Curious (mxm)

Sexual Tension in Target

Axel's POV

Babies liked a lot of things. Bottles, toys, diapers, car seats, cribs even. Maybe ... maybe clothes? Was that everything?

Eriks liked pissing me off, but that was a whole other story.

"I'm thinking this one." That was the little shit talking.

He held up a tiny baby beanie to his mop of blonde hair and gave it a stupid grin. "It's green, so it's totally gender neutral."

I 'ooh-ed' and prayed he would pick up on my sarcasm.

Erik was on board though. "Okay, we can paint the room with green to keep it gender neutral. Like a nature theme."

I flicked his forehead, which might've been an overreaction to his statement, but whatever. "No. If we're doing gender neutral, we're doing galaxy."

Jackson had the balls to make an ugh noise at my idea. "That's so overused and tacky. Let me Pinterest some other ideas."

I don't know when, why, or how Jackson began to believe that he was relevant and useful in this situation, but I was not enjoying it in the least.

"The general theme is to keep the walls white and have an accent wall with a pattern," Jackson informed, nose by his phone. "Let's pick out white stuff."

"Ooh, look at that one!" Erik said, leaning over Jackson's shoulder and touching Jackson's arm with his hand and practically breathing down his neck and existing within kissing dis— "I was right. Look, it's a gorgeous green, kind of like a green tint? With a gray crib, animal photos in black and white to up the class."

"I'm going to cut you off right there," I told them, holding up a hand in a stop motion. "I said galaxy. We do galaxy. My baby is not going to be in a boring white nursery with boring white and gray and black decorations. Case closed, end of discussion."

They both opened their big mouthes.

"I'm not open to criticism."

They closed their big mouthes.

Jackson nodded and went back to scrolling. "I'm sure there are some good galaxy ideas here somewhere."

"It would make singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star a lot more fun if you had a themed pillow," was Erik's stellar line of reasoning, although not delivered with confidence.

It probably should've been more awkward with the two of them than it was, especially considering Erik and me kissing last night, and even more-so when considering Jackson's smartass comments.

Somehow, we found our rhythm. Shockingly, it was Jackson who kept my pace and held the conversation. Erik walked steadily behind us, contributing when he felt like it. I was still convinced he was refusing to process the fact that I was having a kid in the first place.

"Tell me about Alyssa," was the sentence that made everything awkward and it came from the little shit's mouth.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't really hate Jackson. He seemed sweet enough. Kind of young and dumb, for sure. And even I could admit ... well, I had eyes. I could see why Erik was so adamant on keeping him around.

Maybe I'd be willing to compromise on this. If Erik quit bitching about my lunch dates with Alyssa, I'd let him keep Jackson in a maid outfit and clean around the house. He was pretty enough for the job.

But right, the little shit was talking.

"She's the one who's having your baby, right?"

Erik's silence spoke volumes.