The Baby Bet - Chapter 2

We've got a proper chapter this time! No half-finished outlines with a 'Finish this later!' note on it! 

Other than the introduction here, this chapter doesn't have any author notes. It should work without any explanations provided for context, since it's pretty much complete and I don't need to retcon anything. 

At the end of the previous chapter, there will be a segue where Grace walks into the backyard to join her friends, who are having a bonfire in their back yard. 

Oh, and in the notes for the last chapter, I mentioned a character named 'Randy' who was going to show up later. He's been renamed to 'Pierce' but is otherwise unchanged. 

As always, feedback on this story is especially appreciated!

Author note: At the end of the previous chapter, there will be a segue where Grace walks into the backyard to join her friends, who are having a bonfire in their back yard. 

“... 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?” 

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

The Baby Bet - Chapter 1* 

So, I'm going to be doing something... new, with this story.

I'm not writing a series of chapters that make up a larger story this time. I'm writing a novel. That's different!

Namely, it's different in my writing process. Specifically, because when I'm writing a novel, I don't always finish everything in order. 

As such, this isn't going to be a totally cohesive story just yet. It's going to take editing. I'll be supplementing heavily with author notes, especially when I change continuity. Once the story is 'done', I will go back and edit heavily, possibly even redoing entire chapters or sequences. 

For this chapter in particular: Openings are hard, especially when there's no immediate kink content to hang my hat on. I can't just rely on, say, a sex scene or a fun diaper scenario to keep interest, and in this case I can't even use an action scene or something high energy. 

It's difficult. I need to introduce the entire core cast and premise, almost purely through dialog. As such... This chapter is incomplete, and it's probably going to be replaced, because I don't know these characters yet. I've got a reasonably strong character for Grace and some good ideas for the rest, but I haven't had a chance to live with them for the length of a novel. Their personalities, quirks, and details about who they are haven't come to life yet, and so any attempt to introduce themis going to fall flat. 

Grace, as in elegance, surveyed the scene. “Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

The kitchen was a wreck; the aftermath of four adults - she wasn’t counting herself - who couldn’t clean up after themselves if their lives depended on it.

She frowned. That wasn’t true. It was the result of three adults who could clean up after themselves (Badly!) and one adult who, she suspected, didn’t know how to wipe his own ass.

Sighing, she rolled up her sleeves, stepped up to the plate, and got to work.

Dishes were the first thing. She had to reorganize the washer to make sure everything would be efficient, but even then it was going to take two loads. Better to get started early.

Someone (It had to be him) had left the cast iron skillet soaking in the sink. She recovered it and dried it quickly, checking for rust.

“Morning, Grace.” Brains, as in smartass, strolled in, a backpack over his shoulder. Hopping over the dustpan on the floor, he navigated to the coffee pot, pouring a quarter of it into his portable thermos.

“Morning, Brains,” Grace replied. “Off to work?”

“Off to work,” he replied, snagging an apple from the basket of fruit on the kitchen table. Taking a bite, he jumped once again to clear the dustpan, waltzing out the back door.

While Grace was bagging up trash, Melody, as in music, found her way in. “I could have helped with that, you know.”

“I was awake, and it needed done,” Grace replied. “I don’t mind.”

“Well, thanks then. Have you eaten?”

“Not yet.”

Melody took that as the indication to start cooking, raiding the fridge for breakfast fixings. It wasn’t anything fancy, just bacon and eggs, but she cooked them up while Grace cleaned. They managed to move around each other in the kitchen without getting in each other’s ways, and before long, three plates of food were set out on the now-clean table.

Grace took a break to eat, pulling up a stool. She used ketchup, Melody doused her eggs in salsa.

“How are things going with Bill?” Grace asked, between bites.

“Oh, I ghosted him.” Melody talked right over a mouthful of food. “He wouldn’t shut up about his band.”

“So?”

Melody’s chewing slowed, and she raised her eyebrows. “When’s the last time you saw someone?”

Grace shook her head, sticking out her middle finger and raising it over her heart. “Wasters Club,” she reminded Melody.

Melody returned the salute, and that was that. The subject was dropped. “Anyways, he was great in the sack, but we’d be done and like five seconds later he’d be talking about how I’d inspired him to write a song, and like- Fuck, dude. We’ve known each other for three days and they’ve only been pleasant when your mouth is shut.”

“Eventually you’ll run out of college guys to bang,” Grace pointed out.

Melody just shrugged. “They make new ones every year.”

Pushing up from the table, she glanced at her plate, then at Grace. Grace just nodded her head. “I’ll get it.”

“Thanks, G. Need anything from the store?”

“Dish soap,” Grace suggested. “Thanks.”

Melody left for work, and Grace alone, sweeping up the crud and dirt on the floor.

It wasn’t twenty minutes later that the door opened. Skip, as in playing hookie, was rubbing at their eyes and yawning. “Morning, G.”

Grace glanced up from what she was doing. “Evening, Skip. You’re home late.”

Skip shrugged. “Twelve hours. We’re in the busy season right now.”

“More than busy,” Grace said. “Gonna sleep?”

“In a bit.” Skip strolled through, drinking the rest of the slightly-cooled coffee straight from the pot. “Got some personal work to take care of, first.”

Grace shook her head. “Don’t kill yourself.”

“Can’t. Too busy,” Skip pointed out, wandering out of the kitchen.

Everything, save for the still running dishwasher, was largely cleaned up at this point. Counters wiped down, stove washed, she was done for the morning. Someone would likely trash the place come lunchtime, but that was a problem for later.

She had work to do, so she went to go get her laptop.

I stopped writing here, because I realized that this 'breakfast around the kitchen table' situation just wasn't working for me. It's slow, and we don't get to see the characters interact as a group. This is basically what I do when I'm stuck, I leave a note for myself explaining what needs to bridge this to the next chapter, then I come back and redo it once I'm more confident that I can solve the problem. So, with that in mind, here's the note I left for myself: 

Grace continues to go throughout her day. She gets some work done, and eventually we’re eventually going to meet Randy, and get a bit of backstory for the Wasters Club - Namely, a group of friends from highschool, who met through detention and stuck together after graduating, got a house to share, and are unified by a ‘fuck the world’ attitude. End with a segue into a late evening fire in the backyard.

I will try and avoid using these notes when I can, especially since I'll be posting these chapters publicly, but I can't promise that they won't come up again.