"Move in with me,” he said suddenly.
His lips stayed against mine and I opened my eyes so I could see him. He stared at me so intently there was no way I misheard him.
"I love you," he continued quickly. "I love Gavin. I love waking up to both of you in this house with me. I don't want to miss seeing him tie his shoes for the first time or write his name. I don't want to wake up in the morning and not see you drooling on the pillow next to me."
I laughed and smacked his arm, the conversation immediately turning lighter.
"Besides, I need a woman here to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen making me chicken pot pies every night," he said with a smile.
"Well, then we've obviously never met if you want me to take on that role."
We stood there in the kitchen, wrapped in each other's arms with Carter’s junior jockey's creeping up my ass, and I realized I had never been happier.
"Yes," I told him.
His eyebrows went up and his face lit up with a huge smile.
"Yes? Really?" he asked. “I thought for sure I’d have to resort to bribery or extortion.”
I nodded my head and laughed. "Yes! We will move in with you so I can monitor the stupid shit you say and punch you in the kidney when you suggest I should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen again."
***
A few hours later, Liz and I were just finishing our paperwork at her kitchen table. Jim and Carter were sitting at the table with us carrying on their own conversation while Gavin and Jim's eight-year-old little cousin Melissa played.
Gavin was currently in the living room watching a movie, but Melissa had been running through the kitchen at warp speed, yelling as loud as she could for the past fifteen minutes. Carter and I passed each other secret looks every so often about the conversation we had in the car on the way over here. We weren't going to discipline Gavin at all the entire time at their house. We would let Liz and Jim take over and see what they did. I had first hand experience on the type of care-givers they were since they were my best friends, so this was mostly for Carter’s benefit. I knew for a fact that Liz and Jim were wonderful with kids and Carter would be more than willing to assign them as Gavin’s back-up guardians after today.
Surprisingly, we wouldn't need to discipline Gavin anyway. He was being very well behaved. Melissa, on the other hand, reminded me yet again while some animals in the wild eat their young. She was a terror. After her twenty-seventh pass through the kitchen, waving her hands above her head and screaming, Liz finally had enough.
"Melissa! Stop it," she said sternly.
The little terror did indeed stop. For two seconds. Then she started back up and ran out of the room screaming like her ass was on fire. Her ass would be on fire soon if she didn't shut the hell up.
"Is that all you're going to do?" I asked.
"No," Liz replied as she looked up from the paper she was signing. "Next time she runs by I'm going to kick her."
Not conventional by any means, but I was okay with that. I was daydreaming about shoving a Roman candle in her pants and dousing it with lighter fluid.
"So, Melissa seems a little…high strung," Carter said to Jim.
Jim nodded his head in agreement. "She's a cute kid, but I can only stand her in small doses. This one time we took her to dinner with us and she was being a nightmare so Liz made her go sit out in the car while we paid the bill. We got halfway home before we realized she wasn't in the car," he laughed. "Remember that Liz? Hilarious!"
Carter looked at me in horror and I tried not to make eye contact. The whole way here all I did was brag about how good Liz and Jim were with Gavin and how they'd be naturals at parenting. Oops. I forgot about that story. In their defense, Melissa was Satan. I would have driven off without her too.
Melissa made another lap through the kitchen and true to her word, Liz stuck her foot out. The annoying third-grader went sprawling across the floor.
"NO WIRE HANGERS EVER!" Liz yelled at her.
"You're weird," Melissa stated as she stood up and went running back out of the room.
"Nice work there, Mommy Dearest," I told her.
"So, Liz, when you have kids of your own, how are you going to discipline them?" Carter asked.
I gave him a pointed look. We were supposed to be inconspicuous here. Asking blunt questions like that was sure to send up a red flag.
Liz shrugged. "Eh, I'm not big on discipline. If it's funny and no one is bleeding, you're not in trouble. That's my philosophy."
Gavin walked in then and leaned his head on my arm.
"Melissa told me no one is allowed near her no-no zone. What does that mean? I don't like her. She's loud. I told her my mommy wasn't afraid to punch a kid," he said with a sigh.
We heard Melissa yelling in the other room and some loud banging.
"What the hell is she doing in there?" Liz asked.