Debt

39: Closed Up Shop

The picture is baby Vincent.

Abrielle laid in bed with Vincent cuddled into her chest. She hadn’t seen Shawn all morning, but she was sure he hadn’t gone too far. She was going to make breakfast, but her mother had beat her to it.

Shawn came into the house, she could hear the bags in his hand. She got up with the baby in her arms and went to meet him at the landing of the stairs with a smile. “Happy Father’s Day,” she greeted, leaning on her tippytoes for a kiss.

“Thank you.”

“Me and the baby got you something,” she told him, taking his hand and carrying the baby in her other arm.

She sat Shawn in the armchair — it seemed to Bri that her husband felt they completed rooms—and she put the baby in his arms, going to get his gift from the closet. It was hard to hide anything from Shawn, but she wanted him to at least act surprised.

So when she gave him the box of cuff links, he acted appropriately shocked. “Thank you, baby,” he told her, bringing her down for a kiss. “You know what would be a better gift?”

“What?” she wondered. She was eager to do anything that her husband wanted her to.

“If we have another baby next year.”

Except that.

“Are you out of your everlasting mind? You better appreciate this one.”

“I want a daughter,” he told her, frowning.

“I want a labor-free delivery. If you pay someone to carry your daughter, I will glady donate the egg.”

“Okay, Bri.”

“And you are not slick. If I come up pregnant— what am I talking about, you’re not even getting between these thighs for a good while,” she told him. “Now, back to the gift. It’s a tracker. And I got some for me and the baby,” she told him. “If you have to be away from me and the baby, we can know where each other is,” she explained. He was impressed.

“Where’d you get these?”

“My dearest cuñada. Well, I picked the links up at the mall, but she made Evan do something to them. I guess Shayla was right when she said that Evan really isn’t bad at anything.”

He chuckled. “Evan is bad at something. We just don’t know what yet.”

She took the baby and took up residence in his lap, laying her head on his shoulder. “Why did you leave me here alone all morning?”

“I didn’t assume you wanted to join the morning workout.”

“Yes I did. To watch.” He chuckled and she looked up at him, into those amused green eyes. “I didn’t teehee. I wanted to watch. Now you’re just gonna have to get naked later on.”

“Bri, you haven’t even been cleared.”

“I think you missed the part when I explained how you weren’t getting between these thighs for a long time. By a long time, I mean until you stop this nonsense about a second child. At least for a year.”

“So next year, we can make another?”

“Maybe,” she told him.

To him, maybe was, “Yes, Shawn, I’m going to let you put my body through that shit a second time.” But he better hope it was a girl, because she was not the baby factory, just churning children out.

She recognized the look in his face and shook her head. He just kissed her forehead. “Why is it Father’s Day, and I’m the one getting naked?”