Ever since my parents found out about the pregnancy, they’ve been ecstatic about Rosalind and the baby joining the family. My mother immediately went into grandma mode, and while I know she’s sending food as a convenience to me while I train, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if the boxes kept coming afterwards for Rosalind.
“Make sure you’re taking care of her, Joseph.” She first-named me. She’s serious now. “Pregnancy isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. It can be exhausting and disorienting. And not just on your body but your mind, too. Even if she’s grumpy, give her grace.”
“I promise I am. In fact, I’m going to make her dinner tonight.”
“You mean you’re going to heat up one of those meals and put it on a plate, so it looks like you did the hard work?”
My dad did that once. It’s been a running joke between them how he tried to pull one over on my mom when they were dating, but she saw right through it. Come to think of it, he’s probably where I got my lack of cooking skills from.
“Nope. I’m attempting spaghetti all by myself.”
She huffs. “Oh boy. Good luck with that. I’ll let you go to minimize your distractions. I love you, Joey. Don’t burn the house down. And take care of my grandbaby!”
“I will! Love you, too.”
We hang up and I pick up the spaghetti sauce jar, ready to get dinner started.
“Pour the sauce in a medium-sized pot,” I read out loud off the back of the label. I’ve tried a few times to make the dish, but since it always goes badly, I figure it might help to read the instructions this time around.
Pulling out what I think is a medium-sized pot, I shrug. It’s the medium one of the only three I own, so it will have to do. Fingers crossed it works and I don’t get sauce all over the ceiling like I did last time. Elliott was pretty pissed when she came home to the mess. Or maybe she was just mad that I left before it was all cleaned up. Regardless, I don’t have a ladder high enough to reach this ceiling, and I don’t feel like going to the hardware store to rent one so I can do the dishes.
Still, Abel is right—I need to learn how to cook at least a few simple meals if Rosalind and I are going to cut down on expenses. My mother won’t have premade, high-calorie meals delivered forever. Plus, a baby can’t be raised on fast food. Or I don’t think it can. Spaghetti seems like a good place to start. Kids like meals with noodles, right? Also, I know what not to do, so I might as well roll with it and see what happens.
Once the sauce has successfully been poured into the pot and placed on the stove, I pick up the jar for my next instructions.
“Heat sauce on medium-low to medium heat. Medium-low? What the hell does that mean?” I grumble as I stare at the controls on my stove top. I see a large M, so I assume that’s close enough. I cross my fingers, then cross my chest, not because I’m Catholic but because I need all the help I can get, and go back to my written directions. “Cook pasta according to instructions. What instructions? You didn’t give me any!” I slam it back down on the counter with a huff.
I throw my hands in the air and drop them onto my hips, not sure what I’m supposed to do now. I need to think about how to get this part done since the stupid sauce people aren’t helping anymore. I’ve made noodles before with relative ease in the past. No explosions or fire. How did I do it?
I snap my fingers as the memory returns. Working quickly, I grab the bigger pot I have, break the spaghetti noodles in half and drop them in, then fill the pot with water to the halfway mark.
Wait.
Was I supposed to put the noodles in before or after the water?
No matter. They’ll cook just the same. Or at least close enough. Looking at the sauce, I see it’s slowly heating up as the electric burner brightens and dims, automatically adjusting the temperature.
I take a deep breath and blow it out, proud of myself for getting this far on my own. Maybe this won’t be disastrous after all.
“What are you doing?”
Before I even look over, a smile crosses my face. The sound of Rosalind’s voice does that to me. It’s a new development since our night of intense, yet mediocre sex. I don’t mind it. I actually kind of like it. It’s as if my body has gotten on board with us being together for the next eighteen years or so as we build a little family. Not that it wasn’t already hot for her.
“I am making you dinner.” I quickly move to the fridge, where I pull out a loaf of pre-buttered garlic bread. All I have to do is cut it and heat it up.
Rosalind leans over and looks in the bigger pot. “Why are there noodles at the bottom of this… wait…” She puts her finger in the water and pulls it out in rapid succession a couple of times to make sure she isn’t going to get burned. Then she looks closer. “Let me rephrase. Why are there hard noodles at the bottom of a pot of cold water?”
I give her an incredulous look, half-hearted as it may be. “It hasn’t started boiling yet.”
“It might help if you turn the burner on.”
I glance up and, sure enough, I forgot the most important part. “Well, shit.”
She smirks at me, but doesn’t say anything, content to get the heat going as I continue to slice the bread and place it on a cookie sheet.
“I thought you didn’t cook.” Rosalind leans her body against the counter, small baby bump protruding under her tank top. The sight of her growing my baby hits me like a punch to the heart and I have a weird feeling in my chest—like a swelling of pride. I try to push all the emotion and protective thoughts I have out of my mind, though, knowing it’s too soon to reveal those feelings to her. Rosalind has really started letting her guard down. I don’t want her to think I’m being too clingy and not giving her space. I know she prides herself on her independence.
“I don’t. But I need to learn. Babies need a healthy diet, not junk food and takeout every day, right?” I say by way of explanation. Rosalind just stares at me, like she’s trying to figure out if I’m being for real or just yanking her chain.
