Page 67 of The Yips

“I was going to ask where you were from. You don’t have an accent, but I hear something here and there.”

“That’s my Northern Minnesota accent. I moved to the East Coast when I was twenty-one with a fresh modeling contract and no street smarts. I could hunt moose, bears, and deer, but I was prey for the men in the city.”

“And then she met my father, Game 7 after he pitched a shutout to win the World Series. Sam came along nine months later-ish.” Josie filled in the gaps.

I did some mental calculations to determine that Sam’s birthday was coming up sometime in August. “Wait, when is your birthday?” I asked.

“August 19th.”

“That’s why your number is nineteen. Sorry, we jumped into things and skipped the normal birthday, astrological sign discussions.” I explained to his mother and sister with an embarrassed laugh.

“And you never googled him?” Josie asked.

“Most days, I barely have time to shower, so no, I didn’t run a search. I relied on my big sister to scour the internet and find the red flags for me.”

“Hopefully, you asked Kylie and not Kendra,” Sam said.

“Wait, three girls with K names?” Veronica asked. “This is like a sign from the universe.”

“My dad is a huge baseball fan and always wanted a son. He struck out the side with me. But as much as he wanted a son, he was the best ‘girl dad.’ He wore nail polish, dressed up however we asked, and was always there for us. At thispoint, it’s a joke because there is not an ounce of disappointment in his family,” I explained.

“Jake insists he wants a house full of little girls, and I used to agree. But being around this guy makes me change my mind a bit.”

“Well, that’s the thing, you don’t get to pick. We all thought Crew would be a girl based on the number of girls in our family. It was a shock when he was born. My dad cried like a baby.”

“Is Crew’s father in the picture?” Josie asked.

I looked to Sam, hesitating before explaining that I hadn’t known Crew’s father, and he wasn’t in the picture because he didn’t know he existed.

“We’re planning to find him, though,” Sam said, squeezing my knee as a reassurance. The spike of adrenaline made my chest squeeze in rebellion.

“Oh wow,” Josie said as she and Veronica studied the two of us. The silence at the table was almost deafening.

“Here my sister is, scouring Google for Sam’s red flags, and he’s ignoring all of mine,” I said nervously.

“Oh! No, I wasn’t saying wow because of that. Please don’t think I’m judging you,” Josie continued nervously. “I’ve been terrified to become a mother, and I have plenty of support. I can’t imagine doing it alone.”

“Sam has never introduced us to anyone he’s dated; if you genuinely had all these red flags, he would have weeded you out. He doesn’t let people in easily,” Veronica said.

“She also neglected to tell you that I was a drunk asshole the first time we met. But I’m not with Kelsey despite her being a mother, but because of who she is as a mother.”

Sam and I made eye contact, and my chest squeezed again, this time not because of the adrenaline of anxiety butwith love. I trusted him to move forward with finding Crew’s father and that we could face things together.

Once our meals arrived, the conversation lightened, and Josie and Veronica shared as many embarrassing Sam stories as possible. Crew had eventually fallen asleep on Sam’s chest, and both his mother and sister took photos on their phones. Josie shared the pictures on her Instagram with the hashtag #myguysarecuterthanyours, tagging Sam and me in the post.

She had asked my permission first, but I wasn’t prepared for the flood of new follow requests. Luckily, my Instagram page was private; I didn’t want all my photos of my solo pregnancy and birth with Crew to become a discussion topic. I accepted Josie’s request and looked forward to growing a relationship with her. My hesitation was erased when I recognized how alike she and Sam were. His mother may have raised them with luxury, but she’d given them a strong sense of family, and fuck, they were good to their core.

We ended the night with Veronica and Josie deciding to drive Sam Sr. to Vermont the following day. Sam had purchased a new car, which would be ready in New Jersey for us to drive back to Boston. Initially, he offered Crew and I to fly home alone, but I wasn’t prepared to leave him.

“Why do you need a new car?” I asked as we walked back through the lobby towards the elevator on our way back to our room.

“Have you seen my car with a car seat in the back? This one will be much more comfortable when we all go out together.”

“We can use my Honda,” I said, self-conscious about my vehicle compared to his. I’d since looked up the statsfor his two-door Bentley and wished I could forget that people spent that much money on cars. Yeah, I couldn’t expect Sam to be comfortable in my Honda.

“Hey,” he said, shuffling sleeping Crew in his arms as he tucked me into his side, “this isn’t a competition. I think you might have fun driving the car, too.”

“I’m not going to drive your car.”

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