“Yeah? And what did that fucker want?”
Anna sighed, indicating Gibson with her hand. I scratched my head as I thought of a more kid-friendly way to put it. Minding my tongue was a pain in the ass. “Uh, what did that…feller…want?”
Anna laughed at my cheesy fill-in word, then frowned again. Rubbing her stomach, she said, “They want to come up for the birth. All of them. And they want to stay here.”
Well of course they did. My place was fucking fantastic, much nicer than the shitholes my family called home. Once the money from our second album had started pouring in, I’d done what anybody in my position would have done. I’d contacted a real estate agent and told her to find me the most expensive house in Seattle. Sadly, we hadn’t ended up buying that one, but the one Anna and I had settled on was definitely in the top ten. This place was outrageous, outlandish, and way too big for just three people, or four, or ten. I loved it.
I wasn’t the only D-Bag who had invested in real estate. Kellan and Kiera had a huge secluded place north of Seattle, in the middle of BFE, and Matt and Rachel had a swanky condo downtown, with an amazing view of the pier and the Ferris wheel. Both of those spreads had required a ton of dough, although neither was as pricey as my place. Evan was the only one who’d bought a modest home. He’d actually purchased his old loft. Well, his loft and the auto body shop beneath it. He’d converted the business into extra living space and an art studio for Jenny. It was cool. I guess. Kellan hadn’t liked the fact that Evan had done that though. That particular auto body shop had been the only place Kellan had trusted to look after his car. Pansy. It was a car, get over it already. And he had, eventually. Although he’d hired the chick mechanic to be his personal car person. Hmmm, I needed a girl in my garage, wearing a bikini, covered in grease, looking over my hot rods. Ha-ha! Hot rod…
“Griffin…? Did you hear what I said?”
Shaking my head, I snapped out of my dirty-girl fantasy. “Uh, yeah, Mom and Pops are coming for a visit. Sounds cool.”
Anna sighed. “They’re all coming, Griffin. Your mom, dad, brother, sister, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins. It’s going to be chaos, and that’s the last thing I need when I’m sleep deprived.”
I gave her a sympathetic smile, even though it didn’t sound like a big deal to me. “It will be fine. This place is huge; you’ll barely see them. They’ll probably spend most of the time at the pool anyway.” The house had an indoor Olympic-sized pool with a ten-person hot tub right next to it. A selling point for me.
Anna didn’t look moved by my argument, so I added, “And you won’t be sleep deprived…you just listed off about a dozen babysitters. We could go on vacation if we wanted.”
“I’m not leaving my newborn infant with your family. Not even for a month in Cabo.” Her expression told me that she really meant it. So did her next words. “You need to call him back and tell him they can visit for a weekend, but that’s it.”
“A weekend? Babe, they’d barely get to see the newest Hancock. How about a month?”
Anna turned to face me with her arms crossed; she had her game face on. I knew what that meant. Negotiation time. “The offer on the table is five days after the baby is born. What’s your counter?”
I thought for a second. “Twenty days.” Anna cringed but didn’t object. That was the rule for negotiations—Person A had to accept Person B’s offer without complaint, and vice versa.
“Okay,” she muttered. “Game room.”
Spinning on her heel, she sauntered out of the room. With an eager laugh, I followed her. Anna and I had come up with a completely fair way to solve disagreements. Fair, and fun. Personally, I thought we were geniuses for thinking of it, and every married couple should follow our example. Maybe Anna and I should market the idea and sell it. Yeah…we could be marriage counselors. We were awesome at this shit.