Jared
I never thought I'd see the day where Jamie can't decide between a pink blanket with white hearts or a green blanket with yellow stars.
"This should be illegal. I mean fuck, look at how goddamn adorable this is," he groans, holding up a third choice: a white blanket with little rubber ducks on it. "This is why men don't do the baby shopping stuff."
I roll my eyes at him. "Don't be an ass. You know that hasn't been true for the last thirty years or so. Besides, you have to admit, this is kind of fun." I toss him a giant fluffy white bunny, the floppy ears nearly knocking him over.
"Pfft." There's a small gasp and when I turn back around,
Jamie's got two large suction cups over his chest, laughing like some kind of
idiot. "Check this out, man!" He turns on the demo model of the
breast pump, the sound of it drawing attention from a lady passing by, giving
the both of us dirty looks.
I flip through the list I made earlier after checking out 'Daddy's No-Bullshit
Guide to Babies.'
"Yeah, they do say that breastfeeding is better, but I don't want to put that kind of pressure on Abi if she's not really into it. Maybe we should ask her first on this one."
Jamie snorts, still laughing over the way his shirt is slowly being sucked into the vacuum suctions. "I think this will put plenty of pressure on her. Holy shit, that's going to be hilarious to watch. It'll be like milking a cow…I very sexy cow."
"Do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth?" I ask, shaking my head at him. “You better hope Abi doesn’t hear you referring to her that way.”
In the end, we decided to get all three blankets because babies apparently piss and crap themselves like crazy so logic. Jamie even put in a request for the ridiculous bunny, citing something about the baby needing a solid collection of stuffed animals to start its life off right. I had to physically remove the breast pump from his hands, though.
"You know, it'll be nice when we don't have to keep referring to the baby as an 'it,'" I tell him as we pull up to Abi's apartment building. "When is she supposed to find out that kind of thing, anyway, I wonder?"
“No idea. Why don’t you consult your ‘Nerd’s Guide to Knocking Up a Chick?’” Jamie nods to the parking space that Abi's car usually occupies, and it hits me that she's working today.
"Oh, right. I forgot she's at Dandies’ today. We can just drop
everything off at our place, then."
He looks back at the piles of baby stuff we've already accumulated as I park
the van, a weird expression clouding his face. "You don't think we overdid
it, do you? Like, Abi's not going to be pissed, right?"
I glance in the rearview, looking at it all myself. Our mom rarely talks about it now, but we understood it was hard for her as a single mom having to provide for not one, but two kids on her own. There were plenty of birthdays that went by where we only had cake and whatever one toy we wanted to pick out from the discount store.
"Nah. Our kid is going to have whatever it needs. Simple as that." I'm just about to pull away from the curb when something catches my eye. "Hey, do you see that shutter over there?" I ask, pointing toward the apartments again.
"Shutter? What the hell?" Jamie follows my line of sight. "What, at Abi's?"
I frown, staring at the slightly crooked thing. "It looks off."
"No, no, no. You're full of shit. I fixed that a few days ago,
man."
I shrug. "Well, then you did a shitty job. I'm going to go fix it real
quick." I pull back over to the front of the building, and throw the van
into park, yanking open the back door to grab my tool bag. "I told you
you'd need those longer screws, jackass."
"Motherfucker..." Jamie mumbles, following after me up the
path to Abi's.
After unscrewing all the too-short for shit screws, I toss them into the bag
and pull out the right size, Jamie pretty much fuming as I hand him one.
"Make sure to get it in there good."
We set to work and in no time flat, we have the shutter in a level position. I stand back, admiring the work.
"Yeah, well that's all well and good, but you're forgetting something," Jamie suggests, an obvious smugness in the way he shrugs at me.
"Please do tell," I sigh.
"Probably should seal it up. Just for good measure."
And of course, he'd say that—it's kind of known that he has a steadier hand for it than I do.
Naturally, he picks up the caulking gun with a smirk.
"Better?" I ask, rolling my eyes at how deliberately slow Jamie's moving.
He looks back at me from over his shoulder. The grin says it all. Bastard.
The grass behind us rustles too loudly for it to be the breeze, and we both turn at the same time to see none other than Cody standing there awkwardly, clearly debating on whether he's going to say anything or not. His eyes widen slightly.
The red that bleeds into my vision goes hazy, and my hands are grabbing fistfuls of this asshole's shirt, ready to beat him to a bloody pulp. All the things he did to Abi, the way he did her wrong...and then Jamie's shoving me backward, yanking me until I can't move more than a foot away.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Cody?” Jamie spits.
"I was passing and saw you fixing up Abi’s place. I just wanted to thank you for looking after my girl and all. I know Abi and I haven't been doing so good but that’s all gonna change."
Jamie has to yank me even harder at the mention of 'my girl.' I'm ready to fucking explode.
"You dumb motherfucker! Who the hell do you think you are?" I scream at him, spit flying out of the corners of my mouth.
"You don’t need to be like that. Abi and I are going to work things out and then we’re gonna be family."
"You can fuck straight off," I growl, finally shoving away from Jamie as I get a better grip on myself.
"Get the fuck outta here," Jamie adds, nodding his chin in the other direction.
The dumbass has the nerve to look mollified. "I already talked to Abi and she wants us to work things out too."
"See?" Cody points through the barely-open curtains to where a small bunch of flowers and a red heart-shaped box lay on the coffee table. "I was here this morning but she had to go to work."
A wall goes up in my mind, blocking it all off. "I don't believe you. She'd never go back to your pathetic ass."
I can tell Cody wants so badly to say something in retaliation but he's not a total idiot. He knows he has no ground here, and he'd easily have his ass handed to him. "You don't have to believe me. It's the truth, though." He sounds downright giddy for someone who just got rejected by Abi. I look back in the window. Jamie and I didn't get those for her so how else would they have shown up? He has to be telling the truth at least about being here earlier.
I pull at Jamie's sleeve. "Let's get out of here. We'll talk to her about it later, once she's home. I turn back to face Cody. "And you need to get the hell out of here too, or else I'll call the police. I don't think they'd be too fond of the mayor's son showing up on his ex's doorstep against her wishes. That’s stalker behavior."
Cody throws up his hands in surrender but doesn't get rid of the slightly smug look on his face. "No problem. I'll just talk to her, myself."
We wait until he's down the road a fair bit before we head back to our place.
"He's just full of shit, man," Jamie says as we cross the road. "Abi's too smart to listen to his bullshit."
My brother sounds completely confident but I’m not so sure. Either Cody’s an excellent liar or there’s something going on here. The thought of Abi talking to that piece of shit and potentially listening to his crap makes me want to break things.