“I’m assuming you need child care?” I asked.
Begrudgingly, he nodded.
“Aren’t you glad we moved just down the road now?”
It’d taken us a couple of years to follow in the Brookses’ footsteps, but a few months ago, we’d finally made the decision to vacate our residence in the city and give suburbia a try. The locale wasn’t exactly hopping, but with Kline and Georgia just a few houses down—and their propensity to pretend to very much hate this fact—Cassie and I were in all our glory. We pranked them often, and they bitched when we did. It was just like old times.
Not to mention our “mini” pig, Phil, was now an astounding thirty-three pounds, and life with a monster inside of our apartment with no way to escape had been starting to get old.
Did I mention the life-span on these things can be up to thirty years? Yeah. We are more committed to this pig than we are to our children.
“No,” Kline denied, putting Julia, his three-year-old, down so that she could take off in search of my son. The two of them were nearly inseparable, a fact that Kline lamented fervently. “But I have to go into the office. All the servers are down, and it’s a fucking nightmare. Georgia, Wes, and Winnie had some work to do at the office this morning, Will’s on call, and Melody is busy at the clinic.”
“So I’m your last choice?”
“Yes.”
“Ah,” I teased. “But you did choose me.”
“Can you watch them or not, Thatch?”
“Of course, son. I just need you to do me one little favor.”
“Thatch.”
“What? Is a skywriter scrolling Thatch is my king really too much to ask?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Just tell me verbally then.”
“No,” Kline refused. Not that I expected him to do anything else. He was the least prone to bullshit out of our group of friends, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to expose him to it all the time, just for fun.
“Well, at least tell me what the deal is with the animals,” I bartered.
He rolled his eyes. “I can’t leave Stan alone in the house without Evie—”
“And you obviously can’t leave Evie alone in the house for at least a couple more months,” I teased, pinching the cheek of his cherub-like nine-month-old until she giggled.
“Right,” he agreed, but also dismissed. Obviously, he wasn’t in the mood to sit around and shoot the shit with me. “He’s so fucking attached to her, he tears the place apart.”
“And the demon cat?”
“He has a similar attachment to the dog.”
“Jesus fluffing Christ. You’re just as idyllic as the Waltons.”
“Ace has a penis!” I heard Julia yell from somewhere inside the house, and I swear, Kline’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head.
“I’m on it,” I promised.
“I’m so screwed. My daughters are both going to marry your sons, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life crying.”
“Hey! We’ll be officially related.”
“Did I mention the crying?”
I shook my head and laughed before reaching out for the baby. “Come on, Evie. Daddy’s leaving you with fun Uncle T today. It’s a good thing, too. You have so much to learn.”
An angry finger shot out to point at me from Kline’s free hand as he tossed the diaper bag inside the door with the other. “Don’t teach her anything.”
“It’s almost like you don’t trust me, Klinehole.”
“I don’t.”
I lifted his baby up to blow a raspberry on her stomach and smiled into her skin. “Considering you’re leaving your little girls and pets with me for the day, you’ve got a funny way of showing it.”
He sighed.
“What’s the deal? How long are you going to be gone?”
“I’m really not sure, and I’m not sure when Georgie will be done either.”
“No worries,” I reassured. “I’ll just bring them with me to dinner tonight at Wes and Winnie’s place.”
Apparently, all of our women had teamed up to bring about their Mother’s Day wish: spending the night together, getting drunk—except for my pregnant wife, of course—while the rest of us were there to corral the kids. All of the extra people threw another little hitch into my big reveal, but Cassie would be home before we left for Wes and Winnie’s and I’d be able to execute it then. All was still on track.
“Are you sure?”
My best friend pretended to be put out with me, but I ribbed him enough to warrant it. Right then, though, I was worried about how anxious he looked. “Yeah, dude. You okay? You look stressed.”