The Baby Bet

“... Bullshit!” 

The fire was rolling by the time Grace walked out back, a six pack of cold beers in tow. Their back yard had precisely five chairs - one for each of them, and not a single extra. 

Just the way things should be. 

Pulling cans one at a time from the plastic rings, Grace started passing them out.

“You’re just in time,” Pierce said, leaning forward in his chair to grab one.

“You’ve been bemoaning that your beer was empty for ten minutes,” Brains pointed out. 

“And if it’d been eleven minutes,” Pierce said, cracking open the can and taking a long pull before finishing his sentence. “Then I’d have had to go inside and get another one.” 

Drinks distributed, Grace set aside the single extra beer and tossed the plastic rings into the fire. “So what’s bullshit?” 

“Hmm?” Melody asked, looking up from the fire. 

“You were shouting ‘Bullshit’ when I walked back here,” Grace explained. “What, did Skip claim they weren’t working enough hours?” 

“Well,” Skip started to say, “I know there’s some slack that could be-” 

The whole club piped up in harmony. “No.” 

“But that’s not it,” Brains added. “Pierce was just saying he’d make a great dad.” 

Grace raised her eyebrows. “Hah! No way.”

“Hey, come on,” Pierce said, putting up his hands defensively. “I’m not saying I want a little rug rat, but if I had to. You should see me with my nephews!” 

“You don’t have to take care of your nephews,” Melody pointed out. 

“I babysit,” Pierce countered. 

In the middle of sipping her beer, Grace shook her head and raised a finger. “N…” Gulp. “No, no. You keep an eye on them for a couple hours when your sister’s busy. That barely counts.”

Sitting back, Pierce spread out his arms and relaxed as though he’d already won the argument. “Still! They love me.” 

“Yeah, because you’re the fun uncle. You don’t have to cook meals, or plan around their day, or put them to bed, or any of that shit. You just show up for a couple hours of playtime.” Grace shook her head and put on a comically deep voice. “‘Oh, I’m Pierce, I’d be a great dad for three whole hours before I got bored!’ Fuck off with that. I’ve seen your room.” 

Melody and Skip chuckled, but Pierce frowned and sat forward. “What’s that got to do with anything?” 

“When’s the last time you made your bed?” Grace asked.

“Why should I? I think it’s just as comfortable unmade,” Pierce said, already draining his can of beer, which got swiftly replaced. 

“How would you know, Pierce?” Melody chimed in. “You haven’t slept in a made bed since your mommy stopped doing the chores for you.” 

“My mo-” Pierce’s tone started to rise, but he shook his head and just flipped Melody off. 

“Got it, sorry,” Melody said, apologetically. 

“The point being.” Grace got everyone’s attention, steering the conversation back to her point. “You do the bare minimum to get things to a point where you’re okay with it. How’s that gonna work out when you have a whole entire other human to look after, who can’t give you a chore chart to micromanage what they need from you?” 

“I’d be a good dad,” Pierce said, simply. 

Grace found that her beer was mostly empty, and finished it off, raising her arm and squinting at the recycling bin fifteen feet away. “Come on…” Chucking it, the can hit the back wall of the bin, bouncing squarely inside. “Three points!” 

“Probably two points, you’re barely at a free throw line,” Brains pointed out. “Still a good shot, though. Sitting down and everything.” 

Grace reached for another beer, and found the extra can from the six pack already claimed. “Okay, y’all know the rules. You take the last beer, you get the next pack.” 

“I’ll get it in a minute,” Pierce said. “Once this one’s empty.” 

Rolling her eyes, Grace got to her feet, trudging back to the kitchen. She didn’t want to wait until Pierce finished his beer, walked inside, took a piss, made a sandwich, took a nap, watched the extended editions of Lord of the Rings-

Getting it herself was just faster. 

By the time she got back out, the conversation had moved on. Skip was relaying an anecdote from work, or maybe telling a filthy joke. Given their line of work, it was kind of hard to tell one from the other sometimes, but either way there was a racoon involved. 

The evening slipped on. Grace’s aim towards the recycling bin got a little better after two beers, and then started to drop off steeply after four. 

“Hey, Melody,” Grace said under her breath, leaning over in her seat. “Who’re you texting?” 

“This guy, Rich,” Melody replied, quietly, looking down at her phone. “He’s got a boat. I think. I guess he goes to some fancy university a little north of here.” 

“Is he your type?” 

“Is ‘rich’ a type?” Melody paused, then added, “Because he’s got money, not-”

Grace shook her head. “I got it.”

“And that!” Brains declared, almost-but-not-quite shouting as he stood upright on his chair. “Is how you make a beer can disappear!” 

“You just wanted to drink my beer!” Skip complained, grabbing an empty can from the ground and chucking it at Brains. The shot went wide, hitting the tall privacy fence a few paces away. 

“And that’s the last beer out here,” Pierce said. “Who’s got the next pack?” 

“It was Skip’s beer,” Brains declared.

“Brains drank it,” Skip rebutted. 

“I’ll get it,” Grace groaned, getting to her feet. 

