Shopping for a CEO's Baby (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 16), стр. 35
“Really?” Carol takes a taste. “Yum!”
“You two are disgusting.”
“No,” she says, patting Andrew's cheek. “We're mothers.”
He's definitely not convinced.
“How is childbirth class going?” Carol asks, eyes twinkling. “Real childbirth class, this time.”
Just then, my friend Josh walks over to us.
His eyes cut to the abomination on the table before us. It looks like Carol is dissecting an alien baby with orange insides.
“Uh, hi?” he says to me, hugging me with thin bands of steel that pretend to be arms. Josh worked with Shannon and me at Consolidated Evalu-Shop, a mystery shopping company that Anterdec acquired a few years ago. Josh is a techie, and still works with me at Anterdec, though he was moved out of mystery shopping and consumer evaluation and into accounting.
Plus he swears the pool of eligible bachelors is better there.
“Josh! I am so glad you're here!”
He thrusts a present at me. It's two boxes stacked, wrapped in white and navy-blue stripes. An adorable card with two little baby feet dangles off the red gift bow. “Happy babies.” Nervous eyes drift to my belly.
“Can you believe there are two in there?” Marie says, grabbing what I think is a Swedish fish posing as the clitoris from the cake and chewing on it. Her hand drifts to my belly again.
Josh peers at my midsection and says, “Absolutely.”
“Hey! I'm not that big.”
Everyone in the room goes quiet.
Oh, crap. I am that big.
“Speaking of childbirth class,” Carol says, clearing her throat and looking at Josh, “I was just asking Andrew and Amanda how it's going.”
Andrew squeezes my hand. “It's fine. Really simple. No instructors wanted by the narcotics squad this time.”
Josh looks at me, mouth a little shaky as he whispers, “Vulvatron.”
“Hey!” I give him an elbow jab, but the memory of mystery shopping a childbirth class at the local hospital–the very same place where I'll be delivering–hits me.
Josh just laughs.
I grab his arm, horror ripping through me as his mention of the past kicks in. “Josh?”
“Yes?”
“I'm Vulvatron.” I look down at my crotch. Can't see it, of course. All I can see is my innie belly button that's turned outie, the nub outlined by the stretchy jersey of my dress. “Me. I'm Vulvatron,” I repeat.
“That was a joke. We were pretending to be an expectant couple for that stupid childbirth class mystery shop,” Josh hisses. “Don't hold it against me now!”
“Were you joking back then when you told me I wasn't fit to raise a sea monkey?” I shoot back.
“Of course I was! The entire mystery shop was a joke.” He runs his hands up and down his body, pointing. “I was pretending to be hetero. We were acting. You're more than capable of raising a sea monkey.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Hey,” he says, brow furrowed in concentration. “Remember how we learned that some women eat the placenta? Are you planning to do that?”
“Yes. I'll eat half right after the birth and freeze the other half. Then I'll wait a few months, until I'm back at work.”
“Why wait until you're back at work?”
“So I can cook it up, slip it into my lunch bag, and put it in the staff kitchen at Anterdec. Then when you steal my food, you'll eat it.”
“You wouldn't!”
“What good is making an entire organ with my body if I can't use it to torment you? And aha! You didn't deny being the leftover thief!”
“Of course I'm not.” But his shifty eyes give him away.
Of all the moments for my father-in-law to appear.
He looks at the carved-up alien baby on the table.
“I see Marie made the cake herself,” he says dryly, reaching for an unopened bottle of whisky of such high quality and expense I'm one hundred percent sure he brought it as a contribution to the celebration, but with the intent of consuming most of it himself.
“No! I found someone on Facebook Marketplace who does baby cakes,” Marie chirps.
“That's supposed to be a baby? It looks like someone hit a clown with a Humvee and you scraped it off the turnpike.”
We all do a double take, because that's exactly what it looks like.
“It's nothing some good ice cream can't fix,” Carol says patiently.
James shakes the whisky bottle midair. “This will suffice as my dessert.”
I grab the slice with the baby's nose and chomp down. Mmmm. Caramel.
Jason joins us. The bottle in his hand is amber, and must be some kind of locally brewed beer.
“Andrew.” They shake hands, Jason turning to James to do the same. Then his eyes settle on–take a guess.
My attached boulder.
“Two in there, huh? We never had two babies at the same time. That's going to be so much fun.”
“You have a warped idea of fun, Jason,” James comments.
“I love babies. You two ever need a babysitter, let me and Marie know.”
“Hey!” Declan says to his mother-in-law. “You're our babysitter.”
“Ellie's growing up. We need a new baby to hold,” Marie says pointedly. She actually sniffs.
“Is that a subtle hint?” Shannon asks, coming in next to Declan to slide her arm around his waist.
“Since when do I hint?” Marie replies. “I've been saying Ellie needs a sibling since...”
“Since we conceived her,” Dec mutters.
“If you two want to get started on another, go for it. I'm sure there's a closet somewhere here at Pam's where you can have privacy,” Marie says to Declan.
Who points at Andrew and me. “They're the ones with a thing for closets.”
“Maybe that's how we stop fighting about cribs,” I say to Andrew with an elbow nudge. “Just give them a walk-in closet to sleep in.”
“Who does that? Sounds cruel. Besides, we can afford new cribs.”
“You can afford to build new walk-in closets,” Jason says drolly as he offers up a piece of poop.
Which I accept gratefully.
“Why are we eating cake first? Don't we normally do this later?” Declan asks, spearing a chunk of red cake that must be from the placenta and chewing thoughtfully. He scoops a piece of poop off his plate and eats it.
Andrew turns green.
“What kind of party games did Shannon come