“YOU asked her out on a date, not me! And yes, that Molly,” I reply, quickly backpedalling when Rosa opens her mouth to most likely call me a bunch of names. “But I did NOT get her pregnant!”

Mom stands up and begins shoving things at me, one after another until my arms are full of….

“Are these bibs? And bottles and baby socks and…what the hell is THIS?” I ask, staring at the box she just put on top of the pile I’m trying not to drop.

“It’s a breast pump,” Mom says with a huff, like I’m a moron for not knowing. “I also got ten packs of diapers, three receiving blankets, four different styles of pacifiers because you never know what the baby will like, diaper rash cream, and a baby monitor.”

Her face scrunches up in concentration for a minute and while she thinks, I try to force my brain to process what is happening.

“Oh!” she announces excitedly, clapping her hands together. “I knew I forgot something. Rosa, go out to my trunk and get the Diaper Genie.”

“What the hell is a Diaper Genie? Is that like, a guy who changes all the diapers? Why didn’t Tessa have one of those?” I ask, my brain clearly not catching up as fast as I’d like.

“I think now would be a good time for that long story you mentioned before Mom starts building an addition on the house for a nursery,” Rosa whispers, as my mom hands her a tiny little baby shirt.

“Awwww, look,” Rosa says, holding it up in front of her. “It says World’s Greatest Aunt!”

I finally get my head out of my ass, opening my arms and letting everything my mom shoved at me fall to the floor, snatching the shirt from Rosa’s hands that she’s cooing over.

“Heeeey! Give me my aunt shirt back!” she complains.

“You don’t need a damn aunt shirt because you aren’t going to be an aunt again!” I argue, holding it out of her reach as she tries to grab it back. “And I don’t need a magic genie to change diapers, or any of this other stuff, because I’m not going to be a father! I didn’t get anyone pregnant.”

Bending down to avoid the evil-eye both of the women in the room are now giving me, I start shoveling all the items I dropped back into the bags.

“Molly is doing a favor for her sister, and I’m not kidding when I say it’s a long story,” I explain, wondering if I could have Molly give all this stuff to Charlotte and earn me a few more brownie points so she’ll forget about the whole puking in the bushes thing the other night. “She’s pretending to be pregnant and I’m pretending to be the father because her sister wants to wait until after her wedding in a few weeks to break the news to everyone. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I honestly never thought you’d run into one of Molly’s relatives and find out. It’s not that big of a deal, but you guys absolutely CANNOT tell anyone about this.”

Rosa pats me on the back when I stand back up. “Damn, I guess you don’t need my help clearing Alfanso D.’s name. You could tell her you’re Satan at this point and she’d probably shrug it off since you’re going through so much trouble for her family. You actually do have a brain.”

I ignore the brain comment instead of saying something sarcastic because I don’t like how quiet our mother is, and if Rosa and I start firing insults at each other, she might make good on that threat of shoving a spoon up our asses.

“Look, Auntie Rosa! I put a dress on the ’nanana!”

Rosa and I turn around and find Valerie sitting in the middle of the hallway behind us, proudly holding up the banana I threw, now covered in a florescent green condom.

Our mother pushes her way between us, walking over to Valerie, squatting down in front of her and taking the condom-covered banana from her hand.

“What a pretty dress for the banana!” Mom exclaims. “I have thirty-nine other dresses, in all the colors of the rainbow. Why don’t you teach Uncle how to put a dress on the banana, since he doesn’t seem to care about me at all?”

I roll my eyes at her dramatics as she stands back up and helps Valerie up from the floor as well.

“How could you do this to me?” she whispers as my niece starts making airplane noises and flying the condom banana around the hallway. “Is it too much to ask that my son give me another grandchild? What am I supposed to tell the women at the beauty parlor now?”

One minute she’s beating me with a spoon when she thinks I got someone pregnant, and now she’s bitching at me for NOT getting someone pregnant. I need a drink.

“If you’ll excuse me,” she says with a haughty lift of her chin. “I’m going to rearrange my bookshelf to make room for your next porn cookbook, now that I know I won’t need the space for pictures of my new grandchild.”

I think I’d prefer having the spoon shoved up my ass right about now…

“I believe this would be a good time to get drunk and tell me the rest of the story,” Rosa informs me as Valerie races up to us and starts smacking me in the leg with the banana.

“Hump-hump-hump! Banana’s gonna pee on you!”

Rosa laughs, walking away from me as I try to get the phallic-shaped fruit away from our niece.

“Hey! A little help here!” I shout to her as she keeps going.

“Hump-hump-hump!” Valerie shouts. “Uncle, why is the green dress all slippery? It’s making my hands yucky!”

Rosa’s laugh echoes down the hallway as she gives me a wave over her shoulder.

“I’ll have the wine ready when the four-year-old finishes teaching you how to dress a banana!” she shouts, disappearing into the kitchen.

I finally manage to wrangle the banana out of Valerie’s hand, hearing the front door open and shut while I try to keep it out of her reach.

“GIVE ME BACK MY HUMPY!” she screams.

Tessa walks up behind her daughter, staring at the banana I’m now holding above my head.

“I think Uncle needs Humpy more than you, Val,” Tessa tells her daughter, running her hand over the top of her head. “Grandma sent mommy a text and said Uncle doesn’t know how to properly dress a banana so he needs to practice.”

Yep, I’d definitely prefer being locked in a trunk and covered in pee.

Two hours and four bottles of wine later, I find myself lying on my mother’s kitchen floor next to Rosa, while my mom and Tessa sit at the kitchen table talking about me like I’m not even here.

“It’s like he doesn’t even care, Tessa,” my mother says with a sigh.

“Hey, give me your phone, I’ve got the best idea EVER!” Rosa tells me, holding her hand out above my face.

“Okay,” I tell her, letting my wine buzz speak for me as I slap my phone into her hand.

She’s had just as much wine to drink as I have, it’s not like she’s sober enough to do anything that bad.

Chapter 11

– Handy –

Molly

“I can’t believe I took a red-eye flight home for this shit,” Ava complains, shaking her head at me in disappointment as she perches on the edge of our mother’s desk at Seduction and Snacks.

“Hey, I told you on the phone last night what was going on. It’s not my fault you felt the need to get the first flight out,” I argue.

Today was my first official day at the headquarters of our family business in the test kitchen. I had a glorious day working alone in the huge industrial kitchen while I got busy tweaking some of the old recipes, and then Ava had to come in and ruin my good mood by dragging me away from my happy place and into mom’s empty office on the other side of the building while she was out running errands.

“Charlotte tore me a new asshole for spilling the beans to Mom and Dad so I figured coming home early in your time of need was the least I could do,” she informs me. “I still can’t believe she’s making you do this shit for her, and I can’t believe you actually agreed to it.”