Page 101 of Pregnant By the Playboy

“General Bloopy says good morning!”

This time, I wake up to a stuffed purple dinosaur nuzzling my nose.

I sit up and rub my eyes. It’s dark outside.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“It’s time to wake up and touch your toes!” General Bloopy speaks in an annoying, singsong voice. He dips his head to touch his left front foot, then his right front foot.

“Oh, fuck off,” I mutter.

General Bloopy gasps. “Such shocking language! Somebody needs a snuggle.”

The dinosaur then, uh, vigorously snuggles me as only a bloopisaurus can.

On the other side of the room, someone cracks up with laughter. It’s Cedric.

Julian is the one manipulating General Bloopy into saying completely out-of-character things, believe it or not.

“You seem to think I’m Evie,” I say, “rather than a grown-ass man.”

He shrugs. “Now you know how I feel when you piss me off.”

Perhaps he has a point.

“So you’re sleeping at eight thirty in the evening,” Cedric says as he sits down in a recliner. “This is what happens when you get dumped?”

“To be clear,” I say, “I didn’t get dumped. She simply refused my proposal and decided she didn’t want to see me for a week.”

“So you’re still together?”

“Maybe? I don’t know.”

“Seems like it might not be all that bad, then.”

“She has no idea when she’ll be ready, and Baby will be coming this fall.”

“That’s many months away,” Julian points out, in irritating older-brother fashion.

“You call you child ‘Baby’?” Cedric asks.

“We don’t know their name,” I say. “What am I supposed to call them? Fetus? Goji berry? What did you call Evie, Julian?”

“Bean,” he says, “but ‘Baby’ is sensible. Like how Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s refused to name her cat, just called him ‘Cat.’”

“But we’ll name Baby eventually. Just not until they’re born.”

“I’ve still never seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Cedric says. “Remember how Mom wouldn’t let us watch it?”

Julian nods. “Because of Mickey Rooney. A white guy, playing a horrible stereotype of an Asian man. And yeah, it was that bad. But we’re getting wildly off topic. We’re here because Vince looks like shit after Marissa refused his proposal. I admit I was surprised she said no, but Courtney wasn’t.”

Ugh. I should have listened to Courtney.

“Stop being melodramatic and acting like it’s the end of the world,” Julian says.

“Me?” I say. “Melodramatic? Well, I never!”

He shakes his head and puts his hand to his temple. I think I’ve given him many headaches over the years.