Page 121 of The October Arrangement

“Exactly. Now you get what I’m saying?”

“Don’t worry. My parenting skills will balance out yours,” she said.

“Right. Because you’re going to let the kid do whatever the hell it wants.”

“I most certainly will not,” she said.

“Bella, you couldn’t follow ten simple rules for one month.”

“They were stupid rules,” she smirked.

“They were reasonable rules.”

“Whatever. You couldn’t follow your simple rule either.”

“I didn’t have rules,” I said.

“Yes, you did. Don’t fall in love and get caught in the confines of a prison called marriage.”

I stared at her for a moment. She had a good point.

“Fair enough.” I smiled. “I’m just scared I’m going to make mistakes.”

“You will.” She squeezed my hand.

“That’s not comforting me, sweetheart.”

“I will too. We both will. And you know why? Because we’re human, Simon. We’re going to lose our patience sometimes, and we’re going to make the wrong decisions. We’ll probably even argue about what the right decision even is.”

“We already do that without a kid,” I said.

“Exactly. Look at that. We’re already experienced.” She grinned. “But seriously, we’re definitely going to fuck this kid up.”

“Hopefully only a little bit,” I sighed.

Bella placed her hand on her belly, and I placed mine over hers.

“What if it’s a girl?” I asked.

“What about it?”

“I already have a rule set in place. No dating until she’s thirty.”

“Okay.” She laughed. “I can’t wait to see how that goes over. And if it’s a boy?”

“Then we’ll have a different conversation,” I said.

“Oh hell no!” she said. “You are not raising our son with one set of rules and our daughter with another. See. We already found the first way you’re going to fuck up our kid, and we’ve already fixed it.”

“Christ,” I sighed.

“Look at us. Parenting already.” She grinned and laid her head on my chest. “Simon?”

“Yeah?”

“I think the fact that we’re already worried about fucking up our kid has to count for something.”

“We’re going to love this baby like crazy.” I smiled.