Own the Eights Maybe Baby

by Krista Sandor

  “The what?” her husband exclaimed.

  “We tested Battle of the Babies, but people thought it was a Hunger Games-type contest with infants, and they didn’t seem to like it,” the CityBeat producer replied.

  She cringed. “Well, yeah! Who would want to see babies fight each other?”

  “Surprisingly, men aged fifty-two to fifty-eight and women seventy-seven to seventy-nine. But they’re not the age group we’re targeting with CityBeat Rattle,” Barry answered with a grin that seemed very misplaced, even if he were proud of the data and stats.

  Battling babies shouldn’t be palatable to anyone!

  “We’ve been in the child development game for the better part of the last twenty years,” the short man offered.

  “Sorry, which one are you?” she asked, pivoting from the CityBeat crew to the singing baby vagabonds.

  “I’m Stu,” the man replied.

  “Then that would make you, Lenny,” Jordan said to the tall man, but instead of answering, the musical duo started singing.

  “Good job! Good job! You did a good job! Good job! Good job! You used your brain!” the men belted as Stu broke out the tambourine, and Lenny strummed a catchy tune.

  “Holy f—” she began before Jordan stifled the curse by cupping his hand over her mouth.

  “Naughty words, naughty words. No, no, naughty words,” the men chanted, not missing a beat.

  But Jordan raised his hands in surrender. “No more singing until someone explains what the heck Battle of the Births is.”

  “Nice job with the h, e, double l substitution,” she said under her breath.

  “As long as we keep this PG, I think we can stop them from busting out into song,” he whispered back.

  “Deal,” she murmured.

  “How much do you two know about caring for a baby?” Stu asked with a warm Disney-esque grin.

  “We know that they need to eat,” she answered.

  “And they need to have their diapers changed,” Jordan supplied.

  She lifted her chin in a triumphant little movement. Maybe they knew more than she thought.

  “Do you know how often newborns need to be fed?” Lenny pressed.

  “And have you decided if you’re going to use cloth or disposable diapers?” Stu added.

  “Cloth diapers? Non-pioneer parents choose cloth?” Jordan asked with a bewildered expression.

  She was thinking the same thing.

  “It’s quite a debate, and some are very passionate about the subject,” Lenny replied.

  “What about nutrition? Do you think you’ll breastfeed or use formula or a combination?” Stu continued.

  She turned to her husband, who gave her man-eyes for, fuck-if-I-know. No, not fuck, heck. Heck-if-I-know eyes.

  “We just found out we were expecting this morning,” Jordan sputtered, this reply quickly becoming their trademark response when asked about anything pregnancy-related.

  “When are you due?” the stout Stu asked.

  “June twenty-second,” she answered, unable to hold back a grin. This whole situation may be insane, but the thought of her alien blueberry pineapple peanut sent a dizzying wave of warmth through her body.

  “See, they’re right on track,” Hector added, losing the carnival edge and sliding into tech mogul.

  She frowned. “On track for what?”

  “The other expectant contestants,” Stu answered.

  “The name Battle of the Births has a fierce ring to it, but it’s not as cutthroat as it sounds. We’re working with a few other couples all due in June. It’s more parent education than an actual competition,” Lenny assured them.

  She turned to Hector and Bobby. “You’re asking us to do another competition?”

  “Every phase of your relationship has had one. What’s one more?” Bobby answered with a teasing twist to his lips.

  He wasn’t wrong, but this wasn’t just about them anymore. They had a baby to consider.

  Lenny shifted the guitar to his back. “Maybe this will help. Both Stu and I have degrees in child development, and over the years, we’ve helped many couples prepare to become parents.”

  “Do you always dress like cheerful vagrants?” she asked warily.

  “No, we’re in costume to film a few promo spots for CityBeat Rattle with a few parent-training items that just arrived.”

  Hector pressed his hands together meditatively. “See, my psychic intuition brought you all here today. It’s meant to be!”

