Way Off Plan (Firsts and Forever 1)

“You’re a natural-born parent,” I told him.

“I love children,” he said, smiling at the boys fondly. Brennan looked up at him and pulled a squished, half-eaten jelly donut out of the front pocket of his overalls, handing it over with a huge smile. Dmitri accepted the gift and said sincerely, “Thank you. I’ll save this for later.” And then he actually put it in the pocket of his expensive dress shirt, which made Brennan beam at him delightedly.

And then a realization hit me. This must be why he was getting married. Dmitri wanted children. And that was something I could never give him – at least, not biologically.

“Kids always like me for some reason. Dogs, too,” he was saying, grinning at Tippy and ruffling his fur. The dog tilted his head and watched Dmitri closely, and Dmitri laughed and said, “Oh God, that reminds me. I had such an embarrassing nickname growing up.” He looked up at me. “It was–” he said something in Russian that I didn’t catch.

“Chinook?” I repeated, even though that wasn’t quite what he’d said. “Like the salmon?”

He smiled at that. “Not exactly.” He said it again – it sounded something like tch-nawk. And then he asked me, “Can you guess what it means?” And he tilted his head at me in that characteristic way of his, the same way Tippy was tilting his head at Dmitri.

I grinned at him and guessed, “Puppy?”

He flashed a brilliant smile at me and said, “Exactly. Probably one of the most embarrassing nicknames ever.”

“Oh, no it isn’t,” said Erin, who’d been sipping coffee and watching this whole interaction closely. She grinned wickedly and said, “I can think of a much more embarrassing nickname.”

My eyes went wide with horror, and I said, “Don’t you dare! Erin, if you say one more word, I’ll made good on my threat. I swear.”

“What threat?” Dmitri wanted to know.

“Her kids latch on to song lyrics like crazy,” I told him, still watching my sister with narrowed eyes. “So I have a piece of blackmail that I always keep handy for situations just like this. If she lets my nickname slip, I’ll make good on my threat to teach the boys every word to this really old, really annoying song called Rapper’s Delight. That song drives Erin insane.” I shot Maureen a look and said, “You hush up, too, Mo. I have plenty of dirt on you as well.”

“You don’t scare me, Tater,” Maureen said with a satisfied smile.

Dmitri laughed at that. “Tater? Why?”

I moaned and collapsed face-first onto the counter. And Maureen happily explained, “Because when he was ten, all he would eat was tater tots. Our mom kept saying, ‘You have to eat something else, Jamie. Otherwise you’re going to turn into a tater tot.’ The rest of us kids shortened it to Tater, and the rest is history.”

“He actually liked the nickname,” Erin added happily. “For Halloween that year, he dressed like a tater tot.”

“Only, his homemade costume didn’t go quite as he planned. Everyone thought he’d dressed up as something else,” Maureen grinned.

“That’s right. Most people thought he was dressed like a giant P-O-O-P,” Erin spelled, knowing her sons would latch on to that word the moment they heard it. Maureen doubled over with laughter.

“Oh God,” I moaned, still face-down on the counter. “Please stop talking. I’ll pay you both to shut up.”

A gentle hand rubbed my back, and sat up to find Dmitri right beside me. The kids still sat in a huddle on the floor, glued to the cell phone (probably literally glued to it, given all the sugar coating it). His eyes were sparkling with amusement as he said, “I’ll bet you were the cutest giant P-O-O-P that anyone had ever seen.”

My sisters burst out laughing, and I knit my brows at Dmitri. “This is totally unfair,” I told him. “You’re getting to hear all my embarrassing stories, but I don’t know any of yours.”

“I told you my nickname willingly,” he pointed out. “Besides, just wait. When you meet my sisters, they’ll totally humiliate me.” He turned to Erin and Maureen and said, “I have five sisters, and they love to gang up on me.”

“I’ll look forward to that,” I said, getting up off my barstool. And then I changed the subject by saying, “Want to take the kids to the park? It’s nice out. And I’m still waiting for all that sugar to detonate in their systems.”

My apartment in the Sunset was walking distance to Golden Gate Park, and once we got there Dmitri ran around with the boys, playing tag as the kids shrieked and laughed with delight.

I sat on a picnic table between my two sisters, the dog curled up under the table and quiet for once, as Erin murmured, “He’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. Don’t tell my husband I said that.”