Page 76 of Knocked Up in Alaska

“Uh, honey, the baby can’t talk,” Trace pointed out.

“No, but she knows how to express her opinions just fine.” To Lilah, she asked, “What’s her favorite toy?”

“Um, she’s really into Freddie the Firefly. She fusses if I don’t attach him to her car seat.”

“Favorite activity?”

“Oh, bath time for sure. She loves the water.” Just thinking about her daughter’s instinctive flutter kicks brought a smile to her face.

“So, it stands to reason that given a choice between two blankies, she’s going to favor one over the other. It may take a little time for her preference to emerge, but I think we can all agree she’s entitled to some time to decide?”

Archer shrugged. “Works for me.”

“Fine,” Trace agreed and lifted the tray Izzy had finished preparing. “Now that that’s settled, let’s take this to the living room and do the big reveal.”

“Do you have a favorite?” Lilah asked Izzy and Bridget as they walked to the large, comfortable living room with its lived-in furniture and big river rock fireplace.

Bridget shook her head. “I haven’t seen them yet. You?”

Izzy shook her head as well. “Nope. Trace refused to let me see his work-in-progress.” Under her breath, she added, “Don’t get your expectations up. They may be bragging now, but I heard a lot of cursing behind the closed door of Trace’s office whenever he was in there knitting.”

“Ditto,” Bridget said. “Unless ‘fuck,’ ‘fuck me,’ and ‘fuck this’ are names of stitches, you may want to take these humble efforts home and burn them.”

She laughed and lowered to the middle seat on the deep-cushioned chocolate leather sofa, between her friends. “I would never.”

Archer took the far corner of the loveseat that sat perpendicular to the sofa, next to a yellow gift bag. Trace placed the tray on the wood and leather tufted–top ottoman that doubled as a coffee table before claiming the upholstered easy chair closest to the fireplace that sat angled toward both sofas. Another yellow gift bag sat beside the chair.

Despite the expansive dimensions and vaulted, raw-beamed ceiling, Lilah had always found the room cozy, with its soft amber lighting and natural tones. It bore stamps of Izzy’s urban elegance now, like the trio of cobalt blue blown-glass vases on the mantle and the bold oil painting over the long sofa depicting a southwestern desertscape that had to be from somewhere in her home state of Nevada but somehow worked in the traditional, slightly rustic comfort of the space. Just now, though, the yellow gift bags claimed her attention. Curiosity couldn’t be contained. She held out her hands toward the men. “Can I see them?”

“Better show her yours first,” Archer said to Trace. “It’s going to suffer by comparison once she sees mine, so…”

“Keep talking, pretty boy,” Trace grumbled as he got up and handed Lilah the bag, “and your ass is going to suffer in comparison to my boot.”

“The bigger the guy, the more fragile the ego,” Archer said.

Trace raised a brow. “Bet you’ve got some fragile parts, too. You might be hoping to use them to father children of your own one day. It’d be a shame it—”

“Back off.” Bridget pointed a finger at her brother. “I’m fond of all his parts, so don’t even—”

“Oh. Oh my goodness…” Lilah carefully unfurled the small blanket of variegated blue and purple and held it up to admire the super-chunky crisscross pattern surrounded by a wide, even, tightly stitched border. “It’s beautiful.” She crunched the material and let it spring back. “Warm and soft and…Wow. Perfect. I love it. Shayla’s going to love it. The blue color even matches her eyes. Thank you.”

“’Welcome,” Trace said, looking pleased and aiming a triumphant smile at Archer. “Beat that.”

He shot Trace a cocky look and handed Lilah his bag. She reached in and pulled out a fuzzy, pastel yellow blanket in a pretty—and intricate—basket weave pattern. “God, Archer this is—” She unfurled it to see the whole thing and gasped.

“Shit,” Trace muttered.

Archer simply grinned.

In the center of the blanket, on a flat, square panel with a border that matched the blanket border, was an S monogram.

“Well played, Ellison,” Trace said and leaned out of his chair with his fist extend. “That’s a nice fucking baby blanket.”

Archer leaned in and tapped his fist to Trace’s. “Back at you, man. Your border stitches are flawless. How did you get them so damn tight?”

“It’s all about the needle size. I went a little smaller than what the pattern called for—”

“Hold on,” Bridget said, fingering the edge of Trace’s blanket. “You made these?”

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