  Georgie chewed her lip. “I’m not sure about this.”

  They had a lot on their plate—with their blog and businesses—and God only knows what they’d have to take on for her mother’s charity activities.

  “Can we have a minute?” Jordan asked.

  “Of course! Lenny and Stu’s packages arrived. We’ll be over on the far side of the room checking out the delivery,” Hector answered.

  The men migrated toward a stack of boxes, and the room started to spin.

  She sank into the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “I’ve lost count of all the people without ovaries who know more about this baby business than I do,” she said, waiting for Jordan to laugh, but he remained quiet. She sat up and found him sitting beside her, staring at one of the ultrasound pictures.

  She leaned into him and traced the outline of their peanut baby. “It’s pretty wild, isn’t it?”

  “I think we do it, Georgie,” he said, gaze trained on the black and gray image.

  “You do?”

  He nodded. “Hector and Bobby wouldn’t allow a bunch of quacks to spearhead a site for expectant parents and childhood development blogs. And I don’t know about you, but I didn’t know the answer to any of the questions Lenny and Stu asked. Sure, we could google it, but what if we kept getting conflicting opinions? And they did say they had degrees in child development.”

  All that was true, but was it smart to pile on another task and be roped into another CityBeat contest?

  Then again, would it be smart to accept? This Battle of the Births could provide them with the information and training they needed.

  And how competitive could it be?

  She gazed down at her wrist and stared at the charm bracelet Jordan had given her. She ran her finger over the delicate silver eight and ten, then gazed at the tiny computer mouse and trowel charms tucked between a silver sandal, a book, a barbell, and a miniature cookie. These were the reminders of their love and their past challenges. But something was off with the cookie! Just the sight of it made her belly go sour.

  “Okay, let’s do it,” she said, looking away from the cookie charm.

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  She gave him the hint of a grin. “You’re right. It sounds like these guys could get us on track.”

  Jordan slid the ultrasound photo back into his pocket. “We’re in,” he called across the room.

  “That’s excellent news! This is going to be such an adventure!” Hector crooned as she and Jordan made their way toward the group.

  “And you can take this with you today,” Stu said, holding out a lumpy sack a little larger than a shoebox.

  Presents already? Maybe this wasn’t so bad.

  “What is it?” she asked, accepting the gift.

  “A baby,” Lenny said with a jovial expression.

  “What!” she exclaimed, panic flooding her system.

  Why was this man okay with a baby being stuffed into a bag?

  She opened the cinched cloth wrapping and found…

  “Thank goodness! It’s not a real baby,” she cried, removing the mannequin infant from the wrapping.

  “You’re giving us a fake baby? A faby?” Jordan questioned as they stared at the remarkably lifelike figure.

  “It’s an infant care simulation doll. Stu and I designed them. We’ll be using them later in the Battle of the Births. But for now, take it home, and get used to having it around,” Lenny explained.

  She stared at the little thing. Dressed in on
ly a white cotton diaper, its painted eyes gazed up at her.

  “You want us to hang out with a fake baby?” Jordan pressed.

  Stu nodded. “Yes! Carry it around the house. Take it on a walk. It’ll help you ease into becoming parents.”

  “Does it need anything?” she asked, touching the mannequin’s chin.

  “That’s what this is for,” Stu replied, then handed Jordan a giant bag.

  “The fake baby needs all this?” he exclaimed, his large frame slumping as he secured the strap of the bag over his shoulder.

  “Like I said. Get used to it. We’ll be in touch with the details, but plan on a challenge or two during each trimester,” Lenny replied.

  Her gaze bounced between the diaper bag and the fake baby—Faby…whatever.

  This was it.

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  She cradled the infant care simulation doll in her arms as the walls seemed to cave in on them; the air growing stagnant.

  She inhaled a steadying breath. “Hector, I have to ask. What made you think I was pregnant in the first place?”

  “It was what you were eating at your wedding reception. Well, more like what you were and what you weren’t eating,” the man answered.

