Each and every time.
“Yeah, Grammy and Poppop spent a hundred dollars on her. They said I better like her. And treat her well, because that was the last time they took me there,” Caro continued.
I smiled and winked at ‘Poppop.’
They were such suckers.
I’d known, of course, the minute they’d said that they were taking Caro to the Boardwalk, that they were in for a rude awakening.
Caro was my child.
She could shop until she dropped, and did so daily.
She could talk just about anyone into anything, which was why her room was filled with all kinds of toys, clothes, and shit she didn’t need.
“Hey! Let go of my kitty!” Caro screamed when Clay latched onto the kitty and wouldn’t let go.
“Caro,” I said sternly. “Clay is just a baby. You can’t yank stuff out of his hands like that. You could hurt him.”
Caro stuck out her tongue at her brother, who was all of eight months old so the effect was lost on him, and crossed her arms.
I smiled and looked down at my hands.
She looked so much like Michael when she did that that I could barely stand it.
“If y’all wouldn’t mind watching them, I have to go to Lowe’s…again…and get a coupling for the plumbing underneath the house. And pick up the cake,” I said, trying valiantly not to blush and failing miserably.
“Okay, dear. Don’t forget to pick up that prescription you made me call in,” Manuelo said.
The blood in my veins froze.
Motherfucker!
Shit!
Fuck!
“Okay,” I said shakily, walking to the front table and clutching my keys in a tight fist.
I was out to the car when I managed to quietly pull out my phone, open the door to my Tahoe, and slide inside.
When I started the truck and started to back out of the driveway, I hit the call button and immediately called Michael.
He didn’t answer, of course.
I didn’t expect him to.
But I wanted his voicemail anyway.
This is Michael, leave a message.
“Michael,” I said quietly. “If you managed to knock me up again today, I’m going to fucking kill you,” I growled, then slammed the phone button on my steering wheel.
Ineffective but it made me feel better, nonetheless.
I’d run out of birth control pills two weeks ago, and had completely forgotten until just yesterday that I’d not been taking them.
Michael and I lived busy lives.
We both had some really odd hours, so on the off chance that we had been able to find time to do the deed, in the past two weeks, I’d forced Michael to use a condom.
Something he absolutely loathed doing.
Today, though, I’d completely forgotten.
And I knew, like I’d known with Clayton, that he’d just knocked me up.
There was something about Michael and his damn bad intentions that made me lose my mind. Forget that I didn’t want to be pregnant.
But there Michael was with that ‘magic dick’ as my lovely friends liked to call it, and all my inhibitions flew out the window.
And with it went my ability to drink.
Shit.
***
Four hours later, with all my family and friends around me, I realized that maybe another kid wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Especially not with Georgia and Nico’s fourth baby in my arms.
“He’s just the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen!” I said, rubbing my nose along Heath’s head.
Heath was all of two weeks old, and the very definition of his father.
“You did good, big brother,” I said, smiling up at Nico.
Nico winked. “I know.”
“And so humble,” Georgia laughed.
“Nico, humble?” Downy asked after taking a sip of his beer.
The whole group laughed.
And I looked around at my extended family.
They were all there.
Luke and Reese with their three children.
Nico and Georgia with their four kids.
Downy and Memphis with their two children.
Miller and Mercy, with their three.
Foster and Blake with their two.
Bennett and Lennox with their two.
My sisters and their husbands and boyfriends.
The Chief and his wife.