Anna crossed her arms over her chest, but her expression was more amused than annoyed. “I think we’re at the point where we need to start watching our language.”

I looked past Gibson to Anna. “Watch my language? You might as well ask me to hop on one foot while reciting the alphabet backwards. I can’t police myself like that twenty-four/seven. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.”

Anna swished her hands at Gibson. “Well, she’s starting to copy you, and if we don’t put a stop to it now, she’s going to start calling people cocksuckers soon.”

I started laughing. “That…would be so awesome.”

Anna put her hands on her hips; true irritation was starting to edge out her amusement now. “No, it wouldn’t be.” She smiled. “Well, yeah, it kind of would be, but as parents, we have to put a stop to that kind of stuff.” She sighed. “Well, we should try anyway.”

Looking back at Gibson, I frowned. “I suppose I could try.” Even though I was sure she didn’t have a clue what we were talking about, Gibson laid her head on my shoulder, wrapped her arms around my neck, and patted my back like she was encouraging me. Yeah, if it would help Gibson, I would try to control my mouth. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for that little girl.

The three of us started heading toward the bedroom. Anna grabbed her purse off the bed; the covers were rumpled and falling off, but neither one of us had bothered to fix it. Why put it together if we were just going to mess it up again? That was my philosophy anyway, and Anna seemed to agree with it. We had a tendency to think alike, which really freaked me the fuck out.

As Anna slipped the strap of her mammoth bag over her shoulder, she looked over at me. I’d shifted Gibson onto my back and I was bouncing her up and down…like a pogo stick. Mmmm, I loved pogo sticks.

“Before I forget, your dad called.” She frowned after she said it, and I wondered if Pops had done or said something to piss her off. It wouldn’t surprise me. Dad had no filter. Mom said it ran in the family. Whatever.

“Yeah? And what did that fucker want?”

Anna sighed, indicating Gibson with her hand. I scratched my head as I thought of a more kid-friendly way to put it. Minding my tongue was a pain in the ass. “Uh, what did that…feller…want?”

Anna laughed at my cheesy fill-in word, then frowned again. Rubbing her stomach, she said, “They want to come up for the birth. All of them. And they want to stay here.”

Well of course they did. My place was fucking fantastic, much nicer than the shitholes my family called home. Once the money from our second album had started pouring in, I’d done what anybody in my position would have done. I’d contacted a real estate agent and told her to find me the most expensive house in Seattle. Sadly, we hadn’t ended up buying that one, but the one Anna and I had settled on was definitely in the top ten. This place was outrageous, outlandish, and way too big for just three people, or four, or ten. I loved it.

I wasn’t the only D-Bag who had invested in real estate. Kellan and Kiera had a huge secluded place north of Seattle, in the middle of BFE, and Matt and Rachel had a swanky condo downtown, with an amazing view of the pier and the Ferris wheel. Both of those spreads had required a ton of dough, although neither was as pricey as my place. Evan was the only one who’d bought a modest home. He’d actually purchased his old loft. Well, his loft and the auto body shop beneath it. He’d converted the business into extra living space and an art studio for Jenny. It was cool. I guess. Kellan hadn’t liked the fact that Evan had done that though. That particular auto body shop had been the only place Kellan had trusted to look after his car. Pansy. It was a car, get over it already. And he had, eventually. Although he’d hired the chick mechanic to be his personal car person. Hmmm, I needed a girl in my garage, wearing a bikini, covered in grease, looking over my hot rods. Ha-ha! Hot rod…

“Griffin…? Did you hear what I said?”

Shaking my head, I snapped out of my dirty-girl fantasy. “Uh, yeah, Mom and Pops are coming for a visit. Sounds cool.”

Anna sighed. “They’re all coming, Griffin. Your mom, dad, brother, sister, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins. It’s going to be chaos, and that’s the last thing I need when I’m sleep deprived.”

I gave her a sympathetic smile, even though it didn’t sound like a big deal to me. “It will be fine. This place is huge; you’ll barely see them. They’ll probably spend most of the time at the pool anyway.” The house had an indoor Olympic-sized pool with a ten-person hot tub right next to it. A selling point for me.

Anna didn’t look moved by my argument, so I added, “And you won’t be sleep deprived…you just listed off about a dozen babysitters. We could go on vacation if we wanted.”

“I’m not leaving my newborn infant with your family. Not even for a month in Cabo.” Her expression told me that she really meant it. So did her next words. “You need to call him back and tell him they can visit for a weekend, but that’s it.”

“A weekend? Babe, they’d barely get to see the newest Hancock. How about a month?”

Anna turned to face me with her arms crossed; she had her game face on. I knew what that meant. Negotiation time. “The offer on the table is five days after the baby is born. What’s your counter?”

I thought for a second. “Twenty days.” Anna cringed but didn’t object. That was the rule for negotiations—Person A had to accept Person B’s offer without complaint, and vice versa.

“Okay,” she muttered. “Game room.”

Spinning on her heel, she sauntered out of the room. With an eager laugh, I followed her. Anna and I had come up with a completely fair way to solve disagreements. Fair, and fun. Personally, I thought we were geniuses for thinking of it, and every married couple should follow our example. Maybe Anna and I should market the idea and sell it. Yeah…we could be marriage counselors. We were awesome at this shit.

We walked down a hallway filled with gaudy works of art. The more ridiculous something was, the more I liked it. There were statues of pissing kids, dog-faced fish, and flying monkeys. My home was filled with portraits of gigantic asses, which Anna swore were pumpkins; a Monty Python–like rendition of God in the sky, who kind of looked like me with a beard; and my favorite piece—a dog dropping a deuce in the crapper. Anna made me tuck that one away in my office. I thought it would be more appropriate in the bathroom. I mean, come on! A dog on the toilet above the toilet? What could be more awesome than that? I’d lost that negotiation though, and once a winner was declared, there was no getting out of it. Negotiation results were set in stone. Literally. I had them written down on a boulder in the backyard.

The “game room” was on the other end of the house, and it took a few minutes to get there. I almost reminded Anna that we were running late for rehearsal, but I didn’t. I loved this game. Sometimes I disagreed with Anna about stuff just so we could play. The game room was kid paradise. We had a movie theater–style popcorn machine, so the room permanently smelled amazing. We had a half dozen old-school arcades, Frogger included. We had a ball pit for Gibson, which is where we usually found her when she disappeared on us. We even had an indoor batting cage and a boxing bag. But what Anna and I used to settle disputes was in the center of the room: the Ping-Pong table.

Anna started setting up while I set Gibson down by the ball pit. She squealed and made a beeline for the colorful plastic balls. With a mighty jump, she belly flopped on top of them and started swishing her arms and legs like she was making a snow angel. I almost wished the pit were bigger so I could join her.

When I headed to the “negotiation” table, Anna already had ten cups set up on her side, forming a pyramid, and was working on setting up the ten cups for my side. Anna’s cups were filled with seltzer water, since she was preggers and couldn’t drink. It took some of the fun out of the game, but it couldn’t be helped. Baby Hancock would have to wait at least fifteen years to play the real beer pong. Anna had won that negotiation too.