“Then why don’t you want his babies, Lissa?” Ami’s voice was all saccharine sweet.
“Stop teasing your sister,” Dad said, as he had at nearly every family dinner for the past ten years.
“I wouldn’t have to tease her if she’d tell me sh—stuff.”
“It’s fine, Dad. I met the wrong guy,” Elissa answered, refusing to meet her sister’s gaze. She twirled some lo mein on her fork. “Not just wrong for me, but the wrong guy. I found out later the guy I was supposed to meet couldn’t make it.”
“You went on a blind date with a total stranger? The unpredictable disappointment box has already been filled. Stay in your own!”
“You are not a disappointment, Ami,” their mother said.
Ami waved away her words, laser focused on Elissa. She was much more interested in getting the details of this sub-Reddit worthy disaster of a date.
“The guy I met expected different things from a relationship. I called Nice-Ryan, and we rescheduled to Tuesday. A funny story to tell someday.”
She still didn’t find it funny, especially since Jerk-Ryan still insisted on giving her erotic dreams every night. It would stop, she was sure, once she met Nice-Ryan. She would request a picture this time, and she wouldn’t turn off her phone until he walked into the restaurant.
“Nice-Ryan?” Ami asked, a cat-who-ate-the-canary grin on her face.
Elissa hadn’t met to let that slip.
“The other guy’s name was Ryan, too,” she mumbled.
“So what do you call him? Not-quite-right-Ryan? Wrong-Ryan? Creep-Ryan?”
“Shut up. It’s not my fault. He said his name was Ryan and seemed pleasant enough until the end.”
“What? Did he say lewd things to you? Whisper in your ear, tell you what he’d do to you in the bedroom? You could use some lewdness in your life,” Ami teased.
Elissa’s face heated.
“Ami…” Mom said, and their dad cleared his throat.
Ami closed her mouth with a click of the teeth. Her cheeks reddened. She’d forgotten their parents were in the room. Ami always itched to push the envelope, but she usually waited until the two of them were alone.
“Sorry,” her sister mumbled. “So why did Nice-Ryan stand you up?”
“Family emergency.”
“You two will be the perfect match. Before long, Mom will have those grandchildren she refuses to acknowledge she wants.”
“I am too young to be a grandmother,” Mom protested, but there was a hint of a blush on her cheeks.
“You’d be the most beautiful grandmother in the room.” Dad intertwined their fingers and gazed adoringly at her.
“Eww,” Leo said.
“Yeah, I’m with stinky boy. Eww,” Ami chimed in, doing a fist bump with Leo.
“Oh, Elissa, on the way back from the doctor’s, your mom and I talked about a getaway to celebrate the good news. Will you be around to stay with Leo sometime in the next month?”
“I don’t need anyone to stay with me. I’m almost eighteen,” Leo said.
“In nine months,” Dad reminded him.
“If she can’t, I can.” Ami took a long sip of her wine.
“No!” their parents said in unison.
