Page 84 of Merciful Lies

“Then, because your baby is a giant, they have to repair your now broken vajayjay with sutures. I am talking real fucking stitches, Maria. I mean is he even going to want to touch me down there again, much less kiss me!”

My eyes are wide, and I slap a hand over my mouth. I can’t believe I just said that. And Maria looks like she can’t either.

We get inside the SUV. We buckle up and I tell the driver where to go. Then I chance a glance at her face.

“Okay, wow. So, that was graphic,” Maria says. “Um, how big was Baby Nico?”

“Ten pounds, six ounces and twenty-four inches long.”

“Holy fuck.”

“Yeah, No shit,” I say.

“Well, I’m not gonna lie. Your baby is aggressively cute, and whenever I see him, I have serious cuteness aggression.”

“Cuteness aggression?”

“Yeah,” she says, “I just wanna bite him. I mean, I won’t, but I don’t know how you can stand it. He’s just, ahh, so beautiful.”

Pride fills me.

“You’re right. The baby is perfect. And I confess I do kiss and nibble him all the time.”

“Lucky heifer. But I bet Papa Nico feels that way about you.”

“You mean he has cuteness aggression towards me?”

“Well, we’ll find out when he sees you tonight with your big milk bags hanging out like that,” she says.

“Milk bags?” I repeat, then I snort.

Then we both start giggling.

And the giggle grows.

And grows.

Until we are snorting with full on belly laughter.

The driver stops in the back of the Den, and I turn to Maria, my heart pounding inside my chest.

“I hope you’re right.”

“One way to find out,” she replies with a shrug.

And I open the door.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN-NICO

“Well, nice place you have here.”

Margaret O’Doyle is sitting at the bar in a red miniskirt and barely there halter top. She looks like something someone could buy, and maybe that’s the point.

But I’m not buying. I’m not even looking.

“What are you doing here?”

“Can’t a girl just stop in to say hi to her betrothed?”

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