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I stop talking. Because what I want to say iswife. Or at the very least…fiancée. But I can’t. Because the woman I love, who is carrying my babies and sleeping in my bed, is nothing more than my girlfriend. I pick up her hand off my thigh and trace her finger. “I can’t fucking wait to put a ring on this finger. Maybe that’s what I want for my birthday.”
“One, your birthday is only a month away, so I believe that will take a miracle. And two, if I’m still capable of making love by then, that will also be a miracle.”
“It’ll still be possible,” I say with a grin. “Believe me, I’ve googled ways.”
She caresses her stomach. “Maybe if I were only carrying one. Asher, I’ll be as big as a dump truck by then. I’m already waddling around. I can’t understand how you can even be turned on.”
“I’m turned on alright.” I run a knuckle along her cheekbone. “Every damn time I look at you.”
She smiles and leans in to kiss me when the back door flies open.
“Gross.” Bug slips off her shoes and motions to Allie’s middle. “Haven’t you done that enough?”
Allie hops up as quickly as a pregnant woman can and resumes doing the dishes.
This time, I get up too and take over. “Let me do this. You need to get ready for work.” I kiss her cheek and push her toward the hallway.
“I can do the dishes,” Bug says. “You can finish your coffee.”
I smile, wishing Allie were still in the room to see that Darla can in fact be an incredibly kind person. When I turn to what I think will be an empty doorway, I see Allie hasn’t left the room. She’s standing, watching Bug do the dishes. But the expression on her face isn’t pride like mine. It’s something else. If I’m not mistaken, it’s almost as if she’s annoyed that my daughter is doing a chore. She shakes her head slightly, never looking over at me, then walks away.
“I’m thinking of trying out for the soccer team.”
Bug’s declaration rips me from my thoughts and stuns me into silence. I wonder if I heard her correctly. “Um… what?”
She turns off the water and dries her hands on a dish towel. “Christian says in small towns like this, you don’t have to be very good to get on the team. He said last year some girl made the cheerleading squad without even being able to do the splits.”
“Hold on.” I try to gather my thoughts. “Don’t you have to attend the school for the team you’re trying out for?”
“Technically, no. Homeschooled kids are allowed to be on sports teams in the school they’re zoned for. But…” She shrugs. “I’m thinking about going.”
It’s not even nine in the morning and she’s dropped two unexpected bombs on me. Good bombs in the overall scheme of things. Still, my jaw is in my lap. “You’re going to attend Calloway Creek High School.Andyou’re trying out for soccer?”
She spins back around and turns on the faucet. “I said I wasthinkingabout those things.”
Knowing how fragile this situation is, I decide not to push it or get too excited about it. We still have six weeks until school starts. Lucky her, she got an extra-long summer as school in New York starts much later than school in Florida. Here, they don’t start until after Labor Day. Which is another reason not to count my chickens. That’s a lot of time for her to change her mind about everything.
“Christian said the tryouts are next month, but practices start next week for anyone who wants to go. It’s not official practice because coaches aren’t allowed to hold practices outside of the season. But he said it’s like a thing that all the girls who are going to try out get together and play a few times a week leading up to tryouts, and that players from the previous year’s team lead the practice. What do you think I should do?”
“I think Christian sure seems to know a lot about the girls’ high school soccer team.”
She shrugs. “He’s like the equipment boy or something.”
I raise a brow. “For the girls’ soccer team?”
“And the boys lacrosse and baseball teams.”
“But he’s not even a student at the high school yet.”
“It’s something about his dad knowing the athletic director and how he tends to get a lot of favors because people feel sorry for him.”
“People feel sorry for his dad?”
She shakes her head matter-of-factly. “People feel sorry forhim. Because of his cerebral palsy.”
“And he’s okay with that?”
She picks up the dish towel and starts drying plates. “Christian is smart, Dad. Like super smart. He wants to become a mechanical engineer. That doesn’t mean fixing cars like his dad, that means actually designing engines and stuff. And hesays that if people pity him and that pity results in him getting what he wants, like maybe getting into one of the top engineering schools in New York, then why should he care what people think?”