Honestly, I didn't think I'd get so much accomplished in the first chapter. Where to go from there? I figured logically I could jump around a bit time wise. This chapter takes place at least six months later. But if you do skip around with time, it's best to make up little crap here and there that happened in the missing time period.

Hope that makes sense.

Also, this chapter is a tad shorter than the last one. I hope nobody minds and there's a better explanation why at the end.

"And there they are," Jeff was regaling the gents with a tale from his last day in Lesbos, "there was Chrissie—the girl who thought I had one leg—and the Hebrew girl whose name I thought was 'breasts'."

Oliver didn't know about these women and was visibly confused. "What?"

"They're both long stories, Oliver. Anyway: Chrissie and the Hebrew girl are standing in my apartment face to face with me. Naturally, they both recognized me."

"What did you do?"

"What any other man would do in that situation: I ran out of there as fast as I could."

Steve couldn't help but shudder after Jeff finished telling the story. "That sounds awful."

Patrick finished swallowing his Guinness before he added his take on the subject. "The only way that could turn into a plus is with a catfight."

"Patrick!"

"Preferably in a mud pit where they're partially, if not completely naked."

"What are the odds that two girls who were attracted to you both show up in Lesbos looking for a Hebrew translator?" Oliver asked Jeff.

"What baffles me is that you completely forgot about this incident until just now," Steve stated.

"Yeah, how could you forget something like that?"

Jeff shrugged. "I guess I was interested in all of your going ons that I thought my adventures in Lesbos weren't as important. I mean the great Patrick Maitland is off the market and engaged to be married."

Patrick sucked air through his teeth as he was about to correct Jeff. "That's not technically true."

"Not technically true?" Steve was in disbelief by this. "You've proposed to Sally at least three times now!"

"God love the woman, but she's very peculiar. We're not 'officially' engaged until I give her an 'official' romantic proposal," he air quoted official to further his point.

"And what is her definition of an official romantic proposal exactly?"

"She won't tell me."

"What? Why the bloody hell not?"

"If I know what she wants, then she'll know what's coming and apparently that takes the romance out of it."

"He has a point," Jeff agreed with Patrick's point. "Hey Steve, maybe you could give Patrick some pointers on proposing. How did you propose to Susan?"

Steve set his glass down and began to explain. "Well Sally was supposed to be Patrick's fake wife, but at the last minute he chose Susan over Sally, making Sally jealous. So Sally wanted to use me as her husband to get back at Patrick, but I was a bit…freaked by that. So after Sally introduced me as her husband, I told Susan I loved her and asked her to marry me."

"A bit freaked," Patrick chuckled remembering that event.

"Let me get this straight," Oliver tried to piece everything together, "while Susan's pretending to be Patrick's wife, you propose to her while you're pretending to be Sally's husband because apparently Sally was jealous that Patrick chose Susan over her to be his fake wife." Oliver took a drink. "And I thought me pretending to be my pregnant ex-girlfriend to a complete stranger was weird." The rest of the guys gave him funny looks. "It was over the phone and the stranger turned out to be Susan."

Steve let out a small chortle. "Surprising to say I miss those comical types of events. This is the first time I've been out with you guys in what six months."

"About that," Jeff stated, "but you've got a baby now."

"Yeah," Steve smiled as he thought about his six month old son. "He's a good kid."

Patrick scoffed at that notion. "The little bastard hates me."

"Don't you think you're exaggerating?"

"No! He literally hates me. Every time, every time Sally and I pay a visit, he cries as loud as he can when he's near me. He's done that since day one and he hasn't stopped since. Haven't really gotten the chance to get to know the little bugger."

"You think it's 'cause Joshua knows Patrick once did it with his mum?" Jeff suggested.

Steve gave Jeff his typical 'are you serious' look. "How would a baby know that?"

"Babies can hear Steve. Maybe it heard something about Susan sleeping with Patrick while it was in the womb and put Patrick's voice to his face or something."

"Your theory makes absolutely no sense."

