Pushing the Boundaries (Picking up the Pieces #3) (23 page)

“Em, babe, it’s going to be fine. You’ll see. You can break him of any of Luke’s bad habits before he’s too far gone. You’ll have your hands full, but you got this.”

“Hey!” Luke said. “My habits aren’t so bad. Any boy would be lucky to have me as a role model. I’m a cop, for Christ’s sake!”

“You tied a ribbon around your dick and gave it to me as a birthday present,” Emmy told him flatly, looking rather unimpressed.

“That was a great gift! Damn, woman, you don’t appreciate me at all.”

Emmy turned back to me with pleading eyes, “Can I move in with you? We can raise the baby together. We’ll be like a lesbian couple, just without the sex. You know, because vaginas are ugly and stuff.”

“That’s blasphemy,” Trevor replied passionately. “Vaginas are beautiful!”

I peeked over my shoulder and narrowed my eyes. “You aren’t helping.”

“Well, it’s true,” he pouted like a little boy. “Don’t worry, Luke; if Emmy moves in here, I’ll pick up the slack and be the kid’s father figure.

“Oh, that’s even worse,” Emmy cried, another round of sobs wracking her body.

“Is she always like this?” Trevor asked with equal parts terror and morbid curiosity.

“Yup, pretty much. But she’s a hellcat in the sack right now. Can’t get enough of me. Pregnancy hormones; they’re a double-edged sword, my friend.”

“You’re an asshole,” Emmy and I said at the same time.

“And there’s my angry baby girl,” Luke said with a grin as he gave her a pat on the head. I was starting to worry for his safety. He might not make it through this pregnancy alive, or at least with his balls intact.

“I hope you enjoy sleeping on the couch, dickhead. ‘Cause you aren’t getting any for the rest of your life.”

“Ah, baby girl,” Luke groused.

“Don’t you ‘baby girl’ me. You did this to me!” she shouted, pointing at her protruding belly. “This is all your fault!”

She shot up from the couch and stormed out of the house with Luke trailing behind her, insisting he didn’t mean it and that she was the smartest, prettiest woman in the whole world. I had no doubt the ass-kissing would last the remainder of the week. Luke was in the doghouse big time! But then again, he was used to being there.

Yep.

Weirdest. Friends. Ever.

Trevor and I sat with my parents, Nana, and Pop Pop around my grandparents’ dining room table, enjoying a surprisingly crazy-free dinner. Even though Nana fawned all over Trevor and Pop Pop went into detail about his irregular bowel movements ever since his doctor put him on a high-fiber diet, things seemed to be going relatively smoothly.

Until Nana brought out dessert.

“Oh, honey, I picked you something up when I was out shopping the other day,” Mom informed me, reaching down beside her chair and lifting up a plastic bag.

“What’s this?” I asked, taking the bag from her hand.

“Open it,” she replied excitedly.

Her excitement was confusing when I opened the bag. “A calendar?”

“Yes!” I shouted with excitement as I just stared. “It’s so you can track your ovulation schedule. You mark down the first day of your last menstrual cycle, then count ahead twelve to fourteen days. That way, you’ll know when you’re the most fertile!”

Uh, what
?

“Why the hell would I need to keep track of that? Mom, they make condoms for a reason. The rhythm method is a little old school,” I told her sarcastically.

“Not to
prevent
pregnancy, smartass,” my mother deadpanned. “It’s so you
can
get pregnant!” she cheered, clapping her hands like a giddy little girl.

“Uh…
what
?”

“You aren’t getting any younger,” Nana added. “Your ovaries are practically drying up as we sit here. You need to get on the ball.”

I laughed and looked over at Trevor to see if he was finding this conversation as funny as I was. The idiot was too busy flipping through the calendar with a pen poised over the days.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“You just had your period, right,
cher
? What was the first day?” he asked, never taking his eyes off the calendar.

“Have you lost your mind?” I shrieked. “We aren’t having a baby!”

“Why not?” he asked seriously, finally looking up to meet my astonished gaze.

“Why not?” I asked incredulously. “Are you being serious right now?” I looked around the table at everyone’s expectant gazes. “This is a joke isn’t it?” I laughed uncomfortably. “Y’all are just screwing with me.”

“You’re already married, Lizzy-Lu. Babies are the next logical step,” Nana told me, her face carved in a serious expression.

“We’ve been married for like, five minutes! And it was only because we got drunk in Vegas. That doesn’t really scream parent material to me.”

“
Pfft
,” Nana waved her hand in the air. “So you’ll fudge the details when you explain how Mommy and Daddy got together. Everyone does it. We never told your mom that she was an unexpected surprise which led to a shotgun wedding.” Her eyes misted over in a dreamy expression. “I’ll never forget that night. We were in the front seat of your grandfather’s truck—”

“Oh, gross!” I cried at the same time Trevor said, “Getcha some, Pop Pop!” and gave him a high-five.

I was in a nightmare.

“Dad, Pop Pop. Come on.” I was trying to play to the sympathies of the only two rational people at the table. I should have known it wouldn’t do me any good.

“Sorry, pumpkin,” Dad responded. “But we know where our bread’s buttered.

“Eww, Dad!”

Pop Pop finally piped up, “He’s right, honey pot. You’re on your own here.”

Spineless bastards
!

“Trev, honey. We can’t have a baby. This is crazy. We’re still getting to know each other! You can’t really want to have a baby right now.”

“Sure I do,” he told me with a big cheesy grin. “I love kids. I always knew I’d have a whole bunch of my own one day.”

“What’s a whole bunch?” I asked, letting him drag me off-topic slightly.

He shrugged casually, “I don’t know, six maybe seven?”

