Baking and Babies (Chocoholics #3)(17)

“Roundhouse kick, left hook punch!” I remind him out of the corner of my mouth. “And the woman jumping up and down in victory is not my mother. The one on the floor groaning in pain is!”

Marco winces as my mother starts crawling on all fours across the room towards us, smacking Charlotte’s hand away when she rushes over to her and tries to help her up.

Leaning closer to Marco’s side, I figure it’s probably best to just introduce him and get it over with, and quickly, before my mother makes it over to us and starts biting his ankles or something.

“Everyone, I’d like you to meet my…um…” I pause in a panic, realizing Marco and I never discussed what he’d be in this whole charade. Friend, boyfriend, nice guy who got me pretend pregnant who doesn’t want a relationship, but wants to be in the pretend baby’s life?

“Boyfriend,” Marco finishes, smiling down at me. “I’m Molly’s boyfriend.”

Gavin continues punching his palm while he looks Marco over from head to toe. “And does this boyfriend have a name?”

Tearing my eyes away from Marco’s sweet smile, I glare at Gavin and send him a silent warning to back the f*ck down because no one is going to believe he could beat up a guy twice his size, even if the poor guy keeps confusing fight terms.

“Yes, he has a name,” I inform Gavin through clenched teeth before looking away from him to address the rest of the room.

I paste a happy smile on my face and point in Marco’s direction. “Everyone, this is Marco.”

Uncle Drew jumps up from the couch so fast that his bowl of popcorn goes flying, dumping the entire thing all over the floor. He kicks the bowl and some of the popcorn out of the way to bounce back and forth on the balls of his feet.

“Honey, do you have to pee?” Aunt Jenny asks as she gets up from the arm of the couch and puts a worried hand on his elbow.

“I’m sorry, I’m usually better prepared for situations like this,” Uncle Drew mutters, ignoring my aunt and smiling so big and with so much excitement he looks like a kid on Christmas morning. “Could you just tell us what his name is, one more time?”

Marco and I share a confused look, but I just shrug. I stopped trying to figure out my Uncle Drew a long time ago, and really, he’ll be the easiest person in this room to deal with, so I don’t even care about the point of this right now.

I give Marco’s arm a squeeze to let him know it’s okay to speak and unfortunately, he does.

“Marco.”

“POLO!” Uncle Drew screams, throwing both of his arms up in victory. “Oh, my God, this is the best day EVER!”

Everyone turns and shoots him a dirty look. He drops his arms, bends down, and grabs a handful of spilled popcorn from the floor, shoving it into his mouth as he stands back up.

“You know, without the whole Molly-is-knocked-up-by-some-dude-we’ve-never-met-before thing,” Uncle Drew says with a shrug as he licks popcorn salt from his fingers.





Chapter 6




– Cream Puff Balls –

Marco




“So, anyway, this is my boyfriend, Marco—”

“POLO!” the guy munching on popcorn shouts again, cutting her off.

I try not to roll my eyes because going by the description Molly gave me in the car, I’m guessing he’s her Uncle Drew, and after what she told me he can do with a cheese grater, waffle iron, and a two pound bag of Skittles, I’m thinking he could be a lot of help with this next cookbook. Also, it’s hard to be irritated when my penis is happy after hearing Molly call me her boyfriend. It’s too conflicting and it’s always best to go with whatever emotion my penis wants, and my penis wants me to be happy, dammit.

Molly grabs my arm and starts squeezing it so hard I’m not sure if it means I should speak or let her do the talking for now. I’m too busy watching her mother continue to crawl across the floor with her hair draped down over her face like that freaky little girl in the movie The Ring, while eyeing the coffee mug in her dad’s hands that he’s now puffing his breath on and then buffing against his chest. I’m sure it will feel so much better smashing into my skull if it shines.

“Desoto,” Molly continues, giving them my last name and wisely ignoring her Uncle Drew. “We’ve been dating for…”

“Six months,” I finish for her when she pauses, figuring six months sounds like a good number. Not too short where they’ll think I defiled their little girl on the first date, and not too long where they’ll think we’re in a really serious relationship and drag us to the courthouse, demanding we get married immediately.

“Oh, aren’t they just the cutest thing, finishing each other’s sentences like that?!” Charlotte asks happily, trying to get everyone’s minds off of all the different ways they could kill me and make it look like an accident.

The woman I mistook for Molly’s mother walks across the room, sidestepping the real Mrs. Gilmore as she pauses on her hands and knees in the middle of the room to catch her breath from all that crawling.

She stands in front of me and holds out her hand. “I’m Claire Ellis, Molly’s aunt. It’s nice to meet you, Marco.”

“POLO!” Uncle Drew shouts again and the room lets out a collective groan. “I’m sorry! I just can’t help myself. It’s like a sickness.”