Page 152 of Almost Not Quite Engaged

She rubs her stomach like it's a genie in a bottle. I know this because she's begun to sing the same song all the damn time. “I'm a baby in a belly, baby. Come, come, come on and let me out.”

I kiss her neck from behind and slide my hands over her new belly. The one I never wanted. The one that sure as shit a year ago wouldn't have been attached to this harpy. It's her mom's holiday party and they're all barely settling into the idea that we're even together, let alone that there's a third person currently auditioning for a role in our chaos.

Twenty weeks. She's just starting to show but still gets to hide it for a moment. But I put my body between her and every corner of every table in every room we walk into. She finds this annoying. I find her finding it annoying annoying. We're very much ourselves.

We've been splitting our time, traveling, in Rhinebeck and Boston. We bought a small house a good twenty minutes from her parents and Nan still complains all the time about the commute just to visit her daughter.

Nan Taylor's holiday party is exactly what you'd expect from a woman who once forced the New York Times to run an engagement announcement for a relationship that was, at the time, approximately forty-eight hours old and entirely fictional. The house smells like pine and expensive candles. There are four different kinds of passed hors d'oeuvres and a bartender who knows everyone's drink before they ask. My mother arrived an hour early to help, which means she reorganized the kitchen much to the delight of Kat and the chagrin of Nan. I told Kat it was my Christmas present to her.

Birdie and Nan have become something I don't have a word for. Not friends exactly. Co-conspirators is closer. They have a group text I am not allowed to see and a shared opinion about floral arrangements that could fill a small book. And I’m sure there will be a baby name thread for all siblings, friends and parents but not us. I should probably tell Kat we might be obligated to call the kid Liesel in some way given the antiquities favor.

The Moms also have opinions about what this party is for tonight and they are both wrong and I cannot tell them that yet.

Jack is holding court near the fireplace looking better than he has any right to after everything. He tells the same fishing story every year and somehow it gets funnier. Rob Taylor is already everyone's best friend. That took about eleven minutes. My father and Rob have discovered a shared position on a certain single malt and are now essentially the same person, which my mother and Nan find either delightful or terrifying depending on the moment.

Kat wanders away from me in this delicious green dress, that I can't wait to rip off later. Bonus to the first trimester sex. She wanted it all the time, which works for me. Although, now we're getting into some interesting logistics. I look forward to navigating new positions, doing anything with her. I totally get the balls and soul thing Colin says all the time.

She's also wearing the naupaka earrings I had made from the dried flowers she carried in her camera bag across four continents.

She catches me staring now and gives me the look that means stop it and also keep going. I didn't know it was all like this. Love, hope, joy. I thought I did, but I was so fucking wrong.

I cross to her and put my hand on the small of her back and she leans into it slightly. Across the room I can see Nan tracking this. My mother is doing the same thing from the other side of the room. They coordinate without appearing to coordinate. It's genuinely impressive and mildly terrifying.

Colin and Ginny are next to the bar. Ginny is giddy because she knows exactly what's about to happen and is enjoying every second of the anticipation. That chaos demon. Colin's been white-knuckling our secret for weeks. I saw him almost dive into a dumpster to avoid talking to Kat's dad.

Anna is settled into the corner of the sofa looking luminous rubbing her own belly. She's a couple of weeks ahead of Kat. And the two of them are going to be quite terrifying. Anna got a huge grin and is looking around the room with her husband’s hand on her knee. She's laughing at something he said and I catch Kat's eye and she gives me a tiny nod.

Kat tugs my sleeve. “Can we fucking get this over with? Are we ready for this?”

“Were we ever not ready for anything?”

“That's not the reassurance you think it is.”

“It's completely the reassurance I think it is.”

“You're treating this like an amateur. Pretend you're Kevin McHale shooting that insane 3 at the buzzer.”

“I fucking love you so hard.”

“It's only because my dress is Celtic green.”

“That absolutely has something to do with it.”

Nan materializes in the center of the room through some combination of timing and intention. “I believe our guests of honor have something to share.”

Kat yells, “Way to steal thunder, Mom.”

“Just get to it already. Such tension.” She laughs.

The room shifts. Goes quiet in the way rooms do when everyone already thinks they know what's coming. I can see it on every face — the anticipation, the certainty, the mothers leaning forward almost imperceptibly with their fingers on their phones ready to gossip or speed dial caterers. They've been planning this moment since the night the Goodknows saw us at Nate's wedding and Curtie got on the phone faster than either of us could breathe.

Kat reaches into her bag and hands me the book. It's a mock-up, spiral bound, nothing fancy, the kind of thing that looks like nothing until you look at it. The photograph on the front is one she took at dawn at the base of the Sphinx with the light swirling and its magic, much like her.

“Three Reasons.” I let that sit for a second. “Three Reasons to Visit a Place. Three Reasons to Honor Local Customs. Three Reasons to Not Remain Sober In.” A few laughs from the people who know us. “We got a book deal.”

The room processes this information in real time and I watch it move across people's faces like weather.

“Her photographs.” I look at her. “My words.”