They shared a look that only couples that’d been together for a long time could pull off, speaking without exchanging a word. The Kid said Otter and I did the same thing, but I thought it was still weird to see.
Anna finally nodded after Creed did a complicated maneuver with his eyebrows. “It’s another boy,” he said quite proudly, as if the gender of his child had been decided by the sheer force of his will and sperm. Which, to be fair, was at least partially true.
“Yes,
” Anna said dryly. “How lucky are we. Because we already didn’t go through it with JJ, we get to try again.”
“Eh,” Creed said. “He was a practice kid. We learned from our mistakes, and we’ll do better the second time around. JJ was our starter kid. Creed Junior will be immaculate.”
Otter frowned. “Creed… Junior?”
“Yeah,” Anna said. “Isn’t it fun how he thinks that’s going to happen?”
“Babe,” Creed said. “We’ve talked about this. You know that I need someone to carry on my legacy.”
“And what exactly would that legacy be?”
“We also talked about that. I’m still working on what my legacy is going to be.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m ready to ask you a question now.”
They all stared at me.
I stared back.
Otter coughed.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Congrats on having another boy. I’m sure he will bring joy and enrichment to your lives. And yes, her name is Megan, and we’ve met her one time, and yes, I accidentally told her that she can’t have sex with her boyfriend if she gets pregnant with our kid, because I didn’t want her boyfriend’s sperm to mix with ours and make a weird hybrid baby that we’ll have to share with her family because that would just be stupid. And yes, Otter made that sound he makes when I say something I probably shouldn’t have, but Megan didn’t get it, asked the specialist if it were possible for her boyfriend’s sperm to mix with ours.”
“Megan’s a little… like Bear,” Otter said.
“Ohhh,” Anna said. “I get it now.”
I squinted at Otter. “What do you mean by that?”
“That she’s perfect,” Otter said, patting my hand.
“Smooth,” Creed muttered.
“Can I ask the questions now? Because I have at least two hundred of them, and I’m thinking it’s probably going to take a few hours.”
They stared some more.
I waited.
“I really am sorry about this,” Otter said. “You know how he gets.”
“We know,” Anna and Creed said, and I would have been offended, but I was focused on the note cards in my hands.
“Okay,” I said. “Question one. Is it true that you have to wear a diaper after you give birth because your downstairs is just not in the shape it’d been before you started?”
Creed choked on his garlic bread.
Otter put his face in his hands.
Anna grinned evilly. “Oh, do I have things to tell you.”
A COUPLE of hours later, I screamed a little when Creed’s hand dropped on my shoulder. I was attempting to do the dishes, but mostly just staring blankly out the window above the sink, trying to take in everything I’d learned at dinner. Mostly what it boiled down to was that giving birth was the most amazing and the most disgusting thing to ever happen anywhere, and that women who went through it were probably capable of pretty much anything.