Page 94 of Their Little Helper

As Pokey came out into the living room, he sighed and focused on Harley. “No. We did not know his mother was pregnant.”

“Good. I thought I forget and I was worried.” Harley seemed to think forgetting pregnant women happened on a regular basis which made me wonder how many he knew. “I…do we have to do something about that?”

“What? You didn’t knock her up. That bad decision is my father’s.” Give them five minutes of privacy and they made terrible decisions.

It was where the rest of us got it from which was why they couldn’t complain too much about everything we kids had done.

“I…” Harley shrugged, looking back and forth from me to Pokey. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Thank you for making sure I knew that information, sweet boy.” Pokey scrubbed his hands over his face. “Okay, I was only half listening but you can’t work tomorrow and leave your mother waiting another week. That’s just…she’s pregnant.”

“That means she’s carrying a baby, not an alien and she’s not broken and she’s sane most of the time, so I don’t see how all this is connected.” The way they were staring at me said there was a miscommunication somewhere. “How many pregnant women do you guys know?”

Silence.

Utter silence.

“Um. None.” Harley answered first, shrugging. “I work at a bar and I do college online. Oh, I have a test I have to take tomorrow morning. But, um, yeah. I don’t know any.”

Pokey sighed. “I’m a gay man who doesn’t work in divorce law, thank God. Where would I meet any? I guess one because Amy who manages all the accounting was pregnant last year? I think it was last year.”

Pregnant women were kind of hard to miss, so I wasn’t sure how he was confused on the dates.

“Okay, well, trust me then because I’ve known a lot. A lot. They’re crazy but they’re fully functional most of the time. You can’t take the crazy personally because it will go away eventually and you can’t get offended if they scream at you for being too polite or not polite enough. Or for getting the wrong kind of ice cream or because someone knocked them up.” They were amazing because of the whole new life thing but they were kind of weird. “Just apologize and then run.”

Great.

Now they were both looking slightly green and wide-eyed.

“I’ll protect you. Promise. My dad said he’s going to help too.” But he was the one who knocked my mother up, so it was his job to run interference. “But you’re right, putting this off will only make her worse and I don’t need her showing up at the bar to meet Harley.”

That couldn’t be good for the baby.

“Oh…no…” Harley started shaking his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“For a variety of reasons.” Santos came over and plopped down on the couch beside Harley. “Alright, is there anything else we need to know?”

My shrug had both of them taking deep breaths, so it might not have been the right way to start. “Um, I don’t think so? There’s always one relative or another who’s pregnant, though. I’m just lucky omegas aren’t really a thing or I’d have already gotten knocked up.”

Pokey seemed like the type to have strong swimmers.

“I’m not going to ask what an omega is in this situation and I don’t want either of you to tell me.” Pokey’s confused look had Harley giggling, so he definitely knew what omegas were. “We’re also not talking about it at family dinner tomorrow.”

He liked making ridiculous rules sometimes, but Harley’s nod said he approved, so I knew I’d lost the battle. “I will agree to that rule, but I can’t be held accountable for what anyone else says.”

Hmm…what kind of bribe would it take to get Milo to talk about omegas first?

Best friends had to be good for something besides dinner buddies and gossip.

“Papa?”

Harley’s single word in the questioning tone had Pokey sighing. “I saw it too.”

Saw what?

“I think you need more fine print, Papa.” Harley was just dead set on being helpful and a cute pain in the butt. “He’s…he’s plotting.”

“I don’t think he can help it.” Pokey was just getting more and more dramatic as he rambled ridiculously. “Alright, let’s start with simple and straightforward.”

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