  But that didn’t make any sense.

  She shifted the fake baby in her arms. “I hardly ate anything at all. It was such a whirlwind of an evening.”

  “Then perhaps you don’t remember when you honored me with a dance.”

  Her brows knit together. “Of course, I remember our dance.”

  “Do you also remember the part where I twirled you around, and you plucked a piece of pineapple off the dessert table?”

  She thought back to their dance. They’d laughed and talked, but she had no recollection of fruit being a part of it.

  “I remember the twirl but not eating any pineapple.”

  “You certainly did. I was surprised to see you do that after what your mother told us.”

  “What did she say?” Georgie asked, but she already had a good idea.

  Hector leaned in. “One afternoon after we’d read the psychic energy of three hundred citrus-scented votive candles for your wedding, a tiring task, your mother told us the story of how you cleared out a Ritz-Carlton ballroom, losing your lunch all over the beauty pageant judges after you ate a pineapple fruit cup,” he replied.

  “It was the pineapple that tipped you off?” she pressed.

  “That, and you didn’t even glance at the tiny tubes of vegan chocolate chip cookie dough we had made especially for your wedding day. We all know how you feel about those.”

  “That reminds me,” Barry piped up. “We’ve got some here! Hold on! I’ll get you one!” the man offered and headed for the office’s kitchenette.

  Her stomach did a flip-flop at the mention of the vegan treat.

  Jordan stroked her arm. “Georgie, are you okay? You look a little green.”

  “Have you had any bouts of morning sickness yet?” Stu asked.

  She blinked as the thought of tiny tubes of vegan chocolate chip cookie dough, once her go-to stress reliever and the tasty treat that never let her down, now turned her stomach.

  “Um, I haven’t experienced morning sickness yet…but…” she rasped as the taste of bile flooded her mouth.

  Barry jogged toward them, his hands teeming with the pocket-sized tubes of vegan dough.

  “Look, Georgie! We’ve got a ton of them! You can take a bunch home with you!”

  She tried to wave him off, but in the blink of an eye, her mild belly flip-flops morphed into a heavy-duty, high-speed tumble that would put an industrial clothes dryer to shame.

  Her stomach spasmed.

  This was not good!

  There was no time to hightail it to the restroom. She tossed the fake baby…faby…whatever, to her husband and lunged for a trash can.

  But she was too late.

  Just as she’d done years ago in a child-sized evening dress and five-inch heels, she lost her three delectable slices of pineapple cheesecake all over poor Barry’s feet.

  “Whoa!” the man exclaimed.

  “Thank God we installed tile instead of carpet!” Hector murmured to Bobby, leaping out of the way.

  “There it is. A telltale sign,” Stu replied calmly as if it were standard practice for women to lose their lunch, or in her case a trifecta of cheesecake, in his presence.

  “There’s a pack of ginger lozenges in the diaper bag. They can help ease the nausea,” Lenny added.

  She wiped the back of her hand across her lips.

  Perfect! More advice from Team No Uterus.

  Jordan leaned over and rubbed her back with the fake baby tucked under his arm, its little head inches from hers. The doll seemed to have a mischievous curve to its fake baby lips. Were they always like that? Was she having another pregnancy delusion?

  “I’m sure the nausea will end soon, and we’ll figure everything out,” Jordan said, trying to reassure her.

  She held the doll’s gaze and knew instantly that her husband was wrong.

  It was just the beginning of this pregnancy roller coaster—and they were locked in for the entire ride.

  6

  Jordan

  Jordan steadied himself. “We’ve got something to share with you.”

  “Some very important news,” Georgie added, squeezing his hand like a vice.

  Who knew librarians had such a grip?

  He glanced at his wife. She’d whipped out her beauty queen grin—the giveaway she was nervous.

  She wasn’t the only one.

  “But we want you to know that we love you very much and always will. That will never change,” his wife continued.

  Mr. Tuesday, their black and white beloved mixed-breed pup, cocked his head to the side.