Finally, she nods slowly. “Are you always a planner?”
I shoot her a smile and wipe my hands on a towel. “I don’t seem like the type?”
“Not really,” she says with a shrug. “But you just seem… I don’t know. Prepared for all this.” Rosalind gestures down to her baby bump, and I tamp down that same excitement that comes over me whenever I think about what’s growing inside. I can’t wait for my kid to be born. I just hope we can be a real family before then. If not, it won’t change anything for me. I have to keep remembering that. “I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it all, I guess.”
I carefully place the cookie sheet in the warmer at the very bottom of the oven. “I think you already know that I’m a pretty disorganized mess most of the time. But one thing I’ve learned about myself is that I’m really good under pressure. The more stressed I am, the better my work is.”
“So, the exact opposite of basically everyone else in the world.”
“Pretty much,” I agree because she nailed it on the head. “It used to drive my high school English teacher crazy that I could slack off all semester long, and then at the last minute I’d pull out a five-hundred-word essay on whatever the topic was and make an A.” I shrug. “But I’ve since learned that the skill can come in handy in certain situations. An unexpected baby just happens to be one of those situations.”
“I like how you say that,” she practically whispers, eyes down as if she’s embarrassed to look at me.
“How I say what?”
“That it’s an unexpected baby. Most people call it an unplanned pregnancy. I like your way better.”
“I never thought about it, but yeah. I think I do, too.”
Steeling her spine, Rosalind pushes her dark hair out of her face and stands up straight, almost challenging me to question how she feels. “It makes it hard to figure out how I’m supposed to feel. An unplanned pregnancy sounds too detached. But unexpected baby—that’s what this is. Not a bad thing, just like a surprise. A big o
ne for sure, but just… yeah.”
“You still trying to figure out how you feel about all this?”
Her lips quirk to the side like she’s trying to decide if she wants to smile or cry. When she shrugs, that’s all I need to see.
I look at the stove and see nothing is boiling yet. “Come on.” I grab her hand and squeeze. “We’ve got some time. Let’s go sit and I’ll give you a quick foot rub.”
Her eyebrows shoot up in delight, and probably surprise as well. “Feet don’t gross you out?”
“I’m a trainer. No parts of the body gross me out.” I lace our fingers together and lead her into the living room so she can get comfortable.
“That’s funny. I specifically remember you saying something about Abel’s armpit making you want to puke the other day.”
“There is a difference between regular body parts and him shoving his post-workout pit in my face for the sole purpose of making me gag.”
She snorts a laugh and I like hearing that so much more than her feeling insecure about our new life. “Do you purposely try to come up with the most random stories to tell, or does it just come natural?”
“What do you think?”
She sits on one end of the couch and I sit on the other, grabbing her leg to bring her foot to my lap. She hesitates for only a second before relaxing into it. “I think you don’t have a filter between your brain and your mouth, and you don’t really care.”
I chuckle as I begin kneading the bottom of her foot. The moan she lets out does nothing to keep me focused on the important part of this conversation—the part about feelings and shit. That noise brings memories of a different kind of feelings, and it’s taking everything in me to not strip her tiny little shorts off her and enjoy a much tastier dinner.
But I refrain like the gentleman I am, because she doesn’t normally talk out whatever is going on in her brain. I need to take advantage of this.
Plus, I can strategically add in a conversation about my new clients at some point and see if it brings back any more fantasies she needs to work out of her system, too.
I shrug to myself at the thought. I may be a good guy, but I still have a penis that likes to be used.
“I think you’re right. I used to care more about what people thought, but it got exhausting around middle school, so I made the decision to stop caring.”
“Wow. That’s pretty profound for a preteen.”
“It was much shallower than you think. That’s when my chest started growing faster than anyone else’s and the rumors circulated regularly that I stuffed my bra. Pretty traumatic for a twelve-year-old. Eventually, I got tired of trying to combat all the chatter, so I let it go. Or so I thought. I guess it carried into my adult life more than I knew until you pointed it out. I didn’t think so at the time, but looking back, I agree. Maybe it wasn’t so much about not caring as it was about pretending to not care.”
I glance up as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “Headache?”
“Just a little one. I’m fine.”
“Or are you worried about how this all looks to people, preteen wisdom be damned?”
Rosalind raises her head just slightly to look at me, then lays it back down. “I shouldn’t care, and I think that’s what pisses me off. I was a stripper for the entirety of my adult life. I don’t give a fuck who cares that I took my clothes off for money. I like money. I like things. I’m materialistic like that and I just don’t care. For God’s sake, my mother knew. That’s the epitome of not caring what others think when you have no problem telling your mother.”
“But?”
She sighs and it’s filled with heavy emotion. “I don’t know why I feel differently about this. I don’t want people to look at me like I’ve done something wrong, and it bothers me that it bothers me.”
“Is it possible that it’s not about people judging you, but because they’re judging someone other than you?” I gesture to her belly which she immediately covers with her hands protectively.
“What does that mean?” she asks with fire in her eyes, and I know I’ve struck a nerve.