"I think it sounds plausible," Oliver argued. "A similar thing happened in the Overcast comic series. See, Overcast's alter ego Tod Ferguson married his sweetheart Sabrina Handrel—unaware that she was also a superheroine witch named Miss Spell; who even had her own short lived comic series, mind you. Anyway, Sabrina became pregnant with their daughter, Matilda, and while pregnant she was kidnapped by two masked henchmen who worked for a crime lord who went by the moniker Undertow. Undertow held Sabrina captive for a few days before Overcast found the hideaway, defeated the villain, saved his wife, and then admitted to Sabrina who he was regretting the fact Undertow and his masked henchmen got away. Later, Sabrina has the baby and when she and Tod go out in public this bloke named Lou starts trying to make friends with them. Only what's weird is Baby Matilda starts crying whenever Lou's around. It takes time but Tod and Sabrina get the idea that Matilda can sense he's a bad guy. So in issue seventy-three Tod and Sabrina spy on Lou and see him talking to strange looking blokes who in one way or another have ties to Undertow. Lou had been disguising his voice to them and when Sabrina hears his real voice she recognizes Lou as one of the masked henchmen of Undertow."

"Does this have a point Oliver?"

"The point is the baby heard the bad guy's voice in the womb and could recognize who the voice belonged to even when it was disguised."

"Well the kid was the offspring off two superheroes so you could argue that the baby had superpowers," Jeff refuted.

"It's a fan theory," Oliver casually said. "We're still waitin' on later issues for official confirmation."

"Thanks for spoiling that by the way; I just started reading the Overcast comics."

"Nerds," Patrick commentated with small chuckle.

Steve seemed a bit baffled. "What does all that comic crap have to do with the real world?"

"Right," Oliver was now using hand gestures to help prove his point, "s'pose that while in the womb Joshua heard mention of his mum sleeping with Patrick, heard Patrick's voice, and then in the hospital recognized put Patrick's face to the voice."

"Makes sense," Jeff agreed with this theory.

Patrick was recounting on his fingers everything that had been said. "I don't have to remember any of this do I?"

Steve sighed. "Honestly, why do I pal around with you guys?"

"Low standards?"

"That was a rhetorical question Patrick."

"Then why bother to ask it? I can never tell when you're asking real or rhetorical questions so I always answer. You should be used to that by now."

"Can we change the subject now, and yes Patrick that was a real question."

…

Meanwhile at Steve and Susan's flat, Sally and Jane were in the living room while Susan was putting the baby down for a nap. "Sally," Jane broke the silence, "can I be a bridesmaid when you and Patrick get married?"

"Of course you can," Sally replied. "That is if we ever get married."

"He still hasn't properly proposed?"

"Not yet; and I'm getting quite tired of waiting for him to do it," Sally sighed, "I suppose I'm going to have to face facts that Patrick Maitland can't be romantic and will never properly propose."

Susan entered the living room and joined in on the conversation. "He's asked you about three times now hasn't he?"

"But each time it wasn't romantic enough."

"You can't be too peculiar when it comes to proposals you know."

Jane turned to Susan. "How did Steve propose to you?"

"Well…let's just say it was unexpected."

"And that's another problem with Patrick's proposals," Sally vaguely added before continuing on. "I know when he's going to do it and how that it just completely takes away the romantic aspect of it."

"My aren't we picky," Jane commented to Sally as she brushed her hair back. "What exactly is your idea of a romantic proposal then?"

Susan scoffed at this question. "Do not get her started." Susan reached for her drink on the coffee on the table. "She's practically got a book on the subject."

"Do you?"

Sally fidgeted in her seat. "It's more a collection of notes."

"At least thirty pages worth," Susan reminded her. After hearing this, Jane burst into laughter.

Sally shoved Jane. "I'm a hopeless romantic! I can't help that I have ideas of how a proposal should be."

"Shockingly, none of them are repetitious."

Jane was staring at Sally. "Which one is your ideal proposal?"

"Number thirty-six," Susan answered for Sally.

Jane's eyes went wide in humorous amazement. "Thirty-six!?"

"Out of seventy-two and apparently counting."

Uncomfortable, Sally loudly cleared her throat. "Shall we talk about something else?"

"Candles!" Jane abruptly shouted.

"You want to talk about candles?"

"Actually I was going to ask you if your proposal features candles," Jane was twirling her hair, "but sure, let's talk about candles."

