"Sure you were." The man threw back his head and laughed.
****
Mary Lou looked at her as if she was nuts. And not just a little nuts. No, the woman looked at her as if she deserved an all-inclusive pass for Crazy Land. As Emmy placed two cups of coffee on the kitchen table, Mary Lou groaned.
"When the father of your child asks to marry you, you say yes." Mary Lou looked five seconds from ripping out her own hair. "You don't tell him you'll think about it."
Emmy stared at her, flabbergasted. "You want me to marry a man that I hardly know?"
"In order to make a baby, you have to know a man somewhat," Mary Lou said.
"That's physical." Emmy was mortified the older woman was even thinking about that. "I want to know who Sebastian is on the inside. I don't know what he was like as a child, who his parents are, or what is favorite color is. He's practically a stranger to me."
"Can't you figure all that out once you get married?" Mary Lou raised an eyebrow.
"I want to make sure I'm not marrying a kleptomaniac," she said.
"You think he steals?"
"He could," she said. "Or he could light things on fire."
"Or he could have a sex addiction."
"Maybe he has a really bad jealous streak." She sunk into a chair. "You know, like in all of those scary movies."
"Or he could be a woman beater."
"True." Though that one she doubted. "Or he could have a weird attraction to Miley Cyrus's tongue."
Mary Lou gasped. "Why do you always have to take things too far, Emmy? Because of you, I'm going to have nightmares tonight. I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking about Miley Cyrus."
Both of them shivered.
"We really need to stop listing worst-case scenarios." She wrapped her hand around the handle of her coffee mug. "Now I'm all creeped out. What if Sebastian is a jealous kleptomaniac with a sex addiction? If I married him, my life would be ruined."
"First off, it's fun to list worst-case scenarios," Mary Lou pointed out. "And secondly, I've never met the guy, but I'm ninety-nine percent sure that he isn't a jealous kleptomaniac who…who…Damn, there's too much to remember. But I'm certain that he's not any of those things you just said."
She drummed her fingers on the table. "How can you be so certain that he's not a nut if you haven't even laid eyes on the guy?"
"Because you chose him," Mary Lou said.
The words stopped her in her tracks. "Excuse me?"
"You chose to sleep with him, didn't you?"
Great, now she was going red again. "Yeah."
"And you must like him quite a bit in order to jump into bed with him, right?" Mary Lou said.
"I was drunk," she said.
"I've seen you drunk." Mary Lou scrutinized her. "Your IQ may drop a few points, but you don't jump into bed with the first man who smiles at you."
"I suppose you're right." Sebastian was special.
"Of course I'm right." Mary Lou tutted. "Don't you know? I'm always right."
"You know what, you and Sebastian sound a lot alike," she muttered.
"I'm starting to like this man more and more." Mary Lou grinned wickedly. "Of course, he would be more endearing to me if he'd bagged his boomstick before putting it in you."
"Mary Lou…" She clapped her hand to her forehead.
"Well, it's the truth, isn't it?" Mary Lou batted her eyes. "I don't care if a woman has a steel trap inside of her vagina. A man should always be kind enough to put foil on his egg roll."
Groaning, she laid her head on the table. "You have such an endearing way of speaking."
"What's wrong with saying 'put foil on his egg roll'?" Mary Lou asked.
"I'd prefer not to think of any food products entering my body, thank you very much." Still she was grinning as she said the words.
Mary Lou's eyes held a mischievous glint. "So I suppose you wouldn't like it if I said that Sebastian needed to put a blank in his meat gun?"
"Ew." She wrinkled her nose.
"How about, he should have saran wrapped the schnitzel?"
She flexed her fingers. "One more euphemism and I might just murder you."
"Sheath the Excalibur?" Mary Lou winked. Twice.
"No more."
"You're such a party pooper," Mary Lou said. "It's a wonder he even whipped out his drumstick to begin with."
"Mary Lou!"
Chapter Three
Emmy was sitting beneath a tree on a blanket, stretching out her legs. A girl that looked no older than eight stood in front of her in a white dress. The girl's hair was in pigtails, and her gray eyes were bright behind her thick eyelashes. Emmy reached out, and the girl came tumbling into her arms.