“Well, no. Do you want it?”

“Regifting,” she reminds me. “And I have one.”

“But this one lights up and beeps when your boob is done. And what if you have another kid? This is super hard-core.”

She snorts. “Right. Another kid. Don’t tell Creed because he doesn’t know it yet, but it’s time for me to Bob Barker the hell out of this situation and spay and neuter my pet.”

We gape at her.

She shrugs. “I’ll hold his hand while it happens.”

“Savage,” Izzie mutters, holding out her hand for a high five.

“I’ll never understand girls,” I sigh.

“You tried,” Anna says. “I suppose it’s the thought that counts.”

I picked up what remained of the box the pump came in and put it back inside. “We will still send a thank-you note to Helen, even though she’s a homophobic asshole. Izzie, don’t say that word because it’s bad. I’m an adult, and therefore I can speak how I wish.”

“Are you sure about that?” she asks me without looking up.

“Which part?”

“Exactly.”

“Brat.”

She’s smiling, though, and it’s nice to see. She’s slowly been coming out of her shell, getting used to her place here with us. It probably helped that the visits so far from the social worker have gone so well, given that Otter and I are old hats at it. Erica Sharp was able to track down Izzie’s father, and he didn’t seem to give two shits about Izzie. Which was good in the end, because he was doing twenty years in Georgia for armed robbery. We’d thought the news would hurt Izzie, but she’d only sighed in relief and asked if that meant she was able to stay with us for good now. When I told her that looked like it’d be the case, she began to settle, talking to us more rather than just to Ty. It was obvious that she felt more comfortable around him, but she was giving Otter and me a chance. Last week, she’d even come to us and asked for something she’d seen online, some bug-hunting kit she’d found on Amazon. I’d been so taken aback that she’d actually asked for something that I hadn’t hesitated in handing her my credit card.

(“Wait, a bug-hunting what? Izzie, you better not let those things loose in the house, you hear me?”

“Bear’s scared of bugs.”

“You shut your mouth, Otter. I am not. I just don’t like them when they fly. Or crawl. Or come near me. Or are alive.”)