Page 118 of Knocked Up By the Silver Foxes

“She'd argue against it.”

“Of course she would, that's not the point.”

“The point is she and our child will be taken care of regardless of⁠—”

“She's their mom.” Sophia says it flat, patient, the way I say things to board members who are being deliberately obtuse. “You understand that, right? She's the mom.”

“Yes, but⁠—”

“She's the mom, Dad.”

I stop.

Sophia uncrosses her arms and picks up one of the other frames from my desk, holding it the way she held the first one, careful without knowing she's being careful.

“Do you think she'd argue for more for her child versus your share of the inheritance?” I ask. It's a genuine question. I've been running it since Thomas raised the issue of proportional distribution.

Sophia looks at me with an expression I haven't seen since she was sixteen and I forgot to show up to her school showcase because I had a board emergency.

“She wouldn't care if you left her or the baby a potato sack, Dad. What she doesn't like is not being part of the decision. And you know that. You already learned that.”

I did. I know I did. Eleven days of a closed office door and Maddox cornering me in the chai and Harper saying okay, flat and final, in an exam room where the paper wouldn't stop crinkling.

“I'll talk to her,” I say.

“Before or after you have it notarized?”

I put the frame down.

“Before.”

Sophia nods, satisfied, the way she gets when she's made her point and knows it landed. Then she picks up all three frames and holds them against her chest like she's not giving them back, which she clearly isn't.

“These are mine now,” she says.

“There are three of them.”

“One for my suite, one for the boutique, one for when they're old enough to be embarrassed by it.”

I look at her.

She grins back, all teeth, completely unrepentant.

“You're going to be the most chaotic godmother this baby has ever seen,” I say.

“I prefer the term formative influence.” She kisses my cheek on her way to the door. “Go talk to your girlfriend, Dad. Before she finds out you had a lawyer on it before you had the conversation.”

The door closes behind her.

I look at Thomas's notes on my desk. Harper’s not going to be okay with is whether we talk about it before or after, so I pick up my phone and call Thomas back.

43

HARPER

Itake a settling breath as my red bottoms click alongside Mallory’s through the tasting room.

We weave through guests with pleasant smiles and simple greetings, the kind of fluid two-person choreography Mallory and I have gotten very good at over the last few months. It’s like a living game of Tetris and I’m grateful my baby bump isn’t super noticeable yet, or at least not noticeable enough that strangers are asking questions I don’t have rehearsed answers for.