“Wow.” Jem cleared his throat, feeling like he’d fallen short of the enthusiasm a best friend should show for this kind of thing. “Then congratulations, obviously. You’re going to be great at it.”
Tori smiled, uncharacteristically shy. “Thanks. Ivy wants—we both want—a family that’s like, ours, you know, so, I mean. Originally she was like, what if Mike is our sperm donor—”
Jem tried to control it. He wanted so badly to be supportive. But he could feel his eyes bulging in horror.
“—but I said I’d suck my uterus out with a toilet plunger before I let Mike’s jizz anywhere near me, and she said yeah, that’s fair.”
“Thank God.”
“Right?” She shook her head. “I don’t know what she was thinking. And then she said, well—actually that’s when she said she wants to be the one to carry the baby? So she said maybe it’s better if my brother does the, you know.” She mimed jerking off.
Jem was still nodding until he realized, “Uh, Victoria, you don't have a brother.”
Tori just looked at him, patient and earnest. “Jem.”
Ohshit. “You wantmeto—” He realized how loud he was getting and adjusted. “You want me to knock up your wife?!”
“Not, like, in person or anything. Gross!”
So anyway, shortly afterward Jem and Tori and Ivy had gone from being family to beingfamilyfamily, and Jem was still kind of awestruck that he got to be part of it. He dropped a kiss on Ivy’s cheek when he came in, then took in the legal pad, three highlighters, two pens, and the phone she had in front of her and shot a betrayed look at Tori. “You already talked to her?”
“Jem, I love you but I am the world’s most committed lesbian. If you want to hook some male-attracted whale to payyour bills, we’re gonna need an assist from a certified man-appreciator.”
He turned to Ivy. “You’ve been with Tori for like five years; your certification still valid?”
“Oh, yeah,” Ivy deadpanned. “I renew every year when I do my license plate. But I do my best work when someone’s making me dinner.”
“Guess I better get started, then.” Jem rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands, and got to work.
At the kitchen table, Tori opened the app on his phone and read through the profile questions while Ivy made notes by hand.
“Okay, first question, Mr. James Anderson.” She must’ve had to fill out his legal name. “Do you have a preferred gender for your sugar parent.”
“Not really.” He splashed a bit of olive oil in the bottom of a Dutch oven. “You know I’m bi.”
“What if you get matched with someone who’s nonbinary?”
“Can you put pan?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Like, I’m not interested in what’s in anyone’s pants, I only care about what’s in their wallets.”
“We are not putting that in your profile,” Ivy said primly.
“We should,” Tori dissented. “Jem should get a sugar daddy who appreciates his humor.”
Jem had no opinion on that, so he shrugged and pushed a handful of ground beef into the pot.
Ivy cleared her throat. “Moving on.”
There was a beat, and then Tori read the next question. “What kind of arrangement are you looking for? This one is like, three-part multiple choice. The first part is how often you’re willing to meet with someone, from once a month tomultiple times a week, and the second part is whether you’re looking for short- or long-term partnerships, and the last one is whether you’re open to multiple simultaneous partnerships. Then there’s, like, a spot for you to write specifics.” She paused. “Let’s go with no on the multiples. Like, this is baby’s first paid situationship.”
“Yeah, duh. Thanks, Tori.” He stirred the meat to break it up. “Let’s go with two or three times a week tops, weekends preferred, one weekday per week max, and long-term.” It wasn’t like he had a lot of homework to mark, but he still had to do evaluations and lesson plans and write report card comments, and sometimes the kids just took it out of him.
The next section apparently concerned Jem’s areas of expertise, which Tori could fill out as well as he could by this point.
“You speak Spanish?” Ivy asked, peering over Tori’s shoulder as she scrolled through the questions.
“I’m not fluent, but yeah. Maria who runs the day care with my mom is Mexican.” Jem had basically grown up in that day care, and plenty of the other employees at the golf course had been immigrants too, so he’d picked up a fair amount.
“Got it. Oh, hey, scroll back up. You forgot to click that he plays guitar.”