“Are you cra—no, you know what? We aren’t talking about this. Trevor, baby,” I grabbed his hand in mine and stared into his eyes. “Remember what happened this morning? Emmy was a blubbering mess all because she found out her and Luke were having a boy—”

“A boy?” Nana interrupted. “That’s so exciting! That’s going to be one strapping young man.”

I chose to ignore my grandmother and continued trying to appeal to Trevor’s sensible side. “I’d be worse than Emmy! I already go nuts at the drop of a hat. Imagine pregnancy hormones thrown in the mix. I’d probably end up stabbing you accidentally.” I used finger quotes for that last word.

“Eh, I can handle you. Besides, you know I think you’re adorable when you get all fiery-redhead. Just imagine what a little boy of our own would be like!”

“That’s terrifying,” I responded dryly, knowing a Mini-Trevor would be about a thousand times worse than a Mini-Luke. And if we put them together, that would mean the end of the world as we knew it.

“Be sure to prop your hips up on pillows afterwards,” Mom informed Trevor and me. “It’ll make it easier for the sperm to travel up and penetrate the egg.”

Oh, God
.

“Oh! And have sex during a full moon,” Nana added.

“Oh, that’s just bullshit,” I grumbled.

“And take cough syrup. It’ll thin your cervical mucus,” Mom continued.

I threw up in my mouth a little. “Can we please stop talking about this?” I begged, feeling like I was about to lose my dinner.

“You know, I heard if you want to make a boy, doggy-style’s the best position to use,” Nana told us. When I looked over to Trevor, the asshole was taking notes! “And the woman has to have an orgasm for it to be a boy.”

“Please, like that’s a problem,” Trevor scoffed none-too-quietly. I was going to kill him.

“That’s not true, Mom.” My mother jumped in. “James and I got pregnant with Lizzy doing it doggy-style.”

“I’m gonna be sick,” I spoke softly through a gag as I clamped my hand over my mouth.

“But I did hear that missionary is the best way to have a girl. And the woman shouldn’t orgasm.”

“Looks like you’ll be stuck with a houseful of boys,” Trevor told me with a salacious wink.

Suddenly I understood why Emmy was so inconsolable this morning.

After the freak show that was my family dinner, I was in desperate need of a girls’ night out. Emmy had kicked Luke out to go spend time with the guys while Savannah, Mickey and Stacia, and I all congregated around Emmy’s coffee table with multiple bottles of wine…and sparkling cider for Em, of course.

I’d just finished telling them how Nana and Mom went over sex positions as Trevor took notes. Mickey snorted wine up her nose and Emmy had to run to the bathroom. Apparently laughing hysterically while being pregnant led to peeing your pants a little bit.

“So, your mom and grandma actually sat there and drew diagrams?” Savannah asked as I drained my glass and held it out for a refill.

“You say that like you’re surprised,” I grumbled before taking a hearty gulp of my freshly-topped-off wine. “This is
my
family we’re talking about.”

Stacia replied, “This is true. Didn’t your mom give your prom date condoms and tell him she’d hunt his ass down and make him wish he’d never been born if he knocked you up?”

“That’s right!” Emmy shouted, having just returned from the bathroom. “And Nana sat with one of the guys you went on a date and explained the importance of the clitoris and how a woman’s pleasure should always come first.” She fell into another peel of laughter before adding, “Damn it! I just dribbled again,” and ran back to the bathroom.

“Can we please stop rehashing my embarrassing past? Let’s talk about how Emmy can’t stop pissing herself. I personally think that’s earned
at least
a good half hour of teasing.”

“Hardy har har, bitch.” Emmy deadpanned as she walked back into the living room. “Laugh it up now. If Trevor has his way, this’ll be you in no time.”

“Shut your dirty mouth!” No way was I getting pregnant. Even if I wasn’t worried about the uncertainty of my and Trevor’s relationship, I was nowhere near ready to have a baby. It wasn’t something I’d given much thought to. A decision like that deserved a lot of thought and a shit-load of discussing. “I’m still trying to get used to being married and having a disgusting man in my nice, pretty space. I’m not talking babies for a long-ass time.

“You’ll never get used to it,” Stacia informed me. “Gavin and I have lived together for years, and I still want to strangle him with his sweaty socks every time I find one on the floor…which is about six times a day.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Mickey told up. “Maybe it’s just
some
guys. Ben cleans up after himself all the time. He even does the laundry every weekend.”

“Oh, you sweet, ignorant thing,” Savannah cooed. “That’s because he’s still under the misconception that he’ll never get laid again if he lets you see the
real
him. I bet he’s still taking a dump with the bathroom door closed, isn’t he?”

Mickey’s face went from cheerful naivety to leery in two-point-five seconds. “Uh, yeah?”

“See?” I shrieked. “That’s bullshit! Trevor and I are newer than those two,” I threw my hand in Mickey’s direction, “and Trevor just ran out of the bathroom butt-ass naked last night trying to get me to see his shit because it was the biggest one he’d ever laid!”

“Luke did that once,” Emmy said casually. “He swore it was in the shape of the Virgin Mary.”

“Well, was it?” Stacia asked.

“Hell if I know! I wasn’t going to go look at his shit!”

“And what’s the deal with it always sticking to the toilet bowl!” I asked.

“It’s like goddamned napalm,” Savannah answered. “It must be in their genetics. But God forbid we try to get a few minutes’ peace in the bathroom. Jeremy actually found the little key thingy to the bathroom one time and unlocked the door. He sat on the side of the bathtub and started telling me about his day.”

“Oh, sweet Lord, is this the shit I have to look forward to?” Mickey asked, genuine fear radiating from her.

“Yep.” I raised my wine glass in a toasting motion. “Welcome to coupledom, where men are disgusting pigs even in their sleep.”