“Yeah? How so?”
“You have an air of authority about you.”
I snort. “Me?”
“Yeah,you,” Bo says, narrowing his eyes playfully. “You’re steady… like you have a calm under pressure way about you that I admire.”
“Calm…” I say incredulously. “Me? Did you happen to miss my spiral aboutdinnera few hours ago?”
“But that’s the thing. You communicated it all and we got on the same page. Now we’re a better team. That’s what a good director does.”
“Oh, and you’d know that. Fromallyour experience on set.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s it, then?” I say, looking over at the deck as Bo tucks it away inside the box. “We finished the first question?”
“Yep.” He places the cards down on the coffee table. “Guess in nineteen more questions, we’ll be in love.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively before checking his watch. “Want to watch a movie or something?” he asks. “I could grab my laptop.”
“Sure,” I say. “You can introduce me to this Andy fella.”
“Well, which one of his movies haven’t you seen?”
I stare back at him blankly.
“Which one haven’t you seen, Win?” Bo asks, concerned. I scrunch my face, looking up at the ceiling. “Have… have you not seenLord of the Rings?” he asks, his voice slow and near cracking.
I shake my head, a small whisper of a laugh escaping me when his face quickly switches from pure horror to shock to amusement. Bo checks his watch, then looks back at me, then the coffee table, as if he’s calculating something. Then he looks back to his watch again. It’s strangely endearing how much this information has rocked him.
“Okay, if we start now, we can make it through the extended edition ofFellowship of the Ringbefore midnight.”
“Midnight?” I ask wearily. “How longisit?”
“It’s probably better that you don’t know.” He stands abruptly, moves to circle the couch, then stills. “Icannotbelieve I’m having a baby with aLord of the Ringsvirgin.” he says, near whispering. “This is amazing…” He takes off jogging toward his bedroom.
“I swear you were less excited to have sex with me than you are right now!” I call after him.
“Honestly? Maybe!” he shouts back from down the hall.
I made it two hours into the movie before I rested my head on Bo’s shoulder and drifted to sleep.
CHAPTER 18
Sixteen Weeks Pregnant. Baby is the size of an avocado.
Thispastweek,Boand I have fallen into a familiar pattern. I’ve had morning shifts all week, so I get up early, brew a pot of coffee so Bo has some when he wakes up, and head off to work. I go for a swim at the gym after work and arrive home just as Bo’s starting to prepare dinner. We eat together on the couch and tell each other about our days—not that I could explain to you in detail what Bo does for a living. He usually loses me once the worddatais thrown around.
Still, I find that he’s so excited to tell me every part of his day that if I nod enthusiastically and smile along, it doesn’t matter if I truly understand. And I do like the way his face lights up when he talks about work. It inspires me to think of what I’d like to do after the baby. A camp might be the very big future dream, but maybe there’s a step between that might fulfil me more.
After dinner, I clean up, soundtracked by whichever record Bo selects from his mom’s collection. Yesterday we listened to “The Best of Etta James” and the night before was U2’s “Joshua Tree.” Joanna, like her son, was a woman of eclectic taste. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Bo’s mom while listening and doing the dishes, actually.
I wonder whether she somehow knows about the baby, like I’m hoping Marcie does. I like to think that they’re both in heaven, the ether, the afterlife—whateveryou want to call it—proudly watching us fumble our way into parenthood.
Then, once I’m done with my daydreaming and tidying-up, we pull a question from the deck. The questions are a great tool to take little peeks at the inside workings of Bo’s brilliant, albeit strange, mind. What I find most interesting, so far, is that Bo seems to be someone who’s entirely indifferent or extremely opinionated andrarelyin between.
You bring forty-six houseplants into the guy’s home, and he barely bats an eye. But you defend orange juice with pulp in it, and he’s ready to go to war.
Yesterday’s question—what is your most controversial take?—turned a normally agreeable Bo argumentative in mere minutes.I was mostly joking when I suggested that juice with pulp was superior if not equal to juice without. I was not expecting the guy to fly off the handle, but,oh,was it entertaining to watch.
