I thanked the lord that Creed was like his brother in that he had large amounts of muscle mass. I hoped it would be enough for Anna while we made our escape.

Anna did not, however, feast upon his flesh. Instead, she stood upon her tiptoes and kissed him sweetly on the lips. He sighed a little, shoulders relaxing, and like it was commonplace, his hand went to her stomach, rubbing along the curve of it. I thought maybe it was a diversionary tactic, and that in a moment, she’d rear up and unhinge her jaw before biting off Creed’s head.

Instead, she said, “Sorry,” as she pulled away. She was smiling up at him, and it was the same smile I remembered when I thought I’d loved her. “I’m being a jerk. I don’t mean it.”

“I know,” Creed said. “And I lied to you. I was texting Bear.”

“He said you were Spider-Man,” I answered dutifully. “Because of your superpowers. Also, I do know how to use the internet. I just don’t like looking up people selling breast milk on it.”

She arched an eyebrow at me. “And why are you looking up people selling breast milk?”

“Well, now when you put it like that, I… have no idea.”

“Sometimes he doesn’t know why he does the things he does,” Otter said, and they shared a weird secret smile, like they had an inside joke with each other. They were commiserating.

I didn’t know how I felt about that.

WE’D SAT down to eat before Anna asked us how the surrogacy search was going. I knew it was coming, because we’d told our family that we’d already started the process. The people at the Northwest Surrogacy Center couldn’t have been nicer to us. Every interaction we’d had so far had been pleasant and easy. Some dark, twisted part of me had prepared for some flack that two married men were wanting to conceive, but that hadn’t been the case. If anything, we were treated just like every other couple, and that was something I should have expected. I’d spent much of my life preparing for the other shoe to drop with good reason. It was hard for me to trust something out of my control, but Otter said I was getting better at it. What had started out as tenuous was slowly gathering strength, to the point of where I didn’t dread every email or phone call we received from the surrogacy center.

But still. “It’s, uh. Invasive? I mean, I knew it would be, but still. Invasive is a good word.”

Otter picked up the thread for me. “Very, very detailed background checks. And into everything. We’ve got nothing to worry about, but it’s still disconcerting.”

“It’s like you’re being judged,” I said, wiping sauce from my face. “At everything you do.”