Page 35 of Spicy Nick

“And now she’s going to tell everyone. And by the time they get here tomorrow?—”

“No,” I protest. “Come on. She wouldn’t do that.”

“Of course she would!” Scout glares at me in exasperation. “That’s exactly what happened the last time. I told her, and then she told Janice, and Janice told Joey, and he ran and told his folks, and the next thing we knew—before we’d so much as walked down the aisle, or had the chance to announce it ourselves—everyone was congratulating us.”

“Huh.” I nod thoughtfully as imaginary puzzle pieces, misaligned for years, finally slide into place. “I always wondered how those rumor got started.”

“Yes, well; now you know.”

“Okay, but… Well, it doesn’t have to be a big deal,” I tell her. “Does it? When they get here, we’ll just tell them we’re not. Or…you know what? Screw that. We’ll tell Lucy we’re not and she can take it from there.”

“Mm. Itwouldserve her right.”

“Yeah. It would. Unless…” I pause as an idea takes hold. “It’s only a rumor now. But what if we…?”

“What? What if we…what?”

“Would you…want to have a baby?” I ask slowly, mentally revisiting all of my recent thoughts on the subject; all the pros and the cons; all the myriad of possibilities—good, bad, and indifferent.

“I… don’t know?” Scout blinks in surprise. “Doyouwant to have a baby?”

“I don’t know either,” I confess. “I wasn’t thinking about it at all, before this. But then the last few days happened, and now I…”

“Okay, well, it’s only been a few minutes, for me,” Scout points out. “So, I’mma need a chance to catch up.”

“Yeah,” I agree. And then I smile. “It wouldn’t be terrible though, would it?” I ask, parroting her question from five years ago.

A smile of recognition trembles on Scout’s lips. Her eyes grow luminous with tears—still feeling emotional, I see; even if she isn’t pregnant. “No,” she says at last, quoting my own words back at me. “No, it wouldn’t be terrible. Nothing that comes from this could ever be terrible.”

For a long, long moment we stare at each other, and I swear, it feels like time has stopped. As though our past and our future were coalescing all around us. As though the entire world was nothing more than a snow globe, with the two of us at its center. For just an instant, I feel all the magic of the season—a vast, eternal field of infinite possibility, spreading out in all directions…

And then she stirs, or I stir, or one of us blinks and…we’re back in ordinary time again.

I take my first deep breath in what feels like minutes. “So,” I say. “We’ll table it for now?”

Scout nods. “I think that’s for the best. We’ll stick a pin in it, though.”

“Just slide that pot to the back burner for a bit?”

“Mm. We’ll circle back around to it. Maybe. Possibly.”

“We’ll shelve it in the archives?”

“Nick.” She glares in mock annoyance.

“Mm?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

And of course, I comply. I pull her close and slant my mouth over hers and… You know what? Forget all that stuff I said earlier about chocolate and cherry and how the taste of them, combined in her mouth, is perfection. Because this—this right here—this is all I need. It’s her, just her, forever.

“So, what do you want to donow,” Scout murmurs, a few minutes later.

I glance across at the clock. “Well, we still have a little time, so perhaps we should practice.”

“Practice?” Her eyebrows arch. “Practice what?”

“Practice making a baby, of course. So we’ll be ready in the event we decide to untable the topic.”

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