Page 89 of Falling Together

“Did you find out the sex yet?” Luke asks.

I hold up the envelope in my hand before dropping it on the counter. “Well, the doctor did. I didn’t want to find out without your dad there.”

Luke pauses his game and comes into the kitchen and grabs the salad bowl. “Can we look?”

I follow him to the table and take a seat. The smell of marinara and garlic over the gnocchi makes my stomach rumble with hunger. “This looks great, Grant.”

He grabs a beer from the fridge and takes the seat next to me.

“About that,” Grant says.

I pile my bowl up and pass it to Luke.

“What do you mean, about that? Do you not want to find out?” I ask. I stab my fork into my bowl and take a bite that is probably too big to be considered ladylike, but I don’t care.

I’m starving. It seems I’ve hit the point in my pregnancy where I’m ravenous all the time. Thank God Grant knows how to cook, because otherwise I probably just would have eaten an entire bowl of macaroni and cheese for dinner.

“Do I get an opinion on this?” Luke asks.

“I mean, we can take it into consideration,” Grant says. “But ultimately, if we don’t want to know, then we’re not gonna find out.”

“Why don’t you want to know?” I ask Grant, leaning back in my seat.

“I just think it would be nice to keep it a surprise. What’s one more mystery in life?”

I drop my fork and eye him, pointing to my belly. “Don’t you think this was enough of a surprise?”

“It’s one of the last few surprises we actually get in life these days,” he says.

“Of course you would think that.” I shake my head, shoveling another bite in my mouth. “Don’t you want to be able to plan for them?”

“If you don’t want to find out, buy green things,” Luke points out. “Aren’t babies cute no matter what they wear?”

“See?” Grant agrees like the point has been made.

“Yes, but don’t you want to be able to get matching big brother and little brother shirts?”

Luke drops his fork, a horrified look washing over his face. “There is no way I am wearing a big brother shirt. Seriously, don’t even think about it.”

I smile at him and pat his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on it. It’s about as cool as those ‘Will you marry me?’ T-shirts.”

“Don’t propose that way, Dad.” Luke laughs. “She might say no.”

“If anyone ever proposed to me that way, it would clearly show they didn’t know me very well,” I agree.

“You know, I’m sitting right here,” Grant says.

“Which means I need to convince you to find out what we’re having. You got to find out with Luke.”

“How about the next kid?” Grant says. A second later his eyes widen.

“The next kid?” I ask.

“Well, umm…I mean…fuck,” he stutters, shoving a hand through his hair.

“You’re going to have more than one kid?” Luke asks.

“Right now, I’m only focused on having one kid. Let’s just worry about getting this one here safely,” I say, not sure how to react to what Grant blurted out.