Marco

“Beated up the hooky again, Uncle! Ooooh, steal anodder car and shoot more people!” Valerie shouts with excitement as she bounces up and down on the couch next to me.

“It’s pronounced hooker, not hooky, and I don’t need to steal another car right now, sweetie,” I explain, jerking my body to the left as I aim the PlayStation controller at the screen and make my car swerve around a pedestrian.

Letting my four-year-old niece watch me play Grand Theft Auto for the last hour probably wasn’t the best decision I’ve ever made, but at least it kept her in one place instead of screaming and climbing the walls.

No, seriously, she actually climbed the wall in my bedroom like fucking Spiderman. It’s Tessa’s fault. She told me to give her a piece of chocolate every time Valerie goes to the bathroom on her own. No one gives me a Snicker’s when I take a shit without assistance, but whatever. Valerie must have a bladder the size of…I don’t know, something really fucking small because she has gone to the bathroom every two minutes for the last three hours. I’ll let her swim in the sugar bowl as long as she doesn’t piss on the carpet.

“Shoot him in the head! Make his head explode!” Valerie screams, clapping her hands together when I shoot a cop trying to arrest me.

“Do you remember what I told you, Val?” I ask, pausing the game to look down at her.

“Grand Feft Auto isn’t real life. It’s bad to shoot people, even hookies. I mean hookers,” she tells me with a serious face.

“You’ve learned well, Grasshopper,” I reply with a nod and a pat to the top of her head.

Once I finally found something to hold her interest for more than two seconds that wouldn’t cause death or dismemberment and a seriously pissed off sister, it actually hasn’t been so bad hanging out with my niece. When I asked Tessa if I could babysit her for a few hours today, I thought she was going to choke to death she laughed so hard. After she finally stopped laughing and realized I wasn’t laughing with her and I was totally serious, I had to sit there for an hour while she gave me a quick course on Babysitting for Dummies. When she finished and gave me a list of telephone numbers for every person she’s ever met in her entire life, including the numbers of ever hospital in a three-hundred mile radius, she made me sign a piece of paper stating she has permission to cut off my balls with a pair of rusty scissors if anything worse than a paper cut happens to her child under my care.

I’ve had a goofy fucking grin on my face ever since I successfully took care of that pesky partial-virgin status for Molly, but at the same time, I feel like the biggest jerk in the world that she trusted me and gave something so important to me and I still haven’t managed to tell her the truth. The more time we spend together and the longer I wait, the worse I feel, yet I keep coming up with one excuse after another to keep putting it off.

Molly’s giving me a blowjob—it can wait.

Molly’s naked in my living room—what’s one more day?

Molly wakes me up with her head under the covers and her mouth on my dick—she needs to rebuild that confidence and overcome the penis puke, I can’t ruin that.

Molly takes me on a tour of Seduction and Snacks and asks me to fuck her in the warehouse in the vibrator aisle—I swear I’ll do it after her orgasm when she’s relaxed but one orgasm turned into four and I needed a nap.

Molly asks me to help her with a troubling recipe, and before I know it, there’s chocolate sauce on my penis and dripping off her tits—chocolate on tits is delicious. No explanation needed.

Molly brings home toys from work and asks if I want to watch her use them—I AM JUST A MAN, STANDING IN FRONT OF A WOMAN, ASKING HER TO GET HERSELF OFF!

Before I knew it, the day before the wedding was upon us and I knew I needed to wait until it was over. Charlotte has turned into a bridezilla, and Molly is stressed about her parents finding out the real truth and them being mad at her for lying. She has too much on her mind right now that it wouldn’t be right to add one more thing that I know will upset her.

Since there’s no use denying how much of an asshole I am and I’m scared to death Molly will never trust me again or let me put my penis inside her which would be a tragedy I’ll never recover from, I’m doing whatever I can to show her I’m not that person anymore. I overheard her talking to Ava on the phone last week when she thought I was sleeping and I still can’t get her words out of my head. She was on her iPad going back through every damn post I made on the Alfanso D. page for the last six months. Even though I couldn’t hear what Ava was saying, it wasn’t too hard to figure out whenever Molly would say, “I know, right? He’s such a pig” or, “You’ve got to be a pretty stupid woman to ever sleep with someone like that.”

Yes, I was a pig. Yes, I was a bit of a man whore and yes, I exploited my sexcapades in a cookbook. I put up posts about how easy it was to sleep with any woman you wanted as long as you fed her chocolate. I made comments putting women down, putting relationships down and putting people down who had kids. I was that guy. The frat boy who refused to grow up.

Well, I’m assuming my behavior was like a frat boy since I was never actually in a frat, even though I tried to join one and was asked to never come back when I suggested we all go to a cooking class instead of doing keg stands.

And this leads us to where I am now, the day before Charlotte and Gavin’s wedding where Charlotte will finally break the news to her betrothed (after he says I do of course, so he’s less likely to leave the country), Molly will finally get to stop pretending she’s pregnant, and I’ll get to stop flinching every time her father jumps out at me and screams “BOO!”. Actually, that will probably always happen even after he finds out I didn’t impregnate his daughter since he still thinks I like to beat-off to photos of his wife.

I spent the last few days going back and forth with my publisher about this next cookbook and a new idea I came up with, trying to convince them I can make it just as good as the first one. They finally agreed last night, which brings me to the reason I am currently teaching my niece fun new vocabulary words and how to properly execute a kill shot while in a high-speed chase. Molly changed everything and I want her to know that even if she never trusts me again. What was originally going to be a sequel to Seduction and Sugar with even more over-the-top sex stories and matching recipes, is now: Baking and Babies: How to Spice it Up in the Kitchen AND the Bedroom When You Have Kids.

I’ve listened to Molly’s aunts and uncles and her mom and dad tell stories over the last few weeks about what it was like after they added kids to the mix and how they managed to keep the romance alive. Some were funny, some were sweet, and some were downright horrifying. Pampers really needs to get their act together if babies can manage to shit so much that it leaks out of their diaper, up their back and sometimes in their hair. I’m a grown ass man and even I can’t produce that much shit at one time.

All these stories were perfect for this cookbook, but I knew I needed real-life experience. The people who loved my first cookbook loved it because I shared a big piece of myself and my life on every page, even if I did it in a really slutty way and was never afraid to admit it on social media. A few hours with my niece seemed like the perfect way to get some experience as well as spend some time with her and learn how to not be so afraid of kids. They’re not so bad once you get the hang of it. They really are like tiny drunk people and I’ve been around my share of enough drunk people to know the following rules apply to both:

1. Be prepared to make a Taco Bell run for the border. They will scream for Taco Bell (can be substituted for McDonalds) until you have no choice but to give in and go to the drive-thru in your pajamas in the middle of the night if you want them to shut up.

2. Never let them out of your sight, especially around sharp objects, things that are flammable or anything they might trip over and hurt themselves.

3. Smile and nod no matter what they mumble, slur, scream, or cry. Pretending like you understand them will eliminate arguments and or more crying.

4. If they say they’re going to puke, do not hesitate to move your ass. Carry them like a football, drag them by the arm or toss them over your shoulder. Do whatever it takes to get them to a toilet, bush, sink or in some cases, the side of the road.

5. Know that accidents will happen. They can and will pee their pants, shit their pants and if you ignore number 4, puke on you and themselves. Keep a change of clothes and a container of wipes on hand at all times.