Unlucky in Love

…Four Months Later…

“They’re both finally down!” I cheered quietly, going into the kitchen. Dominic was on his laptop, doing either school or work. I sat in the chair next to him and picked up his glass and took a sip, expecting it to be Coke.

I coughed up the sip I had taken and set the glass down to get up and get something to cut the taste.

“What the hell is that?” I asked, eating some Doritos, which actually got rid of the foulness of booze.

“Guinness,” he said simply.

“That’s so disgusting, Dominic. How can you drink it?”

He shrugged. “Because it’s good. Wait till you’re twenty-one—Daveigh’s going to watch Max and Emma while we go drinking.” He seemed delighted by this idea, and I remembered the last few times I had been drunk…and thought better of it.

I guess French girls can’t hold their liquor.

“I turn twenty-one in, like, twelve days. I don’t think I’ll have weaned Max by then, and I can’t nurse with alcohol in my system.”

“Start now. Next time he’s hungry, just give him a bottle.”

I scoffed. “It’s not that simple—it took almost a month to wean Emma.”

Dominic just shook his head, smirking. He probably thought I was just being hormonal and sentimental. “Max had been using the bottle way before he used…” he paused, gesturing to my breasts.

“My boobs?” I offered, and he nodded. “It’s just that it affects me, too.” I paused, feeling devious. “Tell you what; if you feed him from now until my birthday and he does just fine with the bottle, we’ll go out drinking on my birthday.” I held out my right hand, and he shook it, grinning.

He thought he won. It was actually kind of cute.

I scooted closer to him. “So what’re you working on?”

“History paper,”

“Topic?”

“World War One.”

“Oh, where your people invaded my people—I really don’t like that our kids are a quarter German.”

He grinned again. “I know. I wish they were full German.”

I swatted at him with his textbook, and he caught my wrist and pulled me closer to kiss me. “Oh, God, I can taste it again!” I whined, pulling back. I sat back in my chair and used Dominic’s lap as a footrest. “Need any help?”

“Yeah, I do actually. How did the French feel about the German invasion?” he asked seriously.

I narrowed my eyes. “They were pissed. They were all, ‘Je déteste putain Allemagne! Go France!’ It’s true, they totally said that.”

“They said ‘I hate fucking Germany, go France?’”

“I would’ve said that, had you been invading my personal space.”

He chuckled. “You’ve never minded when I invaded your personal space.”

I just shook my head. “Why when a girl speaks to a guy it’s translated as something sexual?”

“Because when it comes right down to it, it is sexual.” He closed his laptop and set it on top of his books. “So let’s get right down to it, Em.”

I shook my head. “No thanks. I don’t feel like having a German invasion tonight.”

He shifted my legs, and I ended up on my back on the floor, hissing because I whacked my head on the hardwood. Dominic, still holding my legs, got in between them and kissed me softly.

I pulled back when he went to pull down my pajama shorts. “Not here! I just waxed this morning!”

“Awesome, so what’s the problem?”

“I waxed the floor. I mean, I did wax the-um…God, I just don’t wanna fuck on the floor!”

“Too bad, Em.”

With a sigh, I gave in. There was no fighting an invasion.

* * *

“Princess Emma!” I called, walking into her room. She rubbed her eyes sleepily and glared at me. She hated being woken up. “Baby girl, it’s your birthday!” I picked her up, and she whined, wanting to stay in bed. I took her downstairs, where we—okay, me—had decorated the living room with pink and silver and white streamers and balloons.

Her face lit up when she saw the big, tiara-shaped balloon, and she reached for it. I set her down on the couch and gave her the balloon, which she hugged. It was a Mylar balloon, so I wasn’t worried about it popping.

“Present time?” Dominic asked, taking a picture of Emma. She loved having her picture taken.

I nodded and handed her the little box that was my present. She got the wrapping paper off with no help from me and I helped her open the box. Emma looked down at it and then touched my bracelet on my left wrist. I had gotten her a starter bracelet, one that we would make bigger as she got older and it had a singular charm on it now, our birthstone.