She paused to get the can that had bounced from the fence, depositing it in the recycling bin on her way inside, and grabbing a bag of chips on the way out. 

Sitting down, she found a gap in the conversation and started telling a story she’d been wanting to relay all evening. “Okay, so, there’s this client I’m working for. Huge neat freak, anal-retentive-type-” 

“You should talk,” Pierce snorted. 

“You think everyone’s a neat freak.”

“I meant about the anal retention.” 

“You’re right, I do have experience with guys who have their heads up their ass all the time,” Grace rolled her eyes. “So anyways, he sends me this email…” 

It was a winding tale full of twists and turns, mostly involving increasingly pedantic and frustrating corrections to layout, which Grace had responded to with matching pedantry and specificity until the issue got dropped and the layout she preferred got used. Not something she’d brag too much about, except that she’d found out that day that the client was thrilled with the results, and was bragging about it, having completely forgotten that the design was her idea. 

“Okay, okay,” Pierce said, as she finished up telling the story. “Here’s what I’m still hung up on, though. You think…” He paused, sipping his beer. 

“Oh, hell, not this again,” Melody rolled her eyes.

“He brought this up while you were in the bathroom, too,” Brains added, giving context to Grace that she would otherwise have lacked. 

“You think I’m irresponsible!” Pierce said. “Like I don’t pay my bills on time and get my chores done, same as everyone else.”

“Yeah, uh, if I remind you,” Grace said. “Otherwise it’s always done late.” 

“Not late, just barely-on-time!” Pierce protested. “If you want it done sooner, make the deadline sooner! Otherwise, I’ll get it done when I want to.” 

“We’re not arguing about chores tonight,” Melody said. “It’s Friday. This isn’t how we’re gonna spend our night.”

“No, I’m not arguing about chores, I’m saying that I’m responsible,” Pierce said. “I could totally watch a kid. I’d be great at it.” 

“Bulllll-” Grace said, really dragging out the ‘L’. “Shit. You know how much work that is?” 

“Yeah, I do!” Pierce stood up, dramatically counting off on his fingers. “You gotta change their diapers, feed ‘em, put ‘em to bed every night, bathe ‘em, dress ‘em, and make sure they don’t stick their fingers into electrical sockets. Boom. Easy.” 

“I think you’re missing some stuff on that list,” Brains said. “And that’s only for kids of a very specific age.”

“Well I’d learn!” 

“You wouldn’t even do that much,” Grace shot. “You’d be begging for someone else to take the little shit after the first diaper change.”

“I’ve been around crap,” Pierce said. 

“And you’d really wait hand and foot like that on someone else?” Grace threw up her arms, sloshing a little beer out of the can she was holding. “No way.” 

“I would!” 

“No, you wouldn’t!” 

“Screw you, I would!” 

“Then prove it!” 

“How?”

Grace blinked. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. 

(When did I stand up?) 

(When did things get so spinny?) 

She shook her head. “Fuckin… Fuck you. We wouldn’t put a kid through that, it’d be torture.” 

“You’re just backing down because you know I’d be great and you don’t want to admit it!” 

(Asshole.) 

“Fine! I’ll do it, just to shut you up!” 

“Huh?” 

It was Pierce’s turn to be taken aback. “What?” 

“I would bet you one hundred dollars that you wouldn’t last one day if you had to do all that shit you listed for another person,” Grace said. “So do it to me. Make me a damn meal for once, instead of just coming in and swiping whatever someone else already cooked.” 

“And what about the other shit? The diapers?” Pierce asked.

“You’ve seen my ass naked,” Grace said. (I’m drunk.) “I don’t care.” (I should stop talking.) “Fuck you.” 

“No way,” Pierce said.

“Hah!” 

“Not for a hundred bucks.” Shaking his head, his shaggy hair swished back and forth in the firelight, as though he were trying to get rid of a pesky mosquito, not coming up with an idea. “And not for a day. I will outlast the shit out of you. You’d get sick of shitting your pants years before I’d get sick of taking care of a kid.”

“If not for a hundred bucks, then what?” 

“Chores,” Pierce snapped. “Loser does the winner’s house chores for a year.” 

“Fine!” 

“Fine!” 

“FIN-” 

“Wasters!” Melody shouted, raising her fist over her heart in a middle finger salute. “You two, drop this shit right now. We are not fighting.”

“We’re not figh-” Grace started. 

“Come ooon,” Skip groaned. “You think we’d buy that? Drop it, Grace. Drop it, Pierce. You’re both very responsible grown-ups.” 

Grace started to come up with a retort, but her head was fuzzy. 

(How many beers have I had?) 

She looked over to the recycling bin, trying to count the cans on the ground. Some of them weren’t hers, though, but… 

(Nine? Ten?)  

Sitting down in her chair so that her head would stop spinning, Grace grabbed the last beer from the latest six pack. 

“You took the last-” Brains started. 

“Nope.” Grace cracked open the can. “Okay, dropping it. I’m sorry.” 

 The fire was silent for a moment, until Brains said, “You all want to play Mafia?”