Page 78 of Bonding the Band

“In that case, you’ll need several balls.”

I looked at the wall of yarn and all the various shades of green. “Okay, give me everything you’ve got in green tones in this yarn!”

“A-are you sure? We have probably over a hundred balls…”

“That’ll make an extra big blanket, then!” I beamed. “Now, what is this?” I asked, holding up what looked like a knitting needle, but there was only one and it had a hook on it.

The woman bit her lip, trying to conceal her laughter. “That’s a crochet hook. Have you ever done anything with yarn?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

She sighed, shaking her head with a small laugh. “Why don’t I show you our books for beginners?”

“Perfect!” I bounded after her as she moved toward a different section of the store.

How hard could making a blanket be?

It turned out that making a blanket wasextremelydifficult.

After three hours of trying to make the yarn resemble something akin to a piece of fabric, I was convinced that crochet was officially a form of witchcraft. There was no other explanation.

All I had to show for my several hours of work was piles of knotted yarn, a hand cramp, and a bad mood. I stared at the offending bits of yarn while I did the stretches I’d learned so I didn’t develop a claw hand from playing guitar.

“We’re back!” Meadow called down the hall, and I heard the pitter-patter of her feet as she stopped in front of my half-open door. “What are you…”

Meadow stopped dead, taking in the explosion of yarn all over my room.

I sighed. “It wasn’t supposed to look like this when you got home.”

“What on earth are you doing?”

“I wastryingto make something for you and for the baby, but apparently, the yarn decided it didn’t like me and needed to fight back. I didn’t think it would be this hard.”

Meadow pressed her fingers to her lips as she surveyed the mess and the tangled masses of yarn. “Arlo, this is so sweet.”

“But I couldn’t even make one line of your blanket,” I protested.

“The sweetness comes from the effort. Would you like some help cleaning up the yarn?”

“I can’t have failed at your presentandmake you help me clean up on top of that.”

“There’s plenty of time for you to learn before the baby gets here.” She smoothed her hand over her stomach. I fucking loved when she did that; it was cute as hell. “Crochet isn’t a one-day skill, but you can practice. Start with something a little smaller, and once you’ve got the hang of it, you can move to something bigger.”

“I guess if you want to be all logical about it.”

Meadow laughed and started to collect the balls of yarn I hadn’t already unraveled. “Give yourself a break. You didn’t learn guitar overnight, did you?”

“No,” I said with a frown, “but if I take that long to learn crochet, the kid’s gonna be starting kindergarten before they get their baby blanket.”

I started winding up some of the yarn, looping the soft strand around my hand over and over. It almost looked like a cuff when I was finished. “Hey, princess?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever been tied up to get freaky before?”

“Um, nope. That sounds a little bit claustrophobic.”

“What about tying someone else up?”

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