“Those two are killing me,” I said.
Jack’s face was half-buried in his pillow. He turned and said, “Please remind me why we didn’t stay in Greece?”
“Because we have responsibilities?”
“That’s the worst reason I’ve ever heard.”
I smiled and reached up, pretending to slap him, but he caught my hand. “Remember that night you got all drunk…?”
“We said we weren’t going to talk about that!”
“And you threw a can of beer at a cop car!”
“Jack, we had a deal!”
“No, Jen, our deal was I wouldn’t tell anyone else about it. We never agreed that I couldn’t bring it up.”
“Cheater.”
He thought it was hilarious. It still embarrassed me every time I thought of it. I’d remember that night till the end of my life. But it wasn’t my fault! If a place has an open bar, they should be required by law to tell you how much alcohol is in the cocktails! The details were blurry, but the things I remembered included: dancing on the bar top, shouting at a policeman, throwing the famous can at his car’s windshield and shouting that my rights weren’t being respected. If it hadn’t been for Jack and his million-dollar smile, I’d probably be locked up in a Greek prison for the next decade. I wasn’t proud of any of it, but Jack loved lording it over me.
“Don’t laugh,” I told him. “Remember how you forgot your suntan lotion when we went to the beach, and you played it all cool likeoh, I don’t need it, and then you returned to the hotel that night looking like a boiled lobster? Or that night you fell asleep holding onto the bottle of insect repellent like it was your teddy bear?”
“What did you want me to do? There were mosquitoes everywhere! I can’t help it if they weren’t biting you.”
I laughed, but stopped when I heard Will and Naya slamming against the wall.
“Do they have to make so much noise?” Jack asked.
“I try to let her off the hook because she’s pregnant,” I said. “When I get pregnant, I hope people will cut me some slack, too.”
Wait—had I really just said that? Had he noticed?
I looked over and saw him grinning with narrowed eyes. “What are you getting at, Mushu?”
“Sorry! That just slipped out! Come on now! Obviously, I don’t want kids now!” I corrected myself. “Someday it would be nice, though…right?”
“It could be now for all I care.”
“Uh…” I responded. “I don’t know that we’re in the best place in our lives right now to take care of a baby…”
“It’s never too early to dream,” Jack joked. But it didn’t exactly seem like a joke. I could tell as his face lit up and he added, “Imagine how handsome our kid would be. A mix of the two of us. Definite model material.”
“How humble of you.”
“We couldn’t do it here, though,” he said, looking around. “It’s too crammed in. One thing is Will and Naya, it’s not like I can kick them out anyway, but could you imagine if there weretwokids in this apartment? Kids need space to run around. They’re like little animals. When I was small, my parents always had me out in the yard, because I was basically a one-man wrecking crew inside… No, this place won’t do. But I’ll do another film, make some real money, and we can buy a mansion. Problem solved. Or you could use those paints I got you to do one of those abstract pieces, like a line across a canvas, and sell it to some idiot for a hundred million dollars.”
“Jack, why are we talking about this now? Relax a little.”
He blinked with surprise, then looked at me close. I wanted to knowwhat he was thinking, but before I could ask, he continued: “Sorry, I’ve just never been in a position to actually think about something like that before. Having a home, a family.”
Was he blushing? I thought so, and that wasn’t something Jack did often, which meant his words must have been sincere. Was it painful for him to admit that? Because I didn’t want him stressed, or worried, or tense. We had all the time in the world, but for some reason, the topic of children had made him frantic. He almost seemed resistant as I wrapped my arms around him.
“How come?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I always thought I’d end up living alone. The same way you can just tell Will and Naya are one of those unbearable couples who end up with five kids, two dogs, a cat, a hamster, and a beach house for the summer, I just knew the best I could hope for was to be the cool uncle who travels and brings back presents from exotic countries. And cool Uncle Jack, you know, part of what makes him cool is his bachelor lifestyle.”
“You know things aren’t just black-and-white like that, right? There are many shades of cool and not cool. And everybody’s life is its own adventure. Like, imagine if you were cooldadJack and you took your kids traveling with you and they brought back gifts for Uncle Will and Aunt Naya and their cousins? That could happen.”
