The Long and Winding Road (The Seafare Chronicles 4)

Everything is piled up in the nursery to the point where stuff was starting to get stacked on top of each other. We moved the crib we already had to our bedroom, given that we’d want to have it there when they came. We debated back and forth about buying another one, but Anna had told us it’d be enough for the both of them, and that they probably wouldn’t want to be separated for now.

And now we’re in the middle of July, sitting down on the floor of the nursery, sorting through another wave of gifts we’ve received. Anna’s to my right, the Kid to my left with Dom at his side, and Izzie across from me. JJ and AJ are at their grandparents’ house, and Otter and Creed are having some weird bro-time, leaving me to deal with unwrapping some sort of contraption that looks fucking painful.

“What the fuck is this?” I ask, trying to figure out which side is up.

Ty has a lapful of something fuzzy that squeaks, and Dom is in the process of trying to clean up all the pink and blue wrapping paper that covers the floor. Izzie is reading a book on newborn bathing techniques that came with a bathing station, having looked horrified when I asked why we couldn’t just wash them in the sink like we had been when we were kids. (“That explains so much about you.”) Anna is sitting with her back against the wall, looking amused as she watches me get more and more disconcerted with every package I open.

“Why are there suction cups?” Ty asks, squinting at the thing in my hands.

“It’s a breast pump,” Dom says.

I drop it as if it has scalded me. “It’s a what?”

“Maybe you should have looked at the box before you tore into it,” Anna says. “I swear, you’re worse than JJ at Christmas.”

“I don’t have breasts,” I say, scandalized. “I can’t make milk.”

“Says the sink baby,” Izzie mutters, blowing a strand of hair from her face.

“Dear Bear,” Ty says, reading from the card that came with the pump. “This wasn’t on your list, but I assume your wife will need one. And if you still don’t have a wife, you are living in sin. Signed, Helen Woolley.”

“Fucking Helen,” I snarl at the breast pump. “She knows I’m married to Otter. She will rue the day she sent me this contraption. Rue.”

“Who is Helen Woolley?” Dom whispers, obviously not wanting to incur my wrath.

“Librarian at the middle school,” Ty whispers back. “She was ancient when I went there.”

“She thinks she can mess with me and my gay husband? Boy, is she sorely mistaken. I shall have my revenge, Helen Woolley! See that I won’t—oh look, it lights up. That’s kind of neat. Ooh, it even beeps. Is that to let you know your boob is done or something?”

We all look at Anna.

Except for Izzie, who sighs and rolls her eyes.

“You are so special, Bear,” Anna says seriously.

“I have no use for this.”

“Okay. So return it. Or give it to Megan and Marty. You said they were planning on having kids of their own, right?”

“You want me to regift the breast pump? That sounds horrible.”

“Are you going to use it?”

“Well, no. Do you want it?”

“Regifting,” she reminds me. “And I have one.”

“But this one lights up and beeps when your boob is done. And what if you have another kid? This is super hard-core.”

She snorts. “Right. Another kid. Don’t tell Creed because he doesn’t know it yet, but it’s time for me to Bob Barker the hell out of this situation and spay and neuter my pet.”

We gape at her.

She shrugs. “I’ll hold his hand while it happens.”

“Savage,” Izzie mutters, holding out her hand for a high five.

“I’ll never understand girls,” I sigh.