I sipped my cocktail, peering out of our booth at the empty dancefloor.
“Dance?” Rick asked. “Just say the word and we’ll hit the floor.”
I shook my head. “Later.”
Carl pressed closer to my side. “Whenever you want. It’s your celebration.” He clinked my glass. “To Katie’s excellent success.”
“To Katie acing the fuck out of sales,” Rick added, and clinked my glass, too.
I smiled, happy, bopping my head to the beat of the music. They’d picked a good spot, close enough to boogie, far enough to talk. And I wanted to talk.
I guess it was the alcohol making me brave.
“How would it work?” I said. “The… the baby thing.”
The guys looked at each other for a long moment before Carl answered my question with another question.
“You really want to talk about this now?”
I nodded. “I just want to know. So I can think properly.”
He smiled. “Whatever works. No pressure, Katie. If this isn’t for you, it isn’t for you.”
But it was for me. They were for me.
I looked at the people in the club with us, the couples going about their business, having a good time. I looked at the group of women at the bar, laughing and joking, casting glances in our direction. And that’s when it hit me.
If I wasn’t the one for them, they’d need to find someone else. They’d need to find someone who could give them what they wanted. Give them a family.
I thought about it being one of those women, the women flashing glances our way, wondering which guy was mine and which was free game. I thought about another woman having Carl’s baby, Rick’s baby, bringing up a family with these two amazing men at their side.
And it made me feel sick as a fucking dog.
I didn’t want someone else to have their baby. I didn’t want someone else taking my place in their life.
I took another sip of cocktail.
Drunk. I was drunk.
“So,” I said. “Tell me. How would it work? You must have plans.”
Rick cleared his throat. “We, um… we’ve given it some thought.”
“A lot of thought,” Carl added. “We come together or not at all, that’s the rule.”
“I know,” I said. “I get it.”
“But you don’t,” Carl said. “We wouldn’t want to know, not for certain.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Who the father was,” he continued. “The biological father. We’d rather not know.”
Rick leaned over, took my hand. “We’ll love a baby the same either way, it doesn’t matter. Why complicate it by knowing?”
I looked from one to the other. “So, you just… share… and then don’t know whose baby it is?”
“Exactly,” Carl said. “That feels right to us.”
“And then we’d live together? Bring it up?”
We. I said we.
Rick nodded. “I only work part time, it makes life a bit easier.”
“And how would you explain it to the baby? Daddy one and Daddy two?” The thought made me laugh and it shouldn’t. “Sorry,” I said. “This is just surreal.”
“It’s alright,” Carl said. “And we don’t know yet. We don’t know what the baby would know us as.”
“Daddy Rick and Daddy Carl,” Rick said. “I like that.” He smirked at Carl across the table. “I really like Daddy Carl, it suits you.”
“You can stop that train of thought,” Carl said, but he was smiling.
“And what about school? What about general life?” I continued.
Carl shrugged. “There are plenty of poly relationships out there. We’ll be honest with people, honest with our child, make sure they know how much they’re loved. Believe me, Katie, it could be a lot worse.”
“I know it could be a lot worse, I’m just… won’t they have trouble? I mean kids can be so cruel…”
Rick cleared his throat again, and his eyes were serious. “Kids are cruel to anyone who’s different. I had my fair amount of crap growing up. I mean, I’m bi, always have been, and some kids didn’t like that. But you know what? It didn’t bother me, not really. I had a great family back at home, who taught me I was worth much more than some cheap bullying. I had confidence and self-esteem and I was happy in my own skin. Words bounced off me. I know they don’t bounce off everyone, and I know it might not be as easy for our kid as it was for me, but in general terms, we’ll do our best, we’ll love them hard, and I think we’ll be alright. That’s my gut instinct on it.”