Page 76 of The Bartender's Baby

He gaped at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why should I?”

“Because they were probably contractions.”

“How would you know?”

He wiggled the phone in my face, as if it and therefore he knew everything about pregnancy.

I hope he is thoughtful and funny like Nate.“Listen, every single thing I feel could be a contraction. Okay?”

Nate harrumphed as ifIwas being stubborn about this. I wanted them to be contractions. If I could fast-forward, I would.

“I thought you were going to check in downtown,” I said, and he shrugged.

“I already texted Collin that I won’t be in today.”

“What about the groceries?”

“Meh.”

“Meh?” I dug my toe into his side until he set his phone down and met my gaze. “Meh?”

“Meh, meaning I don’t want to buy food and then take you to the hospital in a few hours and have it all go bad.”

“But what if it’s not labor and we starve?”

“We’re not going to starve. We have food, just no fresh produce.”

I needled him. “Oh, so you want to feed me frozen chicken fingers and french fries right before I give birth?”

He pinched my big toe. “No, actually. I was going to force you to eat the multigrain Cheerios.”

I gasped. “You wouldn’t dare.”

He nodded seriously. “I dare.”

Turned out, we still had a few pieces of watermelon left, along with some frozen burgers he put on the grill, and we spent the night buying tiny little graphic T-shirts and planning family Halloween costumes, because why not?

This was what we did now.

Oohed and aahed over baby onesies that readDon’t Touch My Rollswith a picture of sushi and argued over whether we would be Mario, Luigi, and Frog as a mushroom—my pick—or Snow White, the prince, and Frog as Dopey—Nate’s pick.

And when the pains didn’t increase through the night, I told him to go to work in the morning.

Only so I could call him three hours later. It was time.

TWENTY-THREE

TABBY

Icradled my newborn son in my arms, overwhelmed by a love deeper than any I’d known before. His tiny fingers curled around mine as he nursed, his eyelids fluttered open and closed, sleepy and comfortable with me. The past nine months of worry and anticipation had led to this perfect moment, this precious child who was wholly and completely mine.

After days of what I hadn’t realized were mild contractions, I’d waited as long as I could before I called Nate. He would have stayed home again with me, but I, quite frankly, didn’t want him around. He pecked and prodded at me, mother-henning me to utter exasperation.

And almost as if Frogger had been waiting for that exact moment, theOh shit, these are realcontractions came on immediately. Without Nate fawning over me, I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, took a bath, and tried to relax as much as I could since all the online advice said I wouldn’t be getting any rest once I went to the hospital.

When I finally did call Nate, he went off on such a long-winded tangent, he arrived home still shouting at me through his cell phone even though I was in the next room. Then he texted Gen and put me in the car.

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