I'm in It (The Reed Brothers 10)

“I’ll go,” she rushes to say. “I mean, if you want me to.”

“I want you to,” I say softly.

“Then I will. I’ll go with you.”

“Really?”

She stares into my eyes. “I’d go just about anywhere you needed me to go, Mick. You should know that by now.”

The door opens a crack. “If you two are done making fuck-me eyes at one another and declaring that you’ll meet one another’s needs for all of eternity, there are four children out here that could use some childcare,” Emilio says. He shuts the door again with a click.

“Your dad’s amazing.”

“I know, right?” She gets up and walks to the door. She turns back to me at the last minute. “Did you take care of that little problem?” she whispers.

“What problem?” I whisper back.

“The morning wood thing,” she says, and she drops her eyes toward my lap, then brings them up to my face, and then down again, over and over.

“Well, it was taken care of, but if you’re going to start talking about it, then no.”

She laughs and says, “Oops.” Then she steps out of the room.

I’m in trouble. Big fucking trouble.

Wren

Apparently, it takes a day or two for the newness to wear off when it comes to kids. Our honeymoon period was over just as soon as we hit northern Ohio. Barely two days into the trip, we’d hit a wall.

I hadn’t even seen Mick, aside from the top of his head or the bottoms of his feet, in four hours, because he’d climbed into the back of the van to entertain the kids while I drove. Every now and then, I’d look into the rearview mirror and see him playing a game or watching a movie with the kids. He’d wink at me, and then I’d go back to watching the road.

However, it’s apparent that the kids no longer wanted to be cute, or sweet, or on their best behavior. The honeymoon period was well and truly finished. They want to whine and cry. Anna and Devon threw French fries at one another when we stopped for lunch. And then they whined because they ran out of French fries. Roxy gave up on the princess movie she was watching and refused to watch it anymore, and then she refused to watch anything else. And now…now they’re all screaming.

While I’m stopped at a light, Mick climbs across the back seats until he’s in the seat next to me. He runs his hands through his hair and gives it a yank. “So, whose idea was this again?” he asks.

“I’m pretty sure our parents came up with this one.”

“Well, if they were hoping to use these kids as birth control, it’s totally working.”

I snort. “Kind of makes you want a vasectomy, doesn’t it?”

Mick winces. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That was a thoughtless comment. I didn’t mean… About kids… That was thoughtless.” He stops and groans, his head back against the seat in surrender.

I laugh. “It’s okay. I know exactly what you meant.” I drop my voice down to a whisper. “To be quite honest, my hoo-ha is putting up ‘no trespassing’ signs right about now.”

He breathes out very quietly, “Oh my God…”

“What?” I glance over at him.

“You just called it a hoo-ha. Are you twelve?” He scrubs a hand down his face.

“Would you rather I used the P word?”

“I’d rather you didn’t talk about your hoo-ha at all.”

I glance over at him and find him staring hard at me. “Okay…” I say slowly. “I thought we were joking about kids and…all that.”

“We were,” he clips out.