knife_bender | 75 Godiva Street

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75 Godiva Street | Afternoon

It wasn't exactly the ideal anniversary conditions with Annie on bedrest and Diego being constantly ready to rush to the hospital at any moment, but today was the day so they had to make do. He got food delivered (Chinese food, spicy for Annie because he read that would help induce labor), and stopped by J,GOB to get a tiny cake for two (or four, rather). It wasn't a trip to another country or a fancy dinner, but they were going to celebrate, damn it.

"Heeeey," Diego said as he came into their room, arms full of food. "Happy anniversary."

[For the wife and allllll the Sunday SP]

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"They'll probably be like me and my siblings." Oh lord. "You know, competitive against each other until some stranger bitch tries to mess with us."

"That does sound accurate," Annie decided thoughtfully, glancing down to address her stomach. "Though you know what would be super cool, kiddos, would be to kick this all off with a race to see who can get out of Mommy first."

Only half-kidding. Maybe even just a quarter kidding.

"Not that, like, I'm not loving this still." Pregnancy was a miracle! But like, tons of women gave birth at eight and a half months. Tons! Maybe even most, when it came to twins!

"Oooh you want to make a bet on which one comes out first?" See, there was no way these kids weren't going to be competitive. "I vote Maggie, 100%."

"No way, Ben's got this," Annie said automatically, spearing some chicken with a fork because guess who was predictably bad with chopsticks? Right here. "And then whoever wins -- like, the kid wins huge, because they get to be the oldest forever."

And Annie already knew, without any experience herself, that, 'I'm 46 seconds older' was probably worth its weight in gold.

"You're on," Diego said, leaning over to give her a kiss on the cheek. "You're right though; whoever is the oldest gets to hold it over the other."

Unfortunately Diego hadn't had that luxury since he and his siblings where all born at the exact same time (don't think too hard about timezones).

He leaned over to talk to Annie's stomach. "You hear that, Maggie? Make Dad proud and get a move on getting out of there."

But hey, while you weren't thinking about time zones, you could also not think about how they were all different ages now. (Though Annie had witnessed firsthand how well trying to play the, 'I'm the oldest' card usually worked out for Five.)

"They can so hear you," Annie said, kind of amazed even still. The kids were definitely active in general, this late into things, but they also seemed to respond to their parents' voices. "Ben, buddy, you got this. Show your dad and sister who's a winner."

Just focus, infant son! That was the problem.

"This is the best kind of bet," Diego said. "No matter who wins it means they're here. You should start charging rent if they keep taking their sweet time."

"Is it weird to be like -- yes, absolutely, and rent goes up every day...but also I think I'll kind of miss them?" Annie asked, wrinkling her nose a little. "I mean, I won't, they'll be here, but it's crazy to think this part is almost over."

She was incredibly uncomfortable, but she also knew that she wasn't ever planning to be pregnant again, and she didn't want to forget this, either. (Not that she really thought she could.)

"Hell of a way to spend most of our first year married, though," she added, and now Diego was getting a cheek kiss.

"It's been a hell of a year, yeah." Pregnancy aside, there was the whole Wanda thing and then the hotel thing to deal with. "But I think we handled it like pros. We should be getting extra marriage points, actually."

They should have gotten to skip paper anniversary and right to gold with all the shit they went through in the last year.

Honestly, in comparison, the pregnancy had kind of been the easiest of those three. At least, Annie was pretty sure she wasn't gonna get thrown a third-act heel or face turn by her doctors during the delivery.

Or find out that one of the nurses was an alien.

(Though now that was totally in her head.)

"I mean, we knew we'd be the best at it," Annie pointed out. "We were the fucking best at being engaged, too."

Still not an actual thing you could rank, guys.

"We were!" It was totally a thing you could rank. "Gonna be the best at parenting too."

To be fair, the bar wasn't that high if the only other competitors were their parents.

Yeah, they just had to like, not be megalomaniacal child abusers and they had this in the bag. (Bonus points for not pulling a Mr. January and walking out, too.)

