His Curvy Obsession (His Curvy #3)

1. Eric

Eric

Elijah rushes into the conference room looking unusually rumpled with his tie undone and his hair still wet from his morning shower.

“Another day in paradise?” Emmett asks, looking up from his laptop at our oldest brother.

“You bet,” Elijah says, grinning broadly.

The shadows under his eyes grow darker by the day, but even so, my oldest brother never seems bothered by the fact that his infant daughter keeps him up at all hours of the night.

“Ellie woke up every two hours last night,” Elijah continues, coming to the table with his briefcase and taking out a laptop of his own. “Teething again.”

“That sucks man,” Emmett says. “For her and for you.”

“It’s fine,” Elijah shrugs. “I’ll catch a nap in my office later.”

“Don’t you have a nanny?” I ask him. “They can’t take care of the baby at night so you can get some sleep?”

“The nanny is only for the daytime,” he explains.

“You can’t hire someone for nights too?” I ask him.

He shoots me an exasperated look.

“Funnily enough, I would like to spend some time with my daughter while she’s a baby,” he says. “Not something you would understand.”

I bristle at this comment. I know my brothers consider me something of a robot. They like to joke that I have no emotions, and I understand why they’d say this.

But the truth is, I do have emotions. I just reserve them for the things that matter most. I don’t get frustrated at the morning traffic like Elijah does. You won’t find me jumping for joy at a football game like Emmett, either.

It takes more, much more, for me to feel any extreme emotions on either end of the spectrum, negative or positive. But this doesn’t mean I have no feelings at all.

“The importance of fatherhood is not lost on me,” I say after a moment. “I was only suggesting solutions to your sleepless nights.”

“Sometimes the solution to a problem is to buckle down and give it time,” Elijah says. “This is only a phase. It’ll pass. There’s no solution to teething. It’s just a stage that the baby has to go through.”

“Listen to this guy,” Emmett says, shaking his head. “The man’s been a dad for less than a year and is already talking about it like he’s a professional.”

“Not a professional,” Elijah replies. “But anyone looks like an expert next to a guy like Eric.”

“True,” Emmett says, looking at me.

Another jab. It shouldn’t bother me this much. Growing up as the youngest brother of three, I learned to have thick skin. Most of the time the teasing rolls off of my back. But today, I’m having a hard time brushing it off. I don’t know why.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been working so much. I work a lot anyway, but for the last few months it’s been nonstop.

Or maybe it’s because this particular teasing is about my potential to become a father. Something I plan to do eventually, once I find the right woman.

“I’m just saying,” I reply. “It’s not as hard as you both make it out to be. Especially with our resources. Your nights don’t have to be sleepless. You choose for them to be.”

“No offense, little bro,” Elijah says. “But I’m not about to take parenting tips from the guy who has no chance in hell of ever becoming a parent.”

I’m growing more aggravated, ready to move on from this conversation…until Elijah makes this last remark.

“What makes you think I’ll never become a father?” I ask him, straightening in my chair.

Elijah glances at Emmett.

“Dude, seriously?” Emmett looks at me. “You’re almost forty. You don’t date -”

“Dating isn’t necessary for procreation,” I interject.

“Right,” Emmett rolls his eyes. “But dating is required for getting married -”

“Marriage isn’t required for procreation either.”

“Oh knock it off,” Elijah groans. “Eric, don’t take this as some kind of competitive challenge.

We’re just saying: You’re a perpetual bachelor.

And you don’t seem to have family very high on your list of priorities.

Family. Not just ‘procreation’ but settling down with a wife and having kids.

It just…doesn’t seem in the cards for you. ”

I lean back in my seat, observing my two older brothers from across the conference room table.

He’s right; I turn forty next week.

“I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t crossed my mind once or twice that I might want to think about securing a wife,” I reply.

“You two are married and settled down. One of you has a kid, the other has one on the way…if the two of you can handle it, I’m sure I can pull it off with equal or greater success. ”

Emmett laughs and groans at the same time, looking at me in disbelief.

“This isn’t some kind of science experiment,” Elijah says sternly. “It’s not a competition, either.”

“It’s not,” I agree. “It’s about legacy.”

“Legacy?”

“You have a daughter,” I say to Elijah. Then I turn to Emmett. “And you have a son on the way. Which means that when you both get old and die -”

“Love the cheerful mood this conversation is putting me in,” Emmett mutters.

“- When you both get old and die,” I continue. “You’ll still have a piece of yourself living on through your children. Legacy .”

“Sure, man,” Emmett shrugs. “But that’s not what it’s about. That’s not why people have children.”

“Then why do people have children?” I ask.

“Because!” Emmett begins. “Because…”

He trails off, frowning to himself, not quite sure how to end the sentence.

“People reproduce so that they leave their mark on the world,” I continue.

“A lasting mark. Elijah’s DNA will outlive him through his daughter, and through his daughter’s children too.

Your son will carry your DNA. This is the reason people have children.

To ensure the continuation of their genes. Legacy.”

“You sound like a fucking psycho,” Emmett shakes his head. “That’s not why people have kids. That’s a stupid, selfish reason to have a kid.”

“Maybe it is selfish,” I shrug. “But at the end of the day, it’s the reason. The real reason. Deep down, we all have primal urges. Things that we do without entirely understanding our motivations.”

“Enough about your primal urges,” he groans. “Fuck. Why the hell are we talking about this again?”

“You brought it up,” I say with a shrug.

“Enough,” Elijah says. “Let’s move on. Please.”

He opens his laptop and Emmett settles into his seat. They move on quickly, leaving the topic of fatherhood behind.

But for the rest of the day, it’s all that I can think about.