I flip on a light so I don’t look like a creep, and they both glance up at me. Their easy smiles grow unsteady, but remain on their faces.
“Hey, Jack,” says Arthur. “Did you eat already?”
“Frozen pizza.”
“Dang.” He snaps his fingers. “We didn’t eat yet. Bennett, do you want fast food?”
I’m surprised they didn’t stuff their faces at the theater. Maybe it was too expensive. Prices have gone up these days, and it makes me feel old to remember how much a bucket of popcorn used to cost.
“Want to come?” Bennett asks me. “I know you already ate.”
“No, that’s fine.” I wave them off.
“I’ll get you some ice cream,” Arthur says in a tone that’s almost apologetic, then the two of them hustle back out the door. When it closes behind them, I’m certain of it.
Something is amiss, my instinct is telling me. I just wish I knew what.
The following week, I decide to put my foot down at the office and come home earlier. I think my husbands need more of my attention if they are in the throes of rutting season the way I am. Besides, it will be creating better patterns for when the fawn comes. Then, after it joins our family, my biology will change, and I won’t have to suffer through this every spring.
I just have to make it that long.
Bree
Every night, like a good surrogate, I pee on the stick, turn it upside down, and wait the required time. Then I flip it over and check.
Friday: Single line.
Saturday: Single line.
Sunday: Single line.
Monday: Double line?—
I freeze after turning over the test. There it is. The symbol that we’ve done it.
Holy shit. I’m going to have a baby. I’m pregnant for the first time in my entire life and I’m really doing this.
Yanking out my phone, I prepare to text Mangelli. But in a moment my brain catches up and I stop myself.
He’ll find out as soon as I get the result verified by DreamTogether. Then they don’t have to keep any secrets from Jack.
I still wonder what they meant about protecting him.
After calling it in, the techs at DreamTogether ask me to come into the clinic. There, they do all sorts of tests, then a very uncomfortable ultrasound, before determining that yes, I am pregnant. Yes, there is a single baby satyr growing inside me. If everything goes to plan, it’ll pop out in ten months.
I’m grinning as I head home. Finally, Mangelli and Bennett will get what they’ve wanted, and I’ll receive a real nice check every month to pay for my expenses. Maybe I’ll take a little time off from the cam, go on a trip or something. I haven’t traveled at all since I started my business while I was still working at the tea shop with Tilly. Couldn’t afford it.
Maybe I’ll see if she wants to go with me somewhere warm. Besides, I’ll need something to get my mind off those two satyrs after they’re gone.
Bennett
The three of us are in a pile on the couch, watching the latest award winner movie—yawn—when Jack’s phone rings. He got home surprisingly early today, which is a nice change of pace.
He picks up the phone languidly, as we all assume it’s spam now when a phone rings. But then he freezes.
“Turn the movie off,” he snaps at Arthur, who hurriedly presses pause. “It’s DreamTogether.”
Now all of us are completely still, holding our breath as Jack answers the phone.
