Page 58 of Pregnant in Plaid
The whole group goes quiet.
"That's actually sweet," Jake says.
"It is," Ben agrees. "And it makes up for all the times she's peed on me, thrown food at my head, or screamed for three hours straight for no reason."
"Does it really make up for it?" I ask.
"No," Ben admits. "But you forget about the bad stuff when they look at you like you're their whole world."
My chest tightens. That's what I want. Not just the baby, but the whole thing. The chaos and the mess and the random 'I love yous.'
And I want it with Patrice.
"You're going to be fine," Old Jim says to me. His voice is gravelly from decades of whiskey and cigarettes. "Stop overthinking it."
"I'm not?—"
"You are. You've been sitting there spiraling for ten minutes." He gestures with his glass. "Let me tell you something about women. They're independent as hell. They don't need you to save them or fix them or provide for them. They can do all that themselves."
"Okay?"
"So your job isn't to be her hero. Your job is to be her partner. Show up. Do the work. And for god's sake, apologize early and often. It saves time."
"That's your advice? Apologize?"
"It's served me well for forty years of marriage." Hedrinks. "That and knowing when to shut up and just listen."
"Write this down," Gage tells me. "Old Jim's relationship advice is gold."
"Also," Jim continues, "let her think everything is her idea. Even if it was yours. Especially if it was yours."
"That seems manipulative."
"It's survival." He winks. "Trust me."
Tyler raises his beer. "To survival and the men who master it."
Everyone drinks.
The conversation shifts to fishing, then to some story about Jake’s new beer supplier, then to Gage's upcoming wedding. I'm mostly listening, laughing when appropriate, but my mind keeps drifting to Patrice.
Is she having fun at the bachelorette party? Is she comfortable? Is the baby moving too much? Is she thinking about me?
God, I'm pathetic.
"Alright," Derek announces, pulling the doll back out. "Time for the main event. Diaper changing 101."
"Do we have to?" I ask.
"Yes. Because if you screw this up with a real baby, you'll never hear the end of it." He sets the doll on the bar and produces an actual diaper from somewhere. "Trace, you're up."
"Why me?"
"Because your baby's coming in six weeks," Derek says. "That's not a lot of time to figure this out." He gestures to the doll. "Come on. Show us what you got."
I approach the doll like it might explode.
"It's not alive," Tyler helpfully points out.
