Page 23 of Catching Dreams

“Pen, what time is dinner?” Molly asked. “And what can we bring?”

Penelope looked at her watch and said, “Probably in a few hours, around 6. If you want, you can bring a dessert, since that is your specialty. Crap, you don’t have a way to make anything. You can always borrow my kitchen, if you want to.”

Molly just waved her off. “We’ll figure something out. Ty, baby, I have an idea. We have to go over to Springville anyway so we’ll get something to bring from there.” Springville was a few towns over and had the big box stores, an actual mall, and a lot more than we had in Trinity Falls.

“Why don’t we check into our motel room first, and then we’ll go over to Springville,” I suggested. “I have an idea, too.”

“Sounds good to me,” my girl said, and we asked around to see if anyone needed anything before getting into Molly’s car, which miraculously survived without a scratch, to head the twenty-seven minutes to Springville.

As soon as we got into the car, we turned to each other, and I said, “We need to buy shirts to announce that we got married and are having twins.” At the same time, Molly said, “We can buy stuff to make personalized shirts about being married and about the twins!” We both began to laugh, and I leaned over the console of the car and kissed her lips. “Baby, you were put on this earth for me.”

“We are super corny, but I don’t care,” Molly said with a laugh. “We really are meant to be together.”

As we walked hand in hand through the big box store, I marveled at how much fun we had just shopping together. There were stolen kisses in empty aisles and getting all the supplies we would need to make our shirts. Molly also got a tray of premade cookies, frosting, and sprinkles and said she was going to make fancy store-bought cookies in our hotel room. It killed her to have to buy pre-made items, but at the moment, we didn’t have many options. I told her we would all love whatever she brought.

Soon, we found ourselves in the baby aisle, and I watched my wife glide her hands over the double stroller and cribs that were on display. “Oh, Ty! Look!” she called out with excitement.

I grinned as she held up a box with a baby mobile that had baseballs and bats on it and played, “Take me out to the Ballgame.”

“And no way! Look! They are ‘buy one get one free’ right now, too. How perfect is that?”

Molly nodded but then brought the mobile to her chest as her eyes got watery. “Where will we store it until our home above the bakery is rebuilt? I can’t even think about buying any baby items until we have a place to keep them. What are we going to do if our place isn’t rebuilt by the time they are born?”

“Shhhh, baby, one day at a time, remember?” I said as I soothed her while pulling her against me and rubbing her back. “We’ll figure out where to store everything.”

I knew I sounded a lot more confident than I felt. Molly had a valid point. The guys I had lived with had a tiny apartment with no extra space to store baby items. Penelope lived in about the same size apartment with her sister and two kids, so we couldn’t ask her either.

“You know what? We’re getting the mobiles. I’m gonna rent a storage unit close to our home, and if we want to buy something for our children, we’re gonna do it. And the insurance will pay for a place for you to stay if everything isn’t rebuilt when our babies are born. We might not bring our babies home above Cupcake Curveball, but we’ll bring our babies somewhere safe and warm.”

“I love you, Ty.”

“Oh my gosh, we are so cute!” I cried as I looked at my reflection next to Ty’s in our motel room bathroom mirror.

“I have to say that you did a great job!” Ty said as he pulled the shirt down over my stomach and rubbed it gently.

Ty was wearing a white shirt with orange lettering that matched the Tiger's uniform. I had made him a shirt with puffy fabric paint that said: “I put a cookie in my wife’s oven!”

My shirt was also white but had purple lettering. Mine said: “There are two cookies in my oven!” On the belly part of the shirt were two cookies dancing. It was adorable! They would definitely get the message across at dinner tonight.

“So, who do you think is going to notice our shirts first?” Ty asked as I pulled my hair into a knot on the top of my head.

“Your mom will, hands down,” I said without a second thought.

“Really? Wanna bet? My money is on Cooper.”

“Oh, I like the idea of a bet! What does the winner get?”

“Hmmm,” my husband said, with a very serious expression on his face. “The loser has to do something the other wants to do on a date without complaint.”

“Oh! I know! You’ll go get a pedicure with me!” I was very excited and hoped his mom would notice first.

“Not my idea of fun and the guys would never let me live it down,” Tyler said with a shake of his head.

“Oh, but it’s so relaxing and then they put those hot towels around your legs… it’s the best feeling ever! I’ve seen other guys there before.”

“Well, when Coop notices first you’ll go fishing with me.”

“Fishing? I didn’t know you liked fishing.”

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