I covered my face with my hands as I groaned.
Fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
At what age would I get to swear at them?
The final whistle finally blew, and I tried to give the peppiest pep talk I could before sending the kids back to their parents. I don’t think any of them actually heard me—they were far more interested in what snack had been provided by the Oliver family. Sighing, I gathered up the extra balls, abandoned water bottles, and various other crap and hauled it all off the field.
“Why did I agree to do this again?” I asked my Rumple as I tossed all the shit into the back of the van. I rubbed at my right thigh as I walked off the field—some days it still bugged me after running around.
“Because Ben asked you to,” she responded, “and because you love it.”
I grunted, put all the gear into its bag in the back of the van, and turned back to my wife.
“Maybe I’m too old for this,” I said with a shrug.
“You’re twenty-six!” She giggled like one of the six-year-old players.
“I feel ancient,” I replied. “Too much crammed into those years.”
“Well, you still look like a Greek god,” Nicole told me, “while I look like a beached whale.”
“You’re beautiful,” I said as I kissed her forehead. I pulled my right leg back a bit so I could bend over and place my lips on the soccer-ball-shaped protrusion that was Nicole’s stomach. “Especially this part.”
I glanced back up to Nicole’s face.
“You sure you didn’t just swallow a ball? Looks like a size five to me.”
I swear you couldn’t even tell she was eight months pregnant from the back. She only grew in her stomach and her tits, which I fucking loved.
“Shut up!” Nicole laughed and swatted my arm. “You did this to me, and you know it!”
“How’s your back?”
“Sick of carrying your son around,” she complained. “Just remember, I carry him for the first nine months. You get the next nine.”
“Like Gardner and Kathrine are going to let either one of us hold him,” I snorted. My father and stepmom had gone totally grandbaby crazy. Kathrine never had any of her own children, and…well…Gardner didn’t know me as a baby, so it was like they were both planning on making up for it with their first grandchild. From the way they went on about it, you would think they were having their first child instead of us. “I think Kathrine’s planning on kidnapping him from the hospital and raising him herself. She’s got more baby shit over at their house than we do in the nursery.”
I opened the passenger door and helped Nicole in before I circled around and got in myself. I pulled out of the parking lot just as the rain started up again. At least the fields were dry long enough for the game.
“Did you see Gardner going through a catalog of swing sets? He wants to put one of those great big climbing ones in their back yard.”
“The baby won’t be able to use it for years!” I exclaimed.
“I know.”
“And their back yard is almost non-existent! One of those things would take up all of it!”
“I know,” she repeated.
“They’re crazy!”
“Yep.”
“What do you have going on tonight?” I asked.
“I’m heading out with Sophie to pick up the crib and changing table,” Nicole said. “You’re at the gallery all evening, right?”
“Yeah, Kathrine’s putting up the pieces I finished last week,” I said as I ran my hand through my hair. “I really need to get those other paintings done this week before the buyers all bail on me.”