I snapped it on her left wrist and she hugged her wrist and played with the charm.

“I’m glad you like it, Em.” I told her, giving her a kiss.

We had picked out a present from Max, which was a birthday tiara and wand that Emma loved to play with, since Dominic’s present was of sentimental value and not something that either of us would want her to play with.

Dominic’s parents had sent her a hundred dollars each in college bonds, like they had given her the year before.

After breakfast and cleaning up after the wrapping paper and sparkly crap that she had thrown everywhere, we went to the Rose Gardens. While Dominic and Emma were going through rows upon rows of different types of roses, I was sitting on a cool stone bench with Max.

He was drinking out of his bottle happily, which got on my nerves. Dominic was not supposed to win this one.

With everything that had happened, he had been born a relatively healthy baby. He looked like Dominic, but with light brown hair like me and Emma and blue-gray eyes.

The worst thing that had happened was that he got to go home with Dominic five days before I had been released from the hospital, even when they assured me that I was going to be okay. I just figured that if I really was okay, then I didn’t need to stay for observation.

But I bit my tongue and had been in the hospital for a week without my kids.

“Mommy!” Emma called, and I looked up, and she came running over to me, wand in hand. I picked her up when she got to me and held her on my lap.

“Emma heard someone say ‘zoo’ and now Emma wants to go.”

“Zoo! Pease?” she said, her pouty face out as if on cue as she tried to say “please” again.

“You want to go to the zoo now?”

She nodded energetically. “Mommy pease?” I sighed dramatically and agreed. “Max comes too?”

“Yes, Max is coming too,” I assured her.

Dominic took Max up while I let Emma show me her favorite flowers first. They had virtually every kind of rose here, most of them dead because of how late in the season it was. But there were still pretty petals, which Emma had collected from the ground.

Emma ran up the stairs—which had me running behind her in case she were to fall—and to the car, her medium-length hair whipping behind her.

“You are wearing me out, kid.” I told her picking her up and putting her in her car seat.

* * *

“Mommy, look!” Emma shouted, pointing to the polar bears.

I smiled, picking Emma up so she could see them better. “Aren’t they pretty, Em?” I asked her, and she nodded, pressing her hand against the glass.

“Hey,” Dominic said, coming up to us with Max in his stroller. “I couldn’t get Max away from the penguins.”

“And Emma loves the polar bears.” I replied, and she nodded again and started knocking on the glass. “No baby, they don’t like when you do that. Remember Nemo?” I said, and she pulled her hand back, looking sad. “How long have we been here?” I asked Dominic, setting Emma back down.

He checked his phone. “Two hours.”

My eyes widened. “Seriously? I feel like I’ve been here for five. I think we need to go h-o-m-e because two little ones need n-a-p-s.” I told him, and he nodded gratefully.

Dominic was in charge of dragging Emma away while I got Max buckled into his car seat. I was trying to keep him awake so him and Emma would have the same sleep schedule.

When we were almost home, I noticed Emma and Max had dozed off, and I sighed. I didn’t want either of them waking up when we picked them up to take them to bed.

Thankfully, God was nice to me and they stayed completely out of it as we put them in bed for their afternoon naps, which were more important for Max than Emma, but I would still rather have Emma sleep off some of her hyperactive energy.

I went downstairs and sank onto the couch next to Poppy, where she so was not aloud to be. Poppy rested her head on my thigh and I stroked her head softly. It was kind of sad, but Poppy was pretty much my best friend. She had always stuck by me.

“Is it bad that it’s only three in the afternoon and I’m tired?” Dominic asked, sitting on the other side of Poppy.

“Nope. I could fall asleep right now. I think kids just wear you out. They’re just so freaking energetic all the time.”

Dominic smiled tiredly. “It looks like I’m going to win the bet. He was just fine with the bottle today.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I don’t want you to win the bet.” I said defiantly.

“Too bad, babe.”