Tammy groans. “Stop poking.”
“You like being poked.”
She twists, looks up, and nibbles my chin. I’m hard now and wanna fuck her again. The baby needs to come, and the good doctor said we can try having sex more often to induce labor. I took that as a mission, so I’m sure Tammy’s pussy is sore. Still no baby. But I can’t complain if I don’t complete the mission for a few more days, because I won’t see that pussy for the next month or more.
As I listen to my girls call out the count, I try not to think about Tammy’s labor and what I saw when she was delivering Leah. This time around, I’m not gonna watch as closely. I saw her pussy stretch and spit out a baby. Nope, I’m good with standing behind her this time.
A leg kicks out, and I poke it back. A leg kicks out again. Aww, life is good.
“That’s a great idea,” Tammy says and moves to get her phone, but she’s so heavy that she topples over my leg and stays there, laughing, arms outstretched, reaching for her purse.
I hand her the purse so she can dig out her phone. She does, and I drag her back up to lean on me, watching while she pulls up the notes app and starts the furious thumb typing.
Tammy quit the diner and writes books full time. She has a lot of these ideas popping into her head. Last time she had an idea, she spent the night in her office and wrote ten thousand words. Meanwhile, the last thing I wrote this month wasmineon a take-out box. If you don’t claim it, it’s gone, and sometimes, even when I do claim it, it’s gone.
“Eleven,” Reagan shouts, and I hear her curse and run around. Leah’s trying to catch up to her to put the eleventh egg in the basket, but Regan is fast, zipping through the crowds like a ricochet. Most kids have given up already.
My girls are still searching, though, because they know all things worth having take effort, and when most give up, the hard girls get moving.
Two minutes later and still missing two eggs, I’m getting a bit nervous I’ll have to give them the failure-as-motivation speech, but Leah screeches at the top of her lungs and holds up one egg. “Twelve!”
“Wohoo,” I cheer from the sidelines. “One more for Team MacLoyd. Come on.”
Leah throws the egg in the basket and crawls into bushes. Cuts, cuts, cuts. Shit. “Baby, watch your eyes,” I holler, then prop myself up, taking Tammy with me.
She drops her phone and turns up her face. “Stay down, Reed.”
“There’s gonna be cuts on her.” I’m such a pussy when it comes to my girls. If it were my team, I’d tell themno pain, no gainbut I don’t say that to my girls.
When Leah doesn’t come out, I stand and take Tammy with me, then go around her. I’m gonna get my kid out of the bushes when she says, “My water broke.”
You can’t plan this shit. None of it, and girl number four is coming. (We haven’t decided on a name yet.)
“Team MacLoyd, we gotta go,” I shout. We’re too loud. People are giving me dirty looks, but fuck ’em.
“One more, Dad,” Reagan shouts back.
“No more. The water broke.”
“Gimme a minute,” she counters.
Christ. Bent over, Tammy’s walking toward the car, so I know she’s having contractions, and Reagan won’t give up. She can’t. She can smell the final egg. A bloodhound, that one, like her daddy, which is me in all the ways but one, but that one doesn’t count in our book. I’m a father, not a sperm donor.
I walk to the bushes and find Leah standing over an egg that’s definitely not an Easter egg. It must’ve fallen from the tree.
“Pick it up, baby. It’s your lucky egg.”
“Will it count?”
“Sure it will.”
Leah hands me the egg and the basket and crawls out. Reagan and Melany meet us at the bushes, and we all jog to the car and get in. I turn and count my kids as I peel off, gunning the minivan toward the hospital.
“Reed, we need to stop by the house,” Tammy says between labored breaths.
“Why?”
“I need the bag.”
