Page 160 of Unhinged

“You’re in for a rude awakening.”

Nan says, “You can adopt.”

“Not really into it right now. I just want to be married. We don’t need to have kids.”

Nan shakes her head. “Wow.”

I look at everyone judging me. “My wife is in college. She doesn’t want to get pregnant. Neither do I. Case closed.”

“She’ll probably want them sooner than you think.”

Candi shakes her head. “You don’t want to have a family with the woman you love?”

Losing my patience, I snap, “No! That’s all! Leave it!” Yes, I want that with Simone. Now that it’s official that no woman has given birth to my baby, I want it to be Simone more than anything. But then I’m also fixated on not letting it happen. It’s selfish and irresponsible.

After that, everyone leaves me alone.

Parking in Amos’s driveway, behind Simone, I punch in the garage code and don’t see Amos’s car in there, either. When I enter the empty kitchen, I grin. “Honey, I’m home!” When Simone announced it at my apartment, it was a thousand times better.

I hear giggling. “I’m upstairs!”

I leave my coat and boots in the kitchen and, taking my gym bag of clothes, I head up to her room. Walking in, I see her petting the dog. When Simone sees me, she jumps up and throws herself at me. I laugh. “Damn!”

“I missed you.” She then looks at me with a flushed face. “I just got back from walking Frenchie.”

“I missed you too.” I kiss her, but when I want it to be more, she steps back from me.

“We need to get ready for dinner at your dad’s house.”

I pull her back to me. “We can shower together.”

“You know that gets us in trouble.”

“It’s okay to be fashionably late.”

“What should I wear?”

“Nothing. That’s usual for a shower.”

Simone rolls her eyes. “To dinner.”

I shrug. “Whatever. Those tight pants you wear sometimes. Yeah. Definitely.”

“Yoga pants? I wear those around the house or to play softball. This is dinner with your family.”

“So? They’re not the First Family. My stepmom will probably wear sweats. My dad, maybe jeans, but he wears sweats too. And I remember you wearing them on the field. One time when you tied your shoe on a bench, I nearly came in my damn jeans.”

“I never caught you staring at me.”

“I had to be stealth about it and maybe because you never shut your trap long enough to notice.”

She giggles with me. “Asshole. Why do you hate sweatpants so much? They’re comfy.”

“My parents still buy them for me each Christmas and Hanukah. I have a stack of them in my closet in every color. It’s not even funny. They never see me wear them, but they insist on buying them. Jackasses.”

“I want to see you wear them. God. I bet you look damn good. And easier access.” She raises her eyebrow suggestively, but I sigh.

“Uh, I used to wear them. I was wearing a pair of maroon sweats that night… They didn’t have to work too hard to get my pants down, and I remember seeing them around my ankles when I woke up.”

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