But then again, here they were. Actually talking.
“No, it wasn’t so bad,” Cordy said. “You should try it sometime.”
eighteen
Cordy tuggedat the blanket wrapped around the baby doll and tried not to swear.
This was their last labor and delivery class and since they’d finished all the material, Ms. Reston was having them practice their swaddling as a treat.
It didn’t feel like a treat to Cordy. It felt like torture. How was she supposed to do this to a real, live baby when she could barely do it to a doll? Getting it tight enough to stay on felt tight enough to suffocate the baby.
How many babies died from too-tight swaddles? Cordy had no idea. Great, another thing to panic over. She was due in five days and had to get this right. There was no more time.
Chance poked disgustedly at his wrapping job. The blanket slipped, then slowly unraveled. The baby doll sprang out, its rubber limbs flailing.
“Some duct tape would help,” Chance muttered. “Maybe if I could get a knee into the baby’s chest, I could get it tight enough.”
Cordy sent him a horrified look.
“Joking,” Chance said. “You’re getting too serious.” He rewrapped his doll, then inspected his work. “Not bad. Maybewe ought to make a contest out of it. Whoever does it fastest wins. We’d need a real baby, make it more real. If the baby wriggles out, you lose.”
Cordy stared at him.
“Baby rodeo,” Chance said. “I think it’d do real well around here. Maybe add a diaper change competition. Bottle preparation.” One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Milking competition.”
Cordy resisted the urge to smack him even as she held in a laugh. “You will not milk me. I am not a cow.”
“Never said you were. But you’d be good at it.” He let his gaze linger over her chest as his voice dropped. “You’ve got the most magnificent tits. Best I’ve ever seen.”
She ought to be embarrassed. Or offended. But all she felt was a dizzying warmth.
“Thank you,” she whispered back to him. “You did much better at swaddling than I did.”
“Not going to say anything nice aboutmytits though?”
“They’re magnificent.” She ducked her head to keep from giggling.
“Thank you.” He ran a hand down his chest. “I’ve been doing my exercises.”
“Exercises?”
“Yeah.” He glanced at her. “You know, the exercises girls do.”
Cordy could only stare at him. Chance seemed deadly serious. “There are… there are no exercises to make your boobs bigger.”
“Yes, there are.” Hewasserious. “The girls used to do them behind Mrs. Huntington’s classroom when we were in middle school. They would get together, hide back there, and tell us boys we couldn’t watch. So, of course, we snuck over to see what they were up to.” He stuck his elbows out and did some kind of iron-pumping chicken dance. “That’s what they were doing.”
“And you thought they worked?” Cordy clapped a hand over her mouth. Dear God, the man had known so many women—how was he so damn ignorant?
“Well, yeah,” he said defensively. “They did them throughout seventh grade and then in eighth—whoomp.” He cupped his hands in front of his chest, marking off novelty-sized breasts.
“They hit puberty,” Cordy told him. “It wasn’t the exercises, they just grew up.”
“What?” Chance looked as if she’d told him unicorns weren’t real. “No. No, it worked.”
“If I didn’t know you had no sisters, I’d know for sure after you told me that.”
“If it didn’t work, why were they doing the exercises?”
