Page 66 of I Do, or Dye Trying

“You can play with my pistol once the guests go home,” I told him over my shoulder as I headed for the door. I had tons of things I still needed to do before our guests arrived.

“By then it’ll be empty,” Gabe argued.

That got my attention. “What kind of party do you think we’re having and where exactly do you think I’m going to be expending my cartridges?”

Gabe’s phone rang before he could answer me. He looked at the caller ID and smiled broadly. “Now you’re going to get it,” he told me before answering the phone. “Hi, Mama. Josh is being mean again. He won’t let me have a water pistol.” Gabe smiled smugly at me as he listened to what she had to say. I rolled my eyes because there was no way Martina would side against me. “Yes, I’ll put you on speakerphone so Josh can hear what you have to say.”

“Hello, my loves,” Martina said. “I’m happy to hear that you’re fighting over important things like water pistols and not boring crap like finances. I’m almost hesitant to intrude on the precious moment. Perhaps I should call back tomorrow.”

“No!” Gabe and I said at once.

“What’s on your mind, Mama?” Gabe asked.

“I know you are planning to wait a year before you adopt your first child, but an opportunity has presented itself. You see, there’s a young woman in our neighborhood who is looking for a couple to privately adopt her babies.”

“Babies?” we both asked in surprise.

Gabe recovered faster than I did. “How many babies?” I nodded my head because it was a great question.

“She’s having twins—a boy and a girl.”

“We’ll take them,” Gabe said as if he was talking about tickets for a concert that were up for grabs.

“What?” I asked in a near panic. “But our trip? Our plans? We aren’t ready.”

“Josh,” Gabe said, his voice thick with emotion, “were you ready for me? Was I a part of your plan? We’ll move our trip up a few months and be ready when they get here.”

Damn, but he was right. The best things in life were often ones you never saw coming. I saw the same hope and excitement in Gabe’s eyes that I felt bouncing in my chest with every beat of my heart.

“We’ll call you tomorrow morning once we make travel arrangements,” I told Martina.

“I’m so excited about being a grandmother.” Martina acted like it was a sure thing and I hoped she didn’t have her heart crushed if the woman chose someone else. “Even if it’s years instead of three months.”

“Three months?” we asked her. It sounded to me like any road trips we’d be taking the next year would be done in a minivan instead of Charlotte.

“We can do this,” I told Gabe. “Three months is plenty of time to plan for a baby.”

“Two babies,” Martina reminded us.

“Two babies,” Gabe and I repeated, sounding like our birds.

“Lick my hole,” I heard Savage squawk downstairs.

“Butt Breath!” Sassy repeated back.

Our eyes widened, and our faces turned red because surely Martina overheard the birds repeating an exchange they learned from her son and me.

“You have three months to get Savage and Sassy’s language cleaned up,” Martina said after laughing so hard she gasped for air.

“Yes, ma’am,” we both said.

“Have fun tonight, Hole Licker and Butt Breath. Wait until I tell Bertie about this one. She’ll have new T-shirts made,” she said before she hung up.

I looked into Gabe’s smiling face and said, “I will not be called Little Daddy by my children.” Gabe threw his head back and laughed raucously. “I mean it, Gabe.”

“Oh, Sunshine. I love you so hard.”

Somewhere on a cloud, most likely over a rainbow…