“Maybe you’re less worried about what the people you know and love think of you and more worried what they think of our baby. Like your maternal instinct or whatever is kicking in and it bothers you that people might think of him as anything less than the perfection he is.”
She opens her mouth to respond, then closes it again and looks away briefly. “I never thought of that. You think that’s it? Why I feel so… I don’t even know how to describe it. Just, not happy about people looking at me funny.”
“Why not? Up until this point, it’s always been about you.” She shoots me a glare. “Like it’s always been about me, too,” I clarify. She nods once in concession and lays her head back again. “I know it feels different for me. He’s not even here yet, and I already want to protect him from anything that might hurt him. And I don’t have all the hormonal flushes to make me batshit crazy like you do.”
Rosalind goes to kick me playfully for my comment, but since I’ve got her foot in my hand, all it does is make me laugh instead.
“My point is that I don’t think you’re weird or crazy or anything. I think you’re just being a good mom. Like I’m trying to be a good dad. Hell, I’m trying to cook, and I don’t do that.”
“Speaking of,” she mutters and sits up, pulling her foot out of my hands. “Do you smell something?”
“Can you smell water boiling?” I lean back to sniff and see smoke on the ceiling. “Oh shit!”
Jumping up from the couch, I run into the kitchen. The sauce looks good. The water pot still isn’t boiling, no surprise there, but there is smoke billowing out from the oven.
Grabbing some pot holders, I pull it open and see flames shooting from the tops of my garlic bread.
“Dammit!” I yell and try to figure out how to put this shit out. What do you throw on a grease fire?
I race to the pantry looking for baking powder or cornstarch or whatever the fuck I’m supposed to use. My eyes catch on a bag of flour that I had no idea was there. Will that work?
“Fuck it,” I mutter. “Good enough.”
I rip the unused package open and toss the flour on the flames. It immediately explodes back onto me with a soft poooof sound.
Rosalind shrieks, but I don’t think she’s injured. It’s hard to tell through the fluffy white cloud of flour now surrounding me and every single surface of the room.
“You don’t throw flour on a fire!” she yells at me. “It’s baking soda!”
I point down to the oven, which is no longer on fire and remark, “It worked, didn’t it?”
She coughs and waves her hand in front of her unnaturally white face. The good thing about a cloud of flour is it falls to the ground pretty quickly. The bad news is that it falls on everything else as well. Including us. This is going to take hours to clean up.
“Why did you put the bread in the broiler anyway?”
“What’s a broiler?”
Rosalind eyes me like I’m the idiot she apparently thinks I am, and I grab the pot holders again to pull the now ruined bread from the oven. Tossing it on the counter, the tops are a mixture of charred black and fluffy white, and obviously no longer edible.
“It’s like super concentrated heat to cook meat when you can’t grill. How high did you set it?”
“How should I know? I just turned it on. Nowhere on this appliance does it label the bottom part of the oven as a broiler I shouldn’t use. And why didn’t you say anything?”
She turns off the stovetop heat since there’s no way to salvage the rest of our meal either. The one time my sauce looks decent, and a stupid fire ruins it. Figures.
Pushing the pots off the burners, Rosalind says, “I thought you knew. From now on, how about you stick to using the microwave only.”
I grimace.
“Oh god. You caught the microwave on fire, too, didn’t you?”
“How was I supposed to know you can�
�t keep the aluminum foil on the plate?”
She facepalms. I mean literally smacks her face with her palm. It’s a good thing I’m hot, because I’m obviously not impressing her with my culinary skills. “Never mind. From now on, you get to use the blender. I’ll do the very little cooking I know how to do, we can eat from the boxes your mom sends, and we’ll eat out the rest of the time.”
“Fine by me,” I grumble, feeling oddly embarrassed that I can’t even figure out how to warm garlic bread. There is no way I’m going to be able to warm a bottle.
“Believe it or not, you can put all kinds of fruits and vegetables in the blender to make baby food. That will be your contribution to the healthy eating of this child, okay?”
My mood perks up. “I didn’t even think of that. I can make organic baby food. In fact, maybe we can all start raw eating. I hear it’s fantastic for your immune system.”
“Let’s not get too crazy. You forget you have to be vegan to eat raw. I highly doubt you can give up your meat-loving ways simply because it’s harder to catch a blender on fire.”
She has a point on that one. Still, if anyone can get flames from a spinning blade, it’s probably me.
“Fine. We’ll try it your way. But you better hope our baby doesn’t starve.”
She chuckles lightly as she begins wiping flour off the counter and into her hand. “Oh, Joey. When it comes to our offspring, I’m worried about so much more than just starvation.”
Chapter Eighteen
ROSALIND
“I am going to be a grandmother, Rosalind. You need to do this for me.”
I pull the phone away from my ear and roll my eyes as my mother rants and raves about why I need to have a baby shower. A baby shower I don’t want to have because who the hell would I invite? My family? Sounds painful.
The other thing that’s painful? Putting the phone back to my ear so I can try to end this hellacious conversation.
Weights of Wrath (Cipher Office Book 4) Page 14
