Page 10 of Bar Down Baby!
“Too much sugar?” I asked.
Barry’s face twisted into some sort of wry amusement before he put the mug on the table and slid it over to me. I picked it up and peered inside only to find “You’re going to be a grandma!” in a loopy scrawl on the bottom.
I heaved a big sigh before turning my mug around so he could see the bubbly font: “Does this mug make me look pregnant?” And he laughed aloud, a mapley sound that surprised us both.
“I think the burger for breakfast made you look more pregnant than the mug,” Barry said.
CHAPTER 4
THE PINK PEAR PREGNANCY POWER POWDER
After breakfast, our conversation was far from finished, but Barry did still have a morning practice to get to (one he’d probably feel like shit for on account of the jalapeño cheeseburger). He couldn’t miss it—first day and all that—and for this I was grateful.
“Can I get your number? We can talk right after,” Barry said. I hesitated, because what was he going to do with my number?
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?” Barry asked. We stood in the player’s entrance area of the practice center. “We have stuff to talk about.”
“What stuff?”
Barry crouched to put his face closer to level with mine, scowling as he looked me hard in the eyes. He held a long finger in front of my face and moved it left and right.
“What are you doing?” I asked, leaning away from him.
“Making sure you don’t have a concussion. Did you forget that there’s ababyI just learned about?”
I scoffed and he stood up straight again.
“We have to talk about plans and stuff—baby stuff,” Barry said.
What other baby stuff did he want to talk about? I told him at breakfast I was keeping the baby, and I wasn’t going to budge on that. I also told him that he didn’t need to think about her beyond giving me a full history of his and his family’s healthissues for the last three generations. What more was there to discuss beyond that?
“Please, Hannah.” He sounded desperate.
A couple of similarly large men walked through the front door, excitedly calling Barry by his last name as they passed. He grinned at them, clapped them both on their shoulders in the dude way my brother is always going for, then turned back to me with all seriousness.
“Yes, you can have my number.” I held out my hand for his phone. When he gave it to me, I punched my number in, and he called right away just to make sure I’d given him the right one. Harsh but fair.
“I have to catch the bus,” I offered as an excuse to break the void of quiet hanging between us.
“You don’t have a car?” he asked.
“Working on that.” Up until two months ago, I did have a car. It was a mostly working Jeep that was about ten years older than me. It was great and very cool—people with old Jeeps always act like you’re in the same book club when you drive past them, I loved that—but it wasn’t that safe, nor reliable.
I sold it and was saving for a new car—something with a higher safety rating, something like Kate’s car. Good gas mileage, electric or hybrid maybe, a car with more than two doors so I could easily fit a bulky baby seat. In the meantime, the bus was fine, or the Harvey Janitorial van if Dad or Kate didn’t need it.
“I don’t mind the bus,” I said. Barry looked very concerned at this prospect of me taking public transportation in this city.
“Is that safe?” he asked.
“Yes? Barry, we live in Salt Lake.”
I’d never run into trouble before, plus I didn’t take the buseverywhere. Kate lives a few blocks away and goes with me most places. Grocery shopping, doctor’s appointments, dinner at Mom’s or Dad’s house, pizza night, wherever. We hang out a lot. It helps that her main friends are me and Jeremy.
Another person walked in as Barry and I looked at each other—Barry serious, me wary—and called out a booming and excited “Welcome, Wright!” to him. Of course they were excited to see him, it was his first day on a new team.
Fuck, had I ruined his first day?
