Page 114 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

“In the same conversation.”

“Harper.”

“I know.”

“Harper, that’s⁠—”

“I know.”

“You’re going to have the most unhinged and somehow completely healthy family unit I’ve ever seen in my life.”

I laugh again, and this time it doesn’t surprise either of us.

He’s quiet for a moment, doing the thing where he’s clearly about to say something he’s already mentally hedging on.

“What,” I say.

“I’m just thinking.”

“Raph.”

“What if—” He holds up both hands preemptively. “Just hear me out.”

“Raphael.”

“What if you told Sophia the baby is mine.”

The pillow hits him in the face before I’ve consciously decided to throw it.

He grabs it, laughing, and holds it up like a shield. “I said hear me out!”

“That is genuinely the worst idea anyone has ever had in the history of ideas.”

“It buys you time!”

“I can think of three men on this property who would murder you without blinking for even suggesting it, and I would let them, because you deserve it.”

“I’m kidding!”

“You’d better be. And beyond that, how could you even suggest that? Think about how that would make Odette feel, Raph.”

The laughter drops off his face fast. “Damn.” He sets the pillow down. “Way to make me feel like an asshole, Harp.”

“You should feel like an asshole. That was an asshole idea.”

“You’re right. I retract it.”

“Consider it retracted.”

He pulls a face of appropriate contrition, and I let it go because his face is doing the thing it does when he’s actually thinking about her, the particular shift that’s only started happening in the last few weeks, something softer and more awake than his usual expression.

“Speaking of Odette,” I say.

He tries to suppress the smile and fails immediately.

“How are things?”

“She’s great.” He says it like it still surprises him slightly, like he keeps expecting the answer to be different and it just keeps being the same. “She’s so— she’s cute, you know? And she doesn’t know she’s cute, which makes it worse. Or better. I don’t know. When I tell her she’s beautiful she goes this specific shade of pink like nobody’s ever said it to her before and meant it.”