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April 2003
Amy’s parents were so happy she’d moved back that they threw her a huge engagement party. The venue was a stately old manor house with acres of charming little gardens and pathways and fountains surrounding a lily pad–spotted pond. The house sat empty most of the time unless it was being rented out for a wedding.
Or an over-the-top engagement party.
“They are so fucking cute.” Juliet sighed, gazing across the pond at the happiest couple on earth.
Allen and Amy were dressed in color-coordinated outfits, sitting on the edge of a fountain, holding cutesy little signs for the photographer.
“Dude.” I looked down at the four-year-old in my lap and covered his little ears with my hands.
Juliet rolled her eyes. “Relax. I’m pretty sure the first word he ever heard was me screaming, ‘Fuck,’ as I pushed him out.”
“Um, I was there, and I’m pretty sure I was the one screaming that word.”
Juliet burst out laughing. “Yeah, right before you fainted!”
I shook my head, shell-shocked. “If you had seen what I saw…”
“What did you see, Auntie BB?” Romeo tilted his head back and blinked at me with beautiful almond-shaped eyes, just like his mama’s.
“I, uh…well…”
Juliet snickered as I tried to spin the horrors of witnessing live childbirth at the age of fifteen into something sunshiny and sweet.
“I saw you, little boy. I saw you, even before your mommy.”
And way before your loser daddy.
“What did I look like?”
A slimy, blood-smeared guinea pig.
“You looked like a tiny little angel.”
Satisfied with my answer, Romeo went back to grazing from the mountain of cheese and crackers and fruit and finger sandwiches that we’d swiped from the buffet to keep him occupied.
“You scarred me for life,” I whispered to his mother.
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna have a million babies.”
“Pssh. I’m only having one. That’s it. Unless I have twins.” My stomach flipped. “Oh my God. What if I have twins?”
Of all the inopportune moments to appear, Ken chose that one. He sat on the opposite side of our picnic table and set down two plastic cups—one filled with water and one filled with punch that I hoped was spiked. Sliding the red beverage toward me, he gave me a look that said he’d heard more than he wanted to.
“Relax. I’m not pregnant.” I rolled my eyes and took a sip from my drink.
Damnit. Not spiked.
“Twins run in her family,” Juliet offered.
Ken’s eyebrow lifted fractionally. “Sucks for you.”
“Sucks,” Romeo blurted with a mouthful of Gouda.
“You don’t want twins, Ken?” I asked in my sweetest, most sarcastic tone.
“What I want is a vasectomy, but the doctors around here won’t give me one until I’m at least thirty.”
