Our first holidays together are fucking brilliant. Audrey contributes Kentucky garlic cheese grits to our Thanksgiving dinner. She isn’t intimidated by Poet’s often-loud family, and her parents drive down on the weekend to have their second Thanksgiving with us. We take them out to dinner at The Glenn and show off Audrey’s wedding ring.

“No wedding?” Farah asks.

“The Hayes family doesn’t do weddings,” Audrey says before I can.

Frowning immediately, Cooper grumbles, “I distinctly recall Angus Hayes having a wedding.”

“He’s old school. We’re new school.”

“Are you sure?” Farah asks.

“Of course. I never liked attending weddings, and I don’t want to be the main attraction at one. Besides, can you imagine me having to pick a maid of honor between my new family and my old one? The cat fights alone would make it a clusterfuck.”

“Vaughn’s twins would claw each other’s eyes out to get the spot,” Cooper says while enjoying his steak. “Then your fathead boyfriend’s sister would end up poisoning everyone to win. Yeah, I can’t imagine that turning out well.”

“My head’s not fat,” I whine to Cooper who rolls his eyes.

Grinning at Audrey, I love how her father still gets his balls in a lather over my teasing. I don’t know what will ever prove to him that I’m the best damn thing that ever happened to his baby daughter.

We learn less than a year later that the secret to warming his heart is to give him a grandson. Fucking hell if Cooper Johansson doesn’t turn into a sappy diva when he holds his first grandchild.

On Valentine’s Day—and her parents’ wedding anniversary—Audrey tells me she’s pregnant. Talk about turning a dreaded holiday into a celebration.

We finally move into our house around May. Two months later, Keanu snaps up a rental place a few blocks over and immediately shows up at my door to ask for sugar. I swear everything comes together so easily until we find out our first child will be a boy.

“I had a name ready for a girl,” Audrey says when we get the news. More than once, she explained to me how the name Holly was special to her because she and her mom used to watch “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” together. “I don’t care what we name the boy. Casper Junior works fine.”

“Nope, but I’ll start working on it.”

Easier said than done, we’re still playing with names late in the pregnancy. First, we rule out C and M names since we already have a shitload of them in our family. Audrey prefers names that work best for a son who’ll grow up to be a sweaty rocker riddled with STDs. I nix those out of the gate. I’m a fan of quirky names like Dickens because I think it’d be fun to call my son, Dick. Audrey laughs at me so hard when I suggest the name that I almost refuse to have sex with her. She might as well have said “eww.”

Despite what people warn, our baby isn’t a giant, and Audrey never looks like a womb with arms and legs in the way Cricket predicts. To apologize, my sister regularly applauds whenever Audrey enters a room.

Despite the easy pregnancy and our otherwise organized life, we still manage to have no name for our baby by the time Audrey is prepped for her C-section surgery. Catching sight of my father and Keanu out in the waiting room, I’m finally inspired by a name so perfect that I can’t believe it hadn’t come to me earlier.

“Keith,” I tell Audrey as she chills from her epidural.

“Like from the Stones?”

“No, like what my father used to call Keanu. Our son’s name can be a tribute to two of the most important men in my life.”

“A weird tribute.”

“How does that not fit who we are?” I ask, kissing her hand.

Chewing on ice chips, Audrey shrugs. “Okay, but I’m telling people he’s named after Keith Richards.”

“Yes, because a drug-addled, Crypt-Keeper, STD spreading—”

Waving away my comment, she smiles. “Point taken, but I’m the one about to have your baby cut out of my gut. Why don’t we agree to disagree and move on?”

“Keith, it is.”

“What about a middle name?”

“I have my mother’s maiden name.”

“It’s like your parents didn’t even try,” she says, bursting into nervous giggles. “I’m about to be sliced open.”

Stroking her hair, I lean down to whisper, “I know you’re scared, but you’ve been a warrior these nine months. You’re almost done being pregnant. Then you can heal while I pamper you. You’ll say jump, and I’ll say how high.”

“My sexy servant,” she says, exhaling her tension. “I’m so excited to see our baby. And hold our boy Keith Hayes.”

I smile big for Audrey and keep smiling through the surgery, but I’m fucking dying of fear inside. My stomach remains in knots even after Keith is delivered and Audrey is resting comfortably in her recovery room. I can’t stop panicking, but I put on a brave show for our families who stream in and out of the room before we’re finally alone for the night.

“I can’t wait to eat solids,” Audrey says two hours after the surgery. That night, she eats a few bites of hospital food, announces she wants to puke, and decides she’d rather sleep than anything else.

“We can send the baby to the nursery if you want,” Audrey offers as her eyelids grow heavy.

“I don’t trust anyone alone with our boy. I’ll keep him in here while you sleep. If I need help and you’re zonked out, I have people I can call.”

Audrey smiles, shivering slightly. “He’s so beautiful, isn’t he? Like gorgeous even for a red-faced, wrinkled, old man.”

“He’s the best-looking baby ever born. That’s why I don’t trust one of those nurses not to steal him.”

“You are so paranoid,” she says, closing her eyes. “I find that incredibly sexy. Fuck authority.”

With those two final words, Audrey is out. I cover her up and walk to where our baby sleeps. Keith is smaller than I expect. I don’t remember my siblings’ babies being this small. Though at eight pounds, he isn’t considered tiny.

I am nervous as hell about when he wakes up, and I’m forced to embrace my untested fathering skills. However, Keith only whines for a second before I’m on the job. So focused on allowing Audrey to sleep, I forget all about how I don’t know how to be a dad. I just do what I did with my nieces and nephews. Change diapers? Check. Feed baby? Check. Cuddle baby? Check. Put baby down to sleep? Check.

Fuckety-fuck if fatherhood isn’t second nature to me. I try not to brag, but I have that shit down. I can even strut while carrying my son. Can Chipper claim the same?

“Yes, asshole, I strutted just fine,” he says weeks later, but I don’t buy it.

“I never saw you strut once.”

“I strutted, pranced, and even breakdanced. You only wish you were as cool as me.”

Audrey and Tatum give us a mutual eye roll, but my brother and I are too busy trying to one-up each other to care.

“I can change a diaper and satisfy my woman at the same time,” I announce.

“I can change a diaper, satisfy my woman, read my older kids a story, and mow the lawn at the same time.”

Tatum laughs so hard at his bragging that I think Chipper will cry later when they’re alone. Even if he doesn’t, I decide to imagine that scenario whenever I’m stressed about Keith crying in the middle of the night. Nothing puts me in a better mood than fantasizing about Chipper weeping at how I out-bragged him.

“I don’t want another baby right away,” Audrey announces one night after I finish boasting about my skills. “I know it’ll mess up the family’s symmetry, but let’s enjoy Keith for a few years before we think about a second child.”

I cuddle next to her in bed and gaze down at our sleeping baby. “Are you worried we’ll have another boy and the horrible name search will begin again?”

“No, I worry I won’t be able to hold more than one kid at a time, so one of them will always be left out.”

“I have a set of arms too.”

Audrey gives me that look she wears whenever I try to steal the baby from her. The woman just loves holding Keith. One day, he’ll start walking, and I can’t imagine what she’ll do to fill the hole his independence leaves behind. Possibly, my hot body can help distract her. Of course, too much naked time together will likely end with us having another baby. I’m okay with that result. I’m also fine if Keith is our only child. I’ve always viewed micromanaging life as an unhealthy way to live. After all, I never could have planned for a woman like Audrey, and she’s proven to be the gift that keeps on giving.