Page 82 of Nave
“Because we were giving your ass a chance to make a move. Did you choke?”
“Never had you pegged for a matchmaker, Kit.”
“Oh, please. Anyone with eyes could see the two of you mooning over each other when the other wasn’t looking. I just gave you some extra time together.”
“What makes you think I choked?”
“She’s moving back in, you dolt.”
“Dolt?”
“It’s an under-appreciated insult.”
“For the record, I didn’t choke.”
“No? Then why is she back here?”
“Because she feels like she needs to come back because you told her it was ready. She thinks you’re expecting her.”
“Oh. Oops. Well, we’re not. I mean, she can come and go as she pleases.”
“She will. But maybe this isn’t a bad thing.”
“I swear on my new piglet’s boop-able nose, if you got involved with that woman and suddenly decided it’s too much for you and want to break it off, I am going to beat the shit out of you. And we both know I could do it.”
She could.
As skinny as she’d always been, when we’d been forced to spar as kids, she’d wiped the floor with me. Granted, I’d always been very aware of not hurting the girls. So she might not have the actual advantage she thought she did.
“That’s not it at all,” I assured her. “I actually have a real estate agent lined up. And I want to go look at some houses without Lolly knowing. I don’t want her to think I’m doing something big like this for her.”
“But you are.”
“Yeah. I mean, she needs a real home for the baby.”
“Definitely. I mean, I have very fond memories of that motorhome. But I was young and I spent most of the day when we weren’t driving out exploring the world. Those walls are going to close in on her sooner rather than later. Especially with baby stuff cluttering everything up.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“But speaking of baby stuff, Gracie wants to plan a baby shower for Lolly.”
“It’s early for that, isn’t it?”
“Well, we weren’t going to have it next week,” Kit said, rolling her eyes. “But we have to lock in a venue. So we wanted to askif you think Lolly would be okay with that. It just seems like she could really use a village right now. And, you know, baby stuff.”
“I think she’d love that. She’s been so alone for so long. And she loves all of you guys already. My only caveat is she needs it to be a venue that has no cameras.”
“Oh, okay. I think I could probably talk Matteo Grassi into turning them off for the day.”
“I can handle Matteo,” I told her. I knew what he needed to know about closed circuits and shit like that.
“Good. It might also help to put feelers out about what kind of mom she’s going to be. A beige mom? Bright, primary colors mom? Pastels mom?”
“How might I go about figuring that out?”
“Get some baby magazines. Look at them when you’re hanging out. Pay attention to what item she seems most interested in.”
“It might be too early until she knows the gender.”
