Mia sighs. “I miss him already. I’m glad we’re going out with everybody and I’m so excited to see the ballet, but I feel like Tristan is at home missing me. He’s too young. We shouldn’t have left him.”
“He’s perfectly capable of surviving without you for a few hours while I take you out.”
Francesca drops into her seat beside me, then leans forward to look down the row. “How are you holding up down there, Adrian?”
Adrian shoots her a dry stare. “How do you think I’m holding up?”
Elise leans forward to grin. “He’s happier than he’s ever been in his life. He’s never looked forward to anything more than this.”
Adrian points at her without looking away and nods. “Sure, what she said.”
Francesca grins and fishes her program out of her purse. “It’s going to be so good. Sal and I haven’t been to the ballet in years.”
“I would almost rather die than sit through another one,” he volunteers.
“We might,” I state. “We shouldn’t all be together in a theater like this.”
“But it’s a date night,” Mia states.
“And it would only take one hero nobody asked for to clean up the city—we’re all right here, like fish in a fucking barrel.”
Adrian raises his eyebrows. “Trust me, the last place anyone is looking for any of us is at the fucking ballet.”
Francesca scowls at both of us. “Good grief, we’re at the ballet. Could you guys watch your mouths?”
“Honestly, you guys,” Sal says, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “Have some fucking class.”
Now Francesca turns her head to scowl at him, but he just smiles, wraps an arm around her shoulder, and pulls her in so he can kiss the top of her head.
—
We all survive the ballet. Sal grumbles and moans like it killed him, but it wasn’t that bad. I don’t think Sal is much for the theater, in general. As soon as we make it out through the throng of people, he and Francesca head off toward their car and we head in the opposite direction toward ours.
Mia and Elise are huddled together and walking in front of us. I don’t know what they’re talking about, but there are giggles and covert glances stolen over shoulders that make me think it’s trouble for us.
“What do you think that’s about?” Adrian inquires.
Hands shoved into my pocket, I shrug. “Probably inventing some new way to make us wonder why we ever got married in the first place.”
Now Adrian grins. “You’re so full of shit.”
Of course I am; the only thing I’d ever change about marrying Mia is that I didn’t do it years earlier. If I’d known then what I know now, I would’ve really confused the hell out of Mia when we first met. I’d have dragged her little ass from her mother’s driveway to the courthouse to procure a marriage license.
I smile faintly, imagining her confusion in my made-up alteration of our history. “Mia wants another baby.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Jesus, another one?”
I nod my head. “Still wants a girl.”
Adrian shakes his head. “You guys are crazy. A boy and a girl is enough for me.”
To be fair, if Mia gets pregnant one more time and it is a girl, we’ll only have one boy and one girl—together, that is. “It’s your fault,” I tell him. “Elise is always dolling Candace up and Mia overflows with maternal desire for one of her own.”
“I’m sorry my kids are so cute,” Adrian replies.
“You should be,” I agree. “Now I’m going to have seven.”
“That’s your fault. Should’ve waited until you met the right woman to have kids, then you wouldn’t be halfway to a dozen right now.”
I roll my eyes. “I didn’t think it would ever happen and I needed an heir. Couldn’t wait around forever on a long shot.”
Adrian appears to have no sympathy. “Then don’t complain that you’re gonna have seven kids. It’s not her fault. She had nothing to do with the creation of four of them.”
“To be fair, I had nothing to do with the creation of two.”
He’s still not remotely sympathetic.
“I was good with six; I just don’t see why we have to go for seven. I think I’m gonna talk her out of it.”
“Don’t you dare,” Adrian says, giving me a glare that takes me back a few years. “That woman has gone to hell and back for you, you bastard. If she wants twenty kids, you give ‘em to her.”
I don’t bother arguing—I know he’s right that I owe Mia more than I can ever repay, it’s just that she’s a terrible debt collector, and it’s in my nature to take advantage.
—
“Is my handsome man hungry?”
I quirk an eyebrow and look over at my wife, knees up, baby propped on her thighs, talking in that silly voice that women frequently use to address babies. Personally, I think that’s why they know to listen to me. I don’t do that shit. Newborn or thirty-years-old, you get the same tone. None of this cutesy bullshit.