Page 124 of Love It or List It
“And what you want is to date each other.”The words felt weird in his mouth.
“Well,” his dad said, “we were thinking about getting married again.I’ve put in for retirement from the service so I can move back here to be with your mom.”
Was it April Fool’s?No.It was still March.Joe stared at his dad, then his mom.Despite their smiles, neither of them looked like they were joking.No, they had silly love-struck expressions as they stared at each other, besotted.Joe loved his parents—he wanted them to be happy—but he couldn’t help but worry that this would end in heartbreak for everyone.“Marriage?Isn’t that… rushing things?”
“Maybe a little,” his mother conceded, “but with your father’s citizenship and upcoming retirement, it makes sense to move up the timeline so it’s all sorted before the baby arrives.”She took another bite of pickle.
Joe stared.“Baby?”
“BABY?”
A bubble of hysterical laughter floated up through Joe’s chest, and he giggled.Austin watched him with confusion and alarm.“Baby!”Joe confirmed with a gasp, and then laughed some more.
“Your mother is pregnant.”Austin seemed to be struggling to grasp the concept as much as Joe.“And your dad is the father.”
“Yes,” Joe gasped.
“What the fuck.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Sorry, but like, isn’t your mom too old?”He winced then, maybe worried he’d been offensive.
Joe snickered.“I asked that too.Apparently forty-eight isn’t, as evidenced by baby.”He sobered.“Doctors are keeping a close eye, though.Did you know anyone over the age of, like, thirty-five is considered geriatric when it comes to growing babies?”
“I did not know that.”
“Dad says they’re going to have lots of visits to make sure all is good, but she seems fine so far.”
They sat in silence for a long moment as they both considered that news.
“Whoa.”
“What?”
“You’re going to be a big brother.Like, biologically this time.”Austin grinned.“How does it feel?”
“Fucking surreal,” Joe said, then had another round of hysterical laughter.“Jesus Christ, I’ve gotta tell the kids they’re getting a new aunt or uncle and they might have to babysit.”Gavin would be so mad if Joe got a sister and Gavin didn’t get to be flower girl at the wedding.
Okay, probably he and Austin should talk about getting married before he booted Gavin out of the flower-girl job.Just because they already had four kids, three cats, a dog, and a house didn’t mean they should jump right to marriage.
Besides, it might be polite to let his parents get remarried first.
Joe’s life was ridiculous.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
CLEARING THEair with Joe didn’t immediately solve all the problems at the Taylor-Romano household.Will still had the occasional mood swing, the timing of which Austin couldn’t predict, though Joe sometimes could.“It’s his sister’s birthday tomorrow,” he said once, and then, one Saturday in early April, “His brother’s getting married today.”
But Austin wasn’t hiding his phone therapy appointments, or the fact that he was driving ten minutes into Essex instead of twenty in the other direction, and when he came home, he didn’t have to hide his branded work shirts.
Joe’s work picked up too, as his uncles were putting the final touches on a few houses in an upscale residential development.They offered a package that involved a credit to have Joe do a custom landscaping design or put toward a service, and with the spring rains, it was the perfect time to lay sod and plant boxwoods.
On the whole, things were going well.They had the fruits over for dinner twice a month, and Starling and Linda invited them over once a week to play cards and shoot the shit.The Austin of a year ago wouldn’t recognize this weirdly domestic parody of himself.The Austin of today only wished he’d let DeeDee Mitchell set him up on a date a little sooner.
He was thinking about his life in vague, satisfied terms as he brought Pepa into the breezeway from a damp Sunday morning walk.She was probably due for a proper bath, given the amount of mud she’d managed to fling all over herself.He was wondering if he could coax her into the tub or if he should risk the moldering upholstery of his car and take her to the self-serve dog wash in town when Will came cursing down the stairs.
“Austin?”
