“Just me and my Nutella, just the way I like it,” I joke to myself, scooping out a dollop on my finger and licking it off. I look down at my stomach. My bump is still pretty small, but it’s definitely there—and the maternity clothes are much appreciated … well, I didn’t actually end up buying maternity clothes, I just got regular clothes in a bigger size because they were cuter. “You’re going to make me fat,” I tell the Bean. “And not just because you’re going to get big, but because you make me eat all the things.” I reach for another Cheez-It and pop it into my mouth.
I hop up and get a bottle of water from the refrigerator. It’s still warm since it’s barely been in there five minutes, but I’m thirsty so I don’t care. I swallow down about half the water, and then I look for a knife so I can slice one of the lemons.
It takes a minute of drawer opening before I find one. I slice into the lemon and cut it into little quarters. I eat the insides like someone would an orange, moaning the whole time. I don’t cringe a bit at the sourness. It tastes refreshing and delicious.
Xander bounds down the steps and into the kitchen and cringes at the sight of me. “How do you eat those?” he asks.
“I’m pregnant,” I say slowly, like he forgot.
He shakes his head. “Well, when you’re done, get your pregnant ass upstairs.” He points over his shoulder to the stairs.
“Quarter,” I warn him.
“We’re on a roll today—we’re going to pay for kid two’s college soon.”
“Kid two?” I echo. “How many kids do you want?” I ask, my voice spiking.
I don’t know why, but in the last three years the topic of how many kids we wanted never came up. Yes, we talked about kids, but it was always in the vague sense of somewhere in the future we were going to have a baby. Since we both knew we wanted to have kids someday, we never ended up talking about how many.
He pulls out the stool next to me and sits down. “I want five.”
I choke on my tongue … or maybe that was a bit of lemon.
“Five?” I shriek, trying to catch my breath. “No. No way in hell am I pushing out five kids from my vagina. Nope.” I shake my head. “That’s insane. Why would you want five kids?” I press a hand to my heart and find that it’s racing. “I think I’m sweating,” I mumble more to myself, and pull my shirt away from my chest, using it to fan myself.
He shrugs. “I like kids. I want a big family. I grew up with two siblings and … I don’t know, I always wanted more.”
“You’re insane,” I squeak. “I think I might pass out.”
“You’re not going to pass out, Thea,” he says sternly. “How many kids do you want?”
“One,” I answer, and he frowns. “Two max. A boy and girl.”
He raises a brow. “If you have two you could get two boys or two girls, you know.”
“Well, then, at least they’ll have each other,” I reason.
He shakes his head. “How have we never talked about this before?”
“Planning to leave me so you can breed someone else?” I ask, picking up another lemon slice and raising a brow.
“God no, Thea,” he snaps, clearly irritated that I’d say such a thing even though it was a joke.
“Good, because I’d cut off your dick and shove it down your throat if you left me.” I wink, trying to b
ring some levity to the conversation.
He huffs out a breath, that I know is a laugh he’s trying to mask. “We’re going to have to learn to compromise on things, you know?”
“I know,” I sigh.
“Four,” he answers.
“What? Four kids instead of five?” He nods. “No way. Maybe three—maybe.”
He smiles slowly. “How about, instead, we agree to make it through the first one and go from there?”
I bite my lip, thinking his proposal over, and nod. “Deal.”