Page 40 of The Devil Gets His Due

Ourchild. It’s absolutely amazing. I never wanted a kid. I never wanted the responsibility of a kid. But I have it. And inside me, already, something has shifted. Something matters a million times more than my fears, my plans, and I’m looking at it right now.

“I’m assuming you don’t want to know the gender,” Julie says, which is when I realize Keeley is very intentionallynotlooking at the screen.

“You don’t want to know?” I ask. She’s desperate for a girl, and I’d have thought she’d want to know ASAP so she could blow every penny she makes on baby designer dresses.

“I’m not sure,” she says.

Idowant to know. I want to plan. There’s a part of me that thinks the answer will help get it through Keeley’s head that this is happening, but there’s clearly more going on here than meets the eye. If Keeley isn’t ready for this, I’m not going to force the issue.

“Maybe they can write it down for us?” I suggest, looking at her. “And put it in an envelope?”

Keeley smiles up at me as if I’ve just done something heroic. It makes me wish I really had.

We walkto Whole Foods after the appointment because the overlap between healthy foods and foods Keeley is willing to eat is painfully small, and I’m running out of options.

She takes a seat on the patio while I go in to get our sandwiches. When I return, she’s holding the envelope up to the sun.

“Cut it out.” I snatch it away from her. “If you want to look, we’ll look, but you’re not going to do that and claim you discovered it byaccidentlater on.”

Keeley barely seems to have heard me. She’s too busy tearing into her sandwich.

“Oh my God,” she groans. “It’ssogood.”

I flinch and adjust myself. My life would be infinitely easier if she wouldn’t make everything sound so goddamn sexual. But maybe it’s just that every moan and groan and inhalation triggers a specific, filthy memory of her making those sounds beneath me.

“What do you think of the name Maddox for a boy, by the way?” she asks.

“He sounds like a runaway who’s turned to sex work to survive life on the streets.”

“So that’s a maybe, then,” she says cheerfully. “I like Kalamity for a girl. Spelled with a ‘k’, though.”

“At least we won’t have to worry about paying for college.”

She laughs, but then deflates only seconds later.

I follow her gaze to the girls walking past us in skimpy shorts and half-shirts. “Jesus Christ,” I say quietly after they’re gone. “I don’t want a daughter.”

Keeley sets the second half of her sandwich down on the brown paper wrapper.

“What’s the matter?”

She glances back at them and her face grows longer. “Nothing.”

“You’ll lose the weight,” I offer helplessly. “I know it’s—”

Her mouth falls open. “Oh my God, are you saying I’mbiggerthan those girls?”

And that’s when I know I’ve fucked up and there’s really no way to salvage this. “Well, obviously. You’resupposedto put on wei—”

“I’m not bigger than those girls!” she cries, though obviously she is.I mean, she must realize…but that’s not relevant right now.

I set my own sandwich down. “Keeley…you’re pregnant. It would be worrisome if you hadn’t gained…gotten...I have no idea what to say here.”

Her face is a storm cloud, eyes narrowed, mouth in a child’s pout. “It’s not about the weight, which is mostly in my rack and fuckingspectacularat the moment.”

She isn’t wrong, but I’m not even going to touch that one. I scrub a hand over my face. “Then why are you upset?”

She stares at the uneaten second half of her sandwich, unable to meet my eyes. “I’m never going to go to Coachella again,” she whispers. “I just realized I’m never going to Coachella again. And also, that I have to learn to cook, and I don’t want to.”

---