Page 96 of There Are No Words

I hadn’t known that, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t worried. Nipple sucking—that was even more of a reason I’d dominate. “You know that’s not a problem for me,” I said, winking at her and bringing a hand to her tit.

* * *

So I lost the beer drinking contest.

To Dom.

Go figure.

But I had a feeling Allegra’s cousin Vittoria and I were about to win the current game—How to Make Babies, or some shit like that. It was too bad I couldn’t play with Allegra, but Vittoria wasn’t a bad teammate. Allegra had insisted I play even though she didn’t want to. So here we were.

I felt slightly more than a little awkward as a room full of dudes (me included) stood around with a roll of toilet paper between their legs. The women held a broomstick between theirlegs. The ironic objective: get the stick in the hole. Just in case that wasn’t obvious.

When Bianca dropped the roll between her legs, she and Knox were out, and Allegra shouted, “You go, Brady! Come on Vitt! You guys can do it!” There were a few others left, but none who were real competition.

I cringed, but stayed the course, not moving so that Vittoria could get it in. When she jabbed me in the thigh instead, I shouted, “All right, whose idea was this game?”

Perla and Maria backed up and put their hands in the air, pointing at Bianca. “Hers! It was hers!”

Allegra turned down the music and picked up her phone. “I’m going to remember this forever. Smile for the camera.”

Vittoria turned around, smiling.

I just looked up with a blank expression as Allegra got evidence of the most awkward moment in history.

Laughing, Bianca came up behind me, trying to tickle my neck. “Come on, drop it!”

I turned my head. “Get off me. Shouldn’t I win something? I am the father.”

A team fromBellissimafinally won and started screaming and jumping up and down. Allegra walked over and wrapped her arms around my neck as I loosened my grip on the roll between my legs. “You won me, isn’t that something?” Allegra asked cutely.

Bianca picked up the roll and started dancing, but I didn’t care what was going on around us. I just looked at Allegra and felt my heart swell. Winning her wasn’t just something, it was everything. I wrapped my arm around her waist. “Okay,” I called, “no more games unless Allegra can play.”

Bianca shooed me off, though, and Maria walked up. “Not to worry. We should pause on the games for a while. I’m thinkingwe should have some cake, right, everyone?” she asked the room at large.

With the cheers that followed, it was obvious everyone was ready to know the gender of our baby.

Allegra got them to quiet down as she gestured with her hands. “Okay, okay, but then presents!”

Perla walked up with Isabella who was carrying a wicker hat in her hand, Tipsy following close behind her. Perla took the hat and placed it on Allegra’s head. “Fine, but only if you wear this so we can do that old tradition of collecting all the bows and making you a hat.”

My eyebrow shot up. A bow hat?

Then Allegra surprised me by nodding and tapping the hat into position on her head. Yeah, it was safe to say this was my first baby shower, and baby showers were unlike any other party in the world.

* * *

Allegra

I was so excited for this part. Everyone would finally know what Brady and I had known for months—the gender of our baby.

Maria rolled out a cake while Dom followed, carrying a box full of what I knew were confetti cannons. I had ordered them myself. Well, that and the cake.

Dad lowered the music that was turned up in the background again, and Frankie came over with his camera to take pictures as everyone piled around Brady and me.

Dom and Maria passed the cannons around, then stepped aside as I passed the knife to Brady to cut the cake.

“Okay, who’s ready?” I asked. Meanwhile, Tipsy jumped on my legs at my side, so I gave her my hand, petting her head.

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