Though, honestly -- that was what kept Annie in check a little, as far as her expectations for what the twins might eventually be like. If their kids wanted to sit in their rooms and, like, assemble model airplanes, or do watercolors peacefully, instead of being athletic or into performing arts or whatever...then, that was fine. Neither of them had ever gotten a choice, and a choice was the least they could give their children.

(Their children who, like, would obviously love dancing, at the very least. Like. C'mon.)

"You know what's great about that," Annie pointed out, "is that like -- first of all, of course we are. But also, we can both win the individual titles of Best Dad and Best Mom, too."

"And one day the kids will bestow the titles on us via coffee mugs on Mother and Father's Day." Along with questionable breakfast, probably. But that was a risk when Diego and Annie cooked breakfast as well.

"I know being trapped in bed sucks, but I'm glad we have this time together," he admitted. "Quiet before the storm."

"Me too," Annie replied, reaching over to give his knee a squeeze. "And it honestly doesn't suck that bad."

Because it had been one week, Annie. One week.

"It's nice having this time for just us. No work, even." That awful one-day-a-week commitment, and all.

Diego snorted because, yeah, that one-day-a-week commitment was a bit of a joke.

"Probably going to be the last time for awhile," Diego said. "I totally want these kids to get here already but also, like, once they're here, they're here."

And if they wanted time alone for the first twelve or so years they would need to call a sitter. That was kind of scary.

They did, at least, have incredibly competent babysitters next door, who would also probably be very understanding about the inevitable several hundred checking-in texts they'd receive the first time Buck and Eddie watched the twins for an hour or two.

"And everything will be so different," Annie agreed softly, hearing the weight of that and wondering if, at some point, she'd feel some sort of regret at the change in their priorities. "I just hope we can -- like, stay us. A version of us."

They could be Best Mom and Best Dad without losing Annie and Diego, right?

"Me too." He had been worried about that himself. "But the people we know who have kids still seem like themselves. I think."

Allison and Wanda did go a bit nuts there for a minute.

Well, maybe if the twins were erased from existence, Annie and Diego might go a little crazy, too. That seemed allowable.

"Yeah," Annie agreed, frowning as she thought -- like, most of the people she knew with kids had been parents before she'd met them, so she didn't have a comparison point of, like, whether MM had been more normal before Janice. (Though, like, Diego had known his sister before Claire, so that was something.) "Maybe we can try to keep each other in check? Like, if I stop talking about anything but diapers and their sleep schedule, that's a thing to watch for."

For the record, Annie foresaw, 'I will babyproof this entire goddamn house and now it's my personality for awhile' as being the trap Diego might fall into, there.

Oh yeah, once the kids started crawling he would be babyproofing everything. But DIY. Meaning all of the corners on tables would be covered in pool noodle technology.

"I like that plan," he said, smiling. "I'll take you by the shoulders and go 'remember we are young, hot and cool' and hope you snap out of it."

"Hopefully I'll be all three of those things again by then."

You know, weirdly, Annie did not feel her hottest these days. But she was also kind of...really, really incentivized to get back into things once she was able to move enough to burn some calories, even if she was also doing her best to try to stay in the moment and enjoy the only pregnancy she was planning to ever have. It was kind of wonderful, in a way she couldn't explain, to be so uniquely close with the babies.

But she also already missed going for walks, even if bedrest wasn't so bad.

"You are all three of those things now, babe," Diego said. "Though I do get that being on bedrest per doctor's orders isn't, like, the most sensual reason to be in bed."

He imagined it must be like your mom making you stay in bed when you were sick.

"You have kept me in bed for way more fun reasons," Annie pointed out, leaning over to press a soft kiss behind his ear in a fun little reminder of the kinds of times they would, again, probably need a sitter to enjoy again in the future. "But that's also how I think I got in this position."

Damn her hot husband and, like, their desire for children and subsequent tons of intentionally unprotected sex.

"Hey, we don't know that for sure." They had sex in places that weren't beds all of the time!

"It does kind of make it hard to narrow down when they were conceived, exactly," Annie admitted, flushing slightly. "Could've been in the kitchen."

It had probably been during sex pollen, actually, if she really thought about it. That would be right in line, give or take a week or two.

"You don't think we'll need that information for the future do you?" Diego asked, half-joking. "Like maybe the doctors will need to know."

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