!"

They all laughed and sipped their drinks. Murray tossed Carmelita a coke can. She caught it deftly and thanked him.

She blushed bright red at the 'job' Sly was insinuating. With a smirk she looked up at him. "That's assuming he or she will have your name before being born. Remember I still go by 'Fox', Mr. Cooper," she reminded him, popping the top off the drink in her hand.

He considered that for a moment, and flashed her his signature suave grin. "Oh no. Well we are going to have to do something about that then, aren't we Ms. Fox?"

She rolled her eyes and sipped the drink as his hands moved up to play with her wavy blue locks.

"Can you believe how huge that vault was?" Penelope piped up.

The whole crew got animated again, bringing up suspenseful and funny events of the prior evening. Bentley talked about how fun it was to dress up in disguises and how incredible it was that Sly made it out even though he'd tripped the alarm. Murray bragged about frightening away some of the smaller dogs on the security staff, namely a Mexican Chihuahua named Enrique, who had more bark than bite. And Penelope gushed over all the expensive means of transportation Sir Reginald owned, from jetskis to motorcycles, to a private helicopter with its own pad that she'd wished she'd had time to tinker with. Sly listened on to the review of the fantastic heist, but didn't say much, as he was pleasantly distracted by the beautiful pregnant vixen falling asleep in his arms.

He had no idea how he'd gotten so lucky. He was a renowned master thief who had the greatest group of friends a guy could ask for, who had helped him rack up many worldly riches. And to top it off, he got to continue his relationship with the foxy lady of his dreams, who was possibly going to change her life profession for him, and was carrying his child.

It really didn't get much better than that for Sly Cooper.

Later that night as he carried his sleeping lover upstairs to bed, the thought came back to him about never fully explaining why he'd faked his amnesia. As he placed her limp body down on the bed, and crawled in next to her, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but the memories of that night five months ago kept him awake. He stared up at the celling, remembering how Carmelita looked that night, the hurt expression on her face caused by his deceit burned in his mind, the tears she cried, causing an awful feeling to surge through him. He had to tell her, had to lay all the cards out on the table, once and for all, to make her understand that he'd feigned amnesia and lied to her only so they could be together.

He rolled over to face her, his sleeping vixen goddess. She looked so…so vulnerable. And peaceful.

Gently, he shook her. "Carm? Baby, wake up," he whispered.

She stirred. "Mmm?" she asked, still half asleep, opening one eye to look up at him.

"I need to talk to you about something. It's important."

She yawned and rolled over, their noses touching. "You would wait till I fell asleep," she groggily joked.

He laughed softly, but said nothing, as he admired his love, his one and only. Even when she was half asleep, her hair a mess, her eyes half closed, she was irresistible to him.

She weakly but sincerely smiled up at him. "What did you wanna tell me, babe?" she asked.

Sly's heart melted into a squishy mess, captivated by her once again. How does she always do that? Sly thought to himself.

"Umm….well…just that….that I love you."

She beamed up at him. "I love you too babe. So much." And she kissed him softly, before falling back into her slumber.

So he wussed out. But he would talk with her. Soon. He felt his eyelids grow heavy. They would talk in the morning, when they were both fully awake…or maybe later that day….or perhaps next week…

Moments later, he was snoring lightly.

Yea, just another cute chapter. Nothing exciting happens. But it was longer…kind of.

I encourage you to keep going so you can find out about the new heartache and surprising news from Carmelita herself.

Oh yea, and the villain. Spoiler! This guy is not an old enemy, that's for certain…

But that's all for now! Please tell me what you think so far! I love to hear what my readers have to say.