Troubles and Treats

“What. The. Fuck?” I ask him as he walks over to stand in between Jim and I, looking at each of our babies in horror.

He quickly covers his doll’s ear with one hand and presses her other ear against his chest.

“Drew! Language!” he scolds in a loud whisper.

“Oh you have got to be f**king kidding me. He totally cheated! You called your wife, didn’t you? Did Claire meet you outside or something?” I complain.

“Of course not. I am just better equipped to deal with a baby, obviously,” he replies, bouncing gently and patting the doll’s back.

“Alright, since you two obviously failed that test, you need a remedial course,” my dad says to Jim and me. “Carter, I’m going to need your help.”

~

“No, no, no. You’re doing it all wrong. You need to support his head more. My God, it’s like you’ve never had kids before,” Carter scolds as he repositions my hands and angles the bottle up higher.

“This is not the key to fixing my marriage OR my sex life. You guys all realize this, right?”

My dad walks over to check on things and smacks me upside the head.

“Wrong! A happy wife is a happy life. You learn how to do your share around the house and you will get laid regularly. Just ask your mother.”

I groan and dry heave, the bottle slipping out and milk squirting all over the front of me. “Dad, gross. Do NOT talk about you and Mom. Ever.”

Carter grabs my hands and puts the bottle back where it was.

“You need to rock and bounce a little. It helps them digest the milk easier so they don’t have as much gas. And make sure they don’t keep sucking after the milk is gone. They’ll just be getting air then, and it will cause a tummy ache,” Carter says, putting his arm around my shoulder and forcing me to sway slowly with him on the couch.

“Your mother has no complaints in the bedroom OR around the house. I keep her very sexually satisfied, and I always got up with you in the middle of the night,” my dad says while I grimace at his words.

“Wait, are you seriously trying to tell me that if I just get up with Billy in the middle of the night, everything will be restored to its rightful order?” I question.

“You stopped swaying, concentrate and keep swaying or the baby will cry. You don’t want the baby to cry if you’re doing a nighttime feeding or the whole house will wake up,” Carter reminds me, pushing against me again to get me to sway.

“I’m saying that if you put yourself in your wife’s shoes once in a while, it will be easy to see what she needs. She needs a night of sleep, she needs help around the house, she needs your love and support, and the proof that you WANT to help her with these things. A wife that isn’t getting what she needs is never going to want to give you what YOU need,” Dad tells me.

“I need kinky sex,” I tell him plainly.

“Then rock that baby like you mean it!” he yells at me.

And that’s how Liz found us fifteen minutes later when she came home early from her parent’s house. Carter and I swaying back and forth on the couch with Jim spread out on my lap, drinking out of the bottle I was feeding him.

Chapter 26 – The Newlywed Game

Drew and Jackson are up in our bedroom, and I can hear their laughter from the living room where I pace anxiously for everyone to arrive. Jackson had complimented Drew on his shirt for the night: a picture of that Monopoly guy holding a pile of money in his arms that says, “I like big bucks and I cannot lie.” Drew had taken him upstairs to show him the rest of his shirt collection.

When I had told Drew about the game night and what we were going to play, he got really excited and immediately called Jackson and asked him to be our “host” for the evening.

I want to be as thrilled as he is for tonight but my stomach is tied in knots. All I can think about is someone asking him a really important question and him getting it wrong. I had thought about canceling tonight a bunch of times, but I don’t want to ruin everyone’s night. They are all looking forward to this. I should be too, really. The kids are both spending the night with Drew’s parents, and everyone else has managed to get sitters as well. We don’t have to worry about bedtimes or cranky kids or anything being lit on fire. We are free to do whatever we want, for however long we wanted to.

The doorbell rings just as I hear Drew and Jackson coming back down the stairs. I run to the door and fling it open to see all four of our friends standing there, each with a bottle of liquor in their hands.

“We come baring gifts,” Carter says with a laugh as I hold the door open for them.

“I just want to let everyone know that Liz and I are so totally going to win this thing. We have to win this thing. It’s a matter of life and death,” Jim says seriously as he sets his bottle of whiskey down on the coffee table in the living room where I’ve set out some snacks and a bunch of glasses.

“There’s no way you’re winning this. Claire and I have been quizzing each other since this morning. We’ve got this in the bag,” Carter argues with Jim, setting his bottle of vodka next to the whiskey.

Jim turns and puts his hands on Carter’s shoulders and looks him in the eye.

“For the love of God, man, you have to let us win this,” Jim pleads.

“Why the hell is he being so dramatic,” Claire asks Liz softly.

Liz lets out a huge sigh as she hands me her bottle of wine.

“I made the mistake of telling him that if we win, I’ll give him anal. I was kind of joking at the time because he doesn’t want to play the game, and I was trying to get him in the mood for it. I may have gone a little overboard,” she explains as we watch Jim run over to Drew and get down on his knees in front of him.