  Georgie lowered her voice. “This is a lot for him. We’ve only been living together for six months and with the wedding, and then with us being gone the last couple of weeks for our honeymoon, I think he’s confused.”

  Who wouldn’t be confused? It was as if the universe decided they were on the relationship Autobahn.

  “I think you should tell him, Jordan,” his wife said with a crease between her brows.

  “Why me?” he asked through a smile, talking like a ventriloquist. Why? Because he didn’t want to upset the dog. This would have made no sense to him before falling in love with Georgie and her crazy canine. But now, he was a dog dad. And that’s what dog dads do.

  “You did do this to me,” she said with a covert gesture to her belly. “You know, planted the seed. Fertilized the garden,” she whispered as Mr. Tuesday’s head cocked to the other side.

  “You seemed onboard with the gardening,” he replied cautiously.

  “True. I couldn’t get enough of it—the gardening, that is,” she added quickly, her cheeks growing pink with embarrassment.

  Did she think Mr. Tuesday had an opinion on their sex life?

  Did she not want their dog to know that they’d done the dirty a bazillion times in a tropical paradise and, not to mention, this morning in the shower? They all lived in the same house. In some doggy way, he had to know.

  Jesus, this was getting weird.

  Let’s get real. The dog had no idea what they were talking about. There was a good chance that the only reason he’d humored them for this long was that he still smelled the four Slim Jims Georgie ate before they’d left for the doctor’s office this morning.

  He scratched between the pup’s ears. “All right, Mr. Tuesday, here’s the big news. You’re going to be a big brother.”

  “We’re having a baby, and it will look a little bit like this,” Georgie said, holding out the doll Lenny and Stu had given them.

  “This is Faby,” he went on, introducing a dog to a doll—something he’d never expected to be doing, but life with Georgie was chock-full of these moments.

  “Faby?” his wife questioned.

  He tapped the doll’s rubbery nose. “It’s a
fake baby—so, Faby. That makes sense, don’t you think?”

  Both Georgie and Mr. Tuesday’s heads cocked to the same side.

  “Is that a boy name or a girl name?” she asked.

  He glanced at the fake baby’s diaper. “Should we look?”

  The doll itself appeared quite lifelike with chubby cheeks, a cute button nose, and a cooing little mouth, but looked gender neutral—at least, to him.

  “Would that be creepy? What if it’s got a tiny penis,” Georgie said, whispering the p-word part.

  “Then, it’s a boy,” he answered.

  Georgie pursed her lips. “I get that, but wouldn’t it still be a little strange?”

  “I would think a boy with no penis would be stranger,” he offered.

  Were they debating a baby doll’s anatomy?

  She stared at the diaper. “You’re probably right.”

  Probably? But he wasn’t about to go there.

  “Let’s just look,” he added, gingerly taking the doll from his wife.

  He placed Faby on the coffee table and tried to pull the cloth diaper down like a pair of trousers.

  “Am I doing it wrong?”

  Georgie pointed to the side of the diaper. “I think there’s Velcro. Try that.”

  “Good call,” he replied, peeling back the tiny strips of adhesive to reveal…

  Now, he was the one cocking his head to the side. “There’s nothing.”

  Georgie leaned in. “Is it a girl?”

  He frowned and inspected the fake baby. “It’s like a Barbie or a Ken doll. Nothing downstairs.”

  A mischievous grin pulled at the corners of his wife’s mouth. “How do you know what Ken and Barbie look like naked?”

  “Hey, I had a very progressive mother. It wasn’t just race cars and robots lining my toy box,” he answered with mock incredulity before his chest tightened with emotion.

  What would his mother think about how his life had turned out if she were still here?

  His gaze traveled from the genderless toy doll to his wife. His mother would have loved Georgie. She would have adored Jensen’s Bookshop. The two would have talked classics until late into the night, debating the finer points of Pride and Prejudice. It was his mother’s love of reading that had led him to comic books after she’d passed away.