“I’ll have whatever she’s having,” Bo answers.
“Got it.”
“He called us lovebirds,” I whisper when Kevin disappears out of view.
“Did he?”
I nod, watching the woman next to us pick up her baby out of the aforementioned stroller and tuck them close to her chest. She bounces while shushing the baby, holding them against her with one hand as she forks her salad with her other.
I try to visualise whether I’ll be able to do such a thing, my hand subconsciously rising to my shoulder.
“You okay?” Bo asks, his voice soft and low.
I shake myself, lowering my hand. “Sorry… I’m fine.”
Bo looks toward the same table, the small baby in the woman’s arms, and back to me. He purses his lips and nods, letting his head hang between us. “I’m worried that our kid will be really into sports, running or soccer or something, and I won’t be able to keep up.”
I detach from my haze and snap back to focus. “What? No. Bo, you’re working on a prosthesis that hardly fits, and you’restilldoing great. Soon you’ll have one that works much better, and you’ll be able to run or do whatever you want. Plus, you kick with your right foot, not your left. Even if we come against barriers, we’ll figure it out.”
“I’m worried they’ll be embarrassed, though. That their dad is different.”
“No, they’ll beourkid. They’ll have empathy and kindness and—” I stop myself, noticing Bo’s proud smile.
“Go on…” he says teasingly.
No, I don’t think I will.
“You were saying?” he asks, a cheeky smile tipped into his glass of water.
“Were you tricking me into talking to myself just now?”
He nods, his shoulders lowering as he places his elbows on the table and hunches forward. “Maybe…”
“How did—how could you tell? I—”
“You frowned when she picked up her fork the second time,” he interrupts.
I look away, feelingfartoo perceived for my liking. And yet a piece of me is grateful for it. It’s so much easier to communicate insecurities when you don’t need to communicate them at all. Isn’t that all we ever want? To be seen and heard? Validated, even when we’re not able to ask for it.
“Well, it’s different for me. It’s not the same.”
“How so?”
“Think of all the expressions there arejustfor moms. ‘She’s going to have her hands full!’ Or ‘you’re going to need an extra set of hands!’” I tuck my hair behind my ear. “It’s intimidating. There are a lot of things I can barely do for myself, let alone for someone else. I mean, you’ve seen me with buttons.”
“We’re going to find solutions though, right? We’ll make it work. Like you said, we’ll figure it out together.”
“Yeah, I know,” I agree, though I can hear how unconvincing I am.
“As capable as you think I am, it’s far less than how capable I think you are,” he says, argumentatively. “Maybe what we lack in limbs, we make up for in enthusiasm and wits. Who else do you know that could go swimming, launch a business plan, and name a baby all before lunch?”
It’s alatelunch, though, to be fair. “We did most of those things together, so I can hardly take credit.”
“And that’s what we’re going to keep doing. Working together. That’s the whole point of this.” He gestures between us. “Isn’t it? Being a good team?”
“Yeah,” I agree, a little more convincingly.
“Win, Bo, and Gus are gonna take over the world,” he says in an obscenely dramatic, theatrical voice.
