Page 29 of Pregnant By the Playboy

Apparently this is funny. Evie laughs.

Evie already has three cousins. Courtney’s older brother has two kids, and her younger sister has a daughter, Hazel, who is only nine days older than Evie. Courtney and her sister Naomi got pregnant at the same time and had nearly identical due dates. Hazel was born a few days early, but Evie decided to take her time. Naomi brings Hazel over to Courtney and Julian’s once or twice a week so her husband, who’s a writer, can get some time alone to work. Julian bought a second crib and other things for when Naomi and Hazel visit. I think going through everything at the same time as her sister has been really great for Courtney.

I’m pretty sure Marissa doesn’t have any siblings. She said it was just her and her mother when she was growing up.

But I’ll be there for her. Being a family man sounds like the right kind of life for me now. It would solve the pesky feelings of uselessness that have plagued me for so long. I don’t just want to see our baby a couple times a week; I want to see them every day. I want to change diapers in the middle of the night and carry the baby around in a carrier.

“And it’s thanks to you!” I say to Evie.

I hand her a Sophie the Giraffe toy. She looks at it with curiosity then sticks the head in her mouth.

If it wasn’t for Evie—if this had happened a year ago, say—I would have panicked at the idea of being a father.

But I’ve fallen in love with my niece, and I want this for myself, too.

In fact, I’m rather jealous of Julian, my staid older brother.

He was always the organized, responsible one. Growing up with Julian was annoying at times, though I did look up to him.

I never wanted to work at Fong Investments, but now he has a career, a wife, and a child, and that sounds rather nice.

The Vince Fong who sold his company for two hundred million, slept for two weeks, then did nothing but party, would be horrified.

But that isn’t exactly me anymore.

And I do want to have more sex with Marissa—that’s part of the appeal of this plan.

I don’t know who I am now, but I do know what I want.

I’m working through books on babies and parenthood, making a list of things we’ll need—crib, change table, that sort of stuff—as I go. I’ll purchase the items soon, then show Marissa the room I’ve set aside.

I don’t live in the ideal place for a baby. Julian and Courtney moved from Julian’s old penthouse to a house in Rosedale when they got married, and I see Marissa and I raising our child in a house, too. Maybe something in midtown, where she lives now.

I pull out my phone, add “buy house” to my list of things to do, then set it aside and turn my attention back to Evie. “How about we sing a song?” I kneel on the floor in front of the couch and start singing “I’m a Little Teapot.”

She looks at me in confusion as I sing the first line, then starts crying when I hold up my handle and spout. She throws Sophie onto the cushions and wails at the top of her lungs.

Oh, dear.

I go back to our reliable favorite, “There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly,” but she doesn’t like that, either.

I gather her up in my arms and walk around the playroom as I bounce. She was fed and changed before Courtney went up to have a shower, so I don’t think it’s either of those things.

Finally, I pick up a T-Rex puppet, which I got her before Julian instituted the no-presents-for-Evie rule.

“Raar,” the T-rex says as it bites Evie’s foot.

Somehow, this is less terrifying than me singing “I’m a Little Teapot.”

She smiles.

“Does Evie like dinosaurs?” I ask.

In response, she makes some inarticulate noises.

“Dinosaurs were biiiig and scaaaary,” I say, “but Evie’s not scared, is she? She’s a tough little girl.”

The dinosaur—out of its own accord; I have nothing to do with this, of course—bites Evie’s earlobe, which she finds even more amusing than when the dinosaur bit her foot.