Susan shot a confused look at Jane. "Okay, what about candles?"

There was an awkward pause as the women tried to find something to say about candles. "Well," Sally broke the silence, "I like scented candles."

"To answer your question Jane: no," Susan went back to the previous topic of discussion. "Number thirty-six does not feature candles. However, numbers nine, twenty-six, and fifty-eight do."

"Do not," Sally quietly objected.

"I'm sorry, number fifty-seven. Anyway those are the ones I remember. For all I know she might have more. But if anyone has known Sally as long as I have they'd know that she hardly gets rid of anything. So I'm one hundred percent sure that there are at least seventy-two proposal ideas and that three of them involve scented candles."

"I suppose I should be glad that you remember something that personal about me."

"Well I've been your best friend since high school, I suppose I should remember personal things about you."

Sally took a drink from her glass. "I doubt Patrick knows anything so personal about me." Susan just rolled her eyes. "When we got invited to our first couple's party we played a rendition of the Newlywed Game and he didn't get a single thing right about me unless it was sex related."

"Patrick is good at anything sex related."

"I'll say," Jane commentated with a hint of satisfaction in her voice.

Sally shuddered to think of Patrick and Jane being intimate with each other (though it had previously happened before Patrick settled with Sally—and with both Jane and Susan to name a few). Sally then continued on with her complaining. "I got every single question about him right—be it personal or sexual—and he couldn't even answer basic questions about my interests and quirks that well-endowed bastard."

"What were some of the non-sexual questions?" Susan asked.

"If they weren't about certain people like family, friends, or exes then it was mostly questions about interests, habits, quirks, and favorites. He couldn't even get questions about the people right for that matter. In fact; the first question he was asked was what my favorite book was and he looks at me with an eyebrow raised in confusion and whispers 'I didn't know there was going to be a test'." Susan and Jane couldn't help but giggle at that. "I tell him to answer the question and he replies 'I didn't know you read actual books'."

"No!" Susan managed to speak out as Jane kept giggling.

"He still made a guess anyway."

"I'm afraid to ask what he guessed, but God I'm dying to know."

"He said," Sally proceeded to deepen her voice and mock Patrick, "'Sally'd rather watch the movie instead of read the book'."

"Did he really?"

"It is Patrick after all; the man hardly thinks before speaking."

"Is the answer Love Story?" Jane inquired.

"What?"

"Your favorite book? Is it Love Story?"

"Only from a list of the few non Danielle Steel ones," Susan spoke before Sally got a word out. "Valley of the Dolls is a close second, and Madame Bovary and Gone with the Wind tie for third."

"I knew Valley of the Dolls was second but I thought Sally preferred Madame Bovary over Gone with the Wind."

"While Sally prefers the movie version, she still loves the book."

"You know," Sally brought attention to herself before looking at Jane, "Sally is still here; and really Jane, I can't believe you knew that."

"You're obviously a hopeless romantic who loves a love story and I figured Love Story would be your ideal book."

"How did you know about the other three then?"

"I've actually seen you reading them. I am a very observant person you know and I remember what I see."

Susan glared at Jane. "Really?"

"Really."

"Remember when you and I took Joshua to the park? I told you to watch him for not even a full minute while I go to my car, and you thought you lost him."

Sally was shocked. "Jane, did you really lose the baby?"

"No, she just didn't look to her left. I put Joshua in his stroller and put the stroller to Jane's left. Then when Jane sees me coming back she runs and gets someone else's baby."

"You nabbed another baby?"

Jane nervously fidgeted in her seat. "I thought the baby I picked looked closest to Joshua."

"You must not have looked long enough," Susan said to Jane. "You grabbed a baby girl!"

"Her outfit was similar to Joshua's."

"That baby girl was Asian!"

"Yes, but I didn't realize that until after you pointed that out. I don't usually pick out every little detail. Personally, I think babies are ugly little things."

"Good to know Jane."

"Oh, but not Joshua. I think it really helps that Steve is his father."

"Ah."

"I think I'd like to have a baby someday…although I wouldn't quite know what to do with one." Jane made a noise of disgust. "Oh, I hope I don't have an ugly baby."

Susan clