“You should hear the way she—” I said, hoping to actually add something to the conversation.
“You know what I just realized,” Cassie interrupted now that someone with a penis was trying to talk. “There’s a chance we could have a little birthday baby!”
“What?” I asked. “Whose birthday is in late July?”
She rolled her eyes. “No one’s. But Big Dick’s is at the end of June.”
“But then she’d be having the baby a month early,” Winnie pointed out, and I nodded.
“And?” she said, waving her off with a swat.
Winnie looked to me and bugged out her eyes, prompting, “Will?”
Cassie’s hard stare turned to me swiftly. Her look was nearly as sharp as I knew her tongue could be, so I dropped my sandwich onto my plate and cleared my throat as a means to gather my courage. “As a medical professional, I’d have to advise against it if at all possible.”
“Ugh,” she huffed. “What do you know!”
Melody’s eyes came to me, and let me tell you, they were wide. “Um, you’re only the head of obstetrics at St. Luke’s Hospital,” she leaned close and whispered.
I smiled, turning to kiss her on the cheek before whispering back into her ear, “Trust me, that doesn’t matter at all.”
“Anyway, how great would it be to have Big Dick Junior share a birthday with his dad?” Cassie went on.
“Would you stop?” Georgia shouted. “My baby is a girl! She doesn’t have a dick, big or small, for shit’s sake.”
“Meh.” Cassie shrugged. “I’m not convinced.”
“It’s a girl!”
“I’ll wait until Big Dick’s birthday to find out.”
“My baby isn’t coming that early!” Georgia continued to shout.
“Relax, George,” I advised. “Calm is better for the baby.”
She took a deep breath, smoothing the air down with her hands like it would actually help her calm herself.
And then a gleam entered her eye.
“Oh my God, I know!” Gigi squeaked excitedly, bouncing up and down like a teenager. My eyes shot to her stomach. Okay, a pregnant teenager. “You guys should come over to my house tomorrow to watch the new episode of Dr. Obscene.”
That little fucking schemer. I bet that’s why she’d wanted me to come to lunch in the first place—so she could force me into another horrific family gathering for one of my episodes. She knew seeing her all pitiful and pregnant made it harder to say no.
“Ugh,” I groaned. “Don’t call it that.”
“Why, William?” Cassie cooed seductively. “You can’t fool us.”
Melody’s eyes shot back and forth between Cassie and me in question, and I shook my head no. No. Sure, I’d joked about a fictitious affair between her and me in the past as a means to get under Georgia’s skin, but there was a little too much crazy in her recipe for me. Too much spice and I broke out in a sweat.
“But seriously,” George implored, grabbing on to Melody’s hand and squeezing. “You guys have to come! Please, please, please! You can’t say no to a pregnant woman.”
“You really can’t,” Winnie advised with a shake of her head. “I tried, like, three times when she invited me to this lunch. And yet, here I sit. Eating.”
I groaned. “Mel?”
She shook her head, but what I took away overall was her smile. “I guess we’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
After a twenty-minute drive through some seriously rich people suburbia, Will pulled the car up in front of his sister’s New Jersey home. As soon as the engine’s growl quieted to the tick of a hot car cooling, I unbuckled my seat belt and started to open the door, but I didn’t get far before Will reacted.
“Wait,” he urged and wrapped his fingers around my elbow. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
I dropped my hand away from the door handle and looked at him inquisitively. “Ready for what, exactly?” I asked, curious as to what he could think I wasn’t prepared for at this point. The vagina-shake, the nipple display, Marlene, Melissa, the vajazzling, Cassie at lunch yesterday… I wasn’t sure how much worse it could get.
He sighed the beleaguered sigh of someone who knew better than I did that there was always something worse around the corner.
“My parents are going to be here tonight.”
I knew that. Georgia had called him earlier to let him know. In his words, another layer to her fucking onion of a scheme.
“Yeah…I’m meeting your parents tonight…” I paused for a moment and searched his eyes for an explanation. “It all sounds pretty straightforward to me.”
He shook his head slightly. “Nothing is straightforward with Dick and Savannah.”
The stressed-out expression on his face pushed a slight giggle from my lips.
“Don’t laugh,” he said, but the faint smirk on his lips betrayed his words.
“I’m not laughing.”
“You are so laughing.”
“Okay, fine,” I admitted. “I’m laughing a little, but the look on your face wasn’t helping anything.”
“What look?”
“This look,” I answered and mimicked the anxious creases of his eyes and firm set of his lips. “Like, you’re either constipated or two seconds away from putting the car in Drive and slamming on the gas.”
His face eased into amusement, and a small chuckle left his lips. “It’s the latter.”
“I’m just meeting your parents, Will. How bad can it be?”
“Bad? More like dangerous.”
A surprised laugh escaped my lungs. “They’re not serial killers.”
“No, but what they don’t hit in death count, they make up for in meddling about my sex life and inappropriate comments about their sex life.”
“Your mom’s a sex therapist. I won’t be shocked by her being a little more open-minded than most.”
“I wish it were just open-minded,” he muttered.
“C’mon, William,” I encouraged and opened my door. “Let’s go meet your parents. Lord knows, it can’t be worse than meeting mine. I mean, my dad asked you if you had condoms, and that was right before our first date.”
He just smirked in response, and I didn’t give him any more time to dally in the car. I hopped out of the passenger side and grabbed my purse off the floor. Will followed my lead, getting out of the driver’s seat and rounding the car to meet me.
With his hand placed to the small of my back, we walked toward the front door of his sister’s home. “Remember,” he started once we reached the porch. “I warned you.”
“Oh, shut up,” I teased and grinned up at him. “Everything will be just fine.”
He rang the doorbell, and within seconds, the door swung open and a giant of a man appeared with a toddler on his hip. “William!” he greeted. “It’s so nice of you to stop by.”
“You realize this isn’t your house, right?”