Feels Like Summertime(41)

The door alarm bings again and Alex streaks around the corner.

I kiss Katie on the tip of her nose. “Hold that thought, okay? I want to talk about your vagina some more later, preferably when we’re alone. Like maybe over dinner?” I arch my brows at her and wait like a kid who’s asking out his first date.

Her face scrunches up. “Dinner?”

“What’s for dinner?” Alex asks as he streaks back into the kitchen. He tosses the football up again and again, and a puddle is forming below him on the floor.

“Clean that up,” Katie says, and she throws him a towel out of the drawer.

“I’m taking your mom out,” I tell him.

“Oh, cool,” he says as he wipes up the last of the water, and then he streaks out the door again.

“Dad must have taken them swimming,” Katie says. Adam escorted her to the gynecologist’s office.

I nod. “He came and got them after lunch.” I reach down and unbuckle the littlest of the Stone children from his car seat and hoist his wiggly little body into my arms. “And Pop said he’d watch them tonight so I can take you out on a proper date.”

She purses her lips. “And just what would a proper date consist of?”

I pretend to think about it. “Dinner…”

“And?” She stares hard at me.

“And dessert…”

She punches her fists into her hips. “And…”

“And maybe making out in the front seat of my truck.”

She smiles. “Oh, now we’re talking.”

Katie and I have had a very odd sort of courtship. Meaning we didn’t have one at all. She came home with me the day she was released from the hospital and we fell into a routine like an old married couple. She was nursing a newborn and tired, and not to mention three other kids to take care of. So I just started doing what I could here and there. I feed kids and herd kids to bed, read books and tend boo-boos, and I do what I imagine a husband might do. But I know deep down inside that I am not a husband, so that has created a tiny little barrier in my heart. And I don’t know what to do about it.

“What about Hank?” she asks with a nod toward the baby. She’d let Trixie pick his name. After Katie vetoed Pearl and Enid, Trixie settled on Henry, or Hank for short.

“We can take him with us. He’ll sleep until he wants to eat. Then he’ll eat and sleep some more, and you won’t have to worry about him if he’s with us.” I sit down at the kitchen table and lay him down so he can rest on my knees and look up at me. “So, what do you say?”

“Are we going to a wear-a-nice-dress kind of place?” she asks.

“Unless you want to go to a simple place. Completely up to you.” Hank had my attention. His eyes are still blue, and I have a feeling they will be startling like Katie’s.

“Let’s go to a wear-a-nice-dress kind of place,” she says. “I’ll go get ready.”

I hear her turn to go down the hall, where she runs into Pop. “Katie, girl,” he sings out. “How’s your vagina? All ship-shape?”

I roll my eyes and talk to Hank. “Pop is so inappropriate.” Hank kicks his feet and bats those long dark lashes at me. “You’ll like him, though, when you get a little older. He’ll buy you condoms and talk about things that should never be mentioned in polite company.”

“I heard that,” Pop says as he comes around the corner.

“You’re not supposed to talk to Katie about her vagina,” I tell him.

He quirks his brows at me. “There are things a man needs to know, Jake, and when there’s a working vagina in the house, the dynamics change. So, I just need to know when to start buying you more condoms.” He chuckles.

I pick up one of Hank’s spongy little toys and throw it at Pop. It bounces off his shoulder.

“You got a phone call today,” Pop suddenly says.

“Who was it?” I ask. Hank is holding both my forefingers and he’s making gurgling noises.

“Your wife.”

I can almost hear the squeal of brakes in my head. “What did she want?”

“She said she needs to see you.”

I snort. “About what?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“Good.” I baby-talk at Hank. “Pop is sometimes too nosy-wosy for his own good.”

Hank coos.

“She’ll be here this weekend.”

What? I scoop Hank up in my arms and stand. “Tell me you didn’t invite her here.”

“Do I look stupid?” He glares at me as he sits down at the kitchen table. “Don’t answer that,” he grumbles.

“So you didn’t invite her to come here.”

“No,” he belts out. “But she’s coming anyway. This weekend.”

I run my free hand through my hair. “Pop…”

“Time to man up, Jake. You haven’t seen her since it happened.”

“And I plan to keep it that way.”

Pop sits quietly for a moment. “You served her with divorce papers.”

How the hell does Pop know all this? Nosy bastard.

“She told me,” he goes on to say. “Now she wants to see you so you can talk.”