Page 17 of Marco DeLuca

Lethal rolls his eyes and pulls his combat boots onto the table beside my feet.

“Every member of the Atlanta City Council is—”

“Don’t start!” I say, shooting him a glare before he gets on his soapbox.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Your children will be the most screwed up and conflicted kids on the planet.”

We both snicker, and I pass the joint back to him after taking a long drag.

“I can’t even imagine having kids,” I sigh dramatically.

“Really? Never? Cuz I don’t get those vibes from you. As crazy as you are, as off-beat, I still sense a nurturing spirit inside you.”

I’m scared of having children. Not because I don’t think that I’d be a good mother or that I wouldn’t love them. My fear is bringing them into a home without true love between their parents. I love Kenneth but not in that dying, passionate, I can’t live without you sort of way.

Shriveling my nose, I take the joint back from him, what’s left of it anyway. Lethal watches me, starts chuckling, and then says, “On second thought, maybe not.”

I start to choke, and he grabs the joint from my fingers and stubs it out in the ashtray.

When I’ve finished coughing, I turn to him and say, “Why? Can’t you see it now? I’ll have two little boys flying around the house high as a kite off my smoke, little hellions. Then there’d be the little girl who’d be a goody-two-shoes like her daddy sitting at the table studying.”

“With little glasses perched on her cute, button nose as she writes campaign speeches.”

“Why does my kid have to wear glasses?” I whine.

Shrugging, Lethal says. “Don’t know. I imagine she will. Maybe because her dad’s a geek?”

I nudge Lethal and say, “Shut up! He’s not a geek.”

Lethal wiggles his eyebrows, and I fall out laughing.

A knock sounds at my office door and I say, “Come in.”

“The hell are you two giggling about back here?” Zoey asks, walking into my office and waving her hands around.

“Piper’s kids.”

Zoey pauses for a moment, wrinkles her nose, and stares at me. “What kids?”

“The ones she’s going to have with Egbert one day. They’ll be little fucking Cush monsters,” Lethal says before breaking into a full-on hacking half-cough, half-laugh.

“Cush monsters?” Zoey asks, turning her lips down.

“Yeah, with one geeky little girl with glasses,” I input and then sputter into laughter.

Jason peers his head into the door behind Zoey. “What’s going on here?” his deep voice queries.

“This is drugs,” Zoey says, pointing at the ashtray. Then she points at us and says, “And this is your brain on drugs.”

Lethal and I look at one another again and then fall into another fit of giggles.

“I’m out. See you guys tomorrow,” Jason says, smirking.

He’s the most serious of all my employees. He’s chill as hell with a dry sense of humor, but we love him.

“Or maybe he won’t,” Zoey says, glaring at Lethal and me. “Please don’t do drugs and drive,” Zoey says.

“What about biking?” Lethal asks, chuckling.

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