9. Chris

9

CHRIS

A fter days of worry and stress, there Revv is, shirtless and barefoot in the middle of a craft store. He's holding a glue gun in each hand and sporting a makeshift toolbelt around his waist made of blue faux leather. It has several different compartments that are now full of scissors, licorice, markers, beads, and googly eyes.

He grins at me. "Hey, Daddy."

I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe I thought he'd be sobbing or curled up in a ball, but whatever he's making with his glue gun and toolbelt isn't a nest of grief.

I should have known better. Revv may not look strong, but he's always chosen joy in his life. That's a lot harder than some people think.

"Hey, baby. What are you doing?" I ask.

He sets his glue guns down on a table piled high with bolts of fabric. The floor underneath is scattered with bits of cloth and glitter. He's clearly been busy.

"There needed to be more dicks," he says simply. "I think there should always be more dicks in general. Life does not include an adequate number of dicks on a day-to-day basis, but especially in this case. There just aren't enough."

He turns around and walks down the center aisle of the craft store, leaving Gray and I behind without another word.

Gray smirks. "I knew his nest would have something to do with sex."

We follow Revv through the craft store, witnessing the destruction he's left in his wake. He's like a miniature Godzilla who has terrorized aisles of ribbons and buttons instead of Tokyo. The last aisle is clogged by a mattress covered in silver faux fur. Revv has piled on pillows and stuffed animals, so it looks like the bed of a child. Except for the decorations surrounding it. The shelves around the mattress have been cleared of all craft supplies, and in their place are lots and lots of dick-shaped objects. Some of them are covered in fabric, others are layered with yarn. They're all shapes and sizes. A few of them even have a knot at their base. The one thing they all have in common is a pair of googly eyes that Revv has placed on their tips.

The dicks stare up at us like an army of X-rated cartoon characters.

Gray tries not to laugh, but he doesn't succeed. I'm a little better at holding back my emotions.

"Wow. There are so many of them," I say.

Revv looks back at me. "Yes, I know. We needed more."

Gray manages to get his laughter under control and nods as seriously as he can. "Definitely a need. What would we do without them?"

Revv grabs a licorice stick out of his toolbelt and takes a bite.

"When was the last time you ate real food?" I ask.

He shrugs. "We don't need real food. We need more dicks."

Gray covers his mouth with his hand and his shoulders shake with laughter.

"What if I got you real food shaped like a dick? Maybe a banana?"

Revv considers that for a moment. "Okay. Or a hot dog."

"Hot dogs are not real food, baby."

He sighs dramatically. "Fine. I will eat a banana. And a cucumber. And a Snickers bar. They have a very sexy chocolate vein."

I don't mention that Snickers bars aren't real food either. One step at a time.

"Licorice isn't shaped like a dick," Gray points out.

"That's okay. Licorice reminds me of you. Licorice backpack. Licorice backpack. Licorice backpack." Revv wanders off, muttering the safe word we used the night Gray let a bison shifter fuck him against the brick wall of an alley.

"He's adorable," Gray says fondly.

"Yes, he is."

Gray picks up a dick made from sushi-print flannel. The head has been shaped with what I imagine are beads underneath the fabric.

Revv pops his head around the corner. "Don't touch Milton."

Gray and I look at each other. "Did you name all of them?"

Revv rolls his eyes dramatically. "No. That's Milton's dick."

"Who's Milton?" Gray asks.

"My boyfriend in high school."

I scan the dozens of dicks Revv has created in all their various shapes and sizes. "Are all of these models of real dicks?"

"Of course. Why would I make fake dicks? We need real ones."

I pick up a large one with a strangely familiar bulbous head. "Is this Grizzly's?"

Revv nods, then disappears down the aisle again.

"Does he remember the shape of every dick he sucks or something? That's a lot of dicks."

I smile. "Yes, it is. Much more than this. We'll probably need to help him with the rest if he wants to finish in time."

Revv's nest is not about me or my pebble. It's about embracing who he is, even after his accidental pregnancy. It's absolutely perfect.

He pops his head around the corner again. "I think your pebbles are underneath the floorboards in that corner. You need to ask Lillian about them. She wouldn't give them to me."

"What?" Surely I didn't hear him right.

"Yeah. Lillian has your pebbles. She saved them."

I think back to what she said at the airport. "I am happy you've found two men to love." And, "We need to sit down and have a proper conversation about this after you get some sleep."

Suddenly, I'm not tired at all. The night I buried my pebbles, Lillian didn't argue with my father, even though she comforted me after my pebbles were gone. I thought that meant she agreed with his decision to only let me keep one. It never occurred to me that she might have watched me bury my pebbles or that she'd dug them back up again.

And here I thought Revv would go looking for my pebbles and come up empty-handed. He didn't. He found them. That brilliant, beautiful man.

I finally understand his nest for what it is: a claim. Revv isn't compromising on anything. He's going to have one of my pebbles, all the dicks he wants, and our baby all at the same time. That nest is as bold as he is.

God, I love him.

Maybe hopeful lies aren't lies after all, they're simply wishes. At times, they may not even be the right wishes, just the wishes that soothe us until we can be brave enough to wish for something more.

It's time to find out if our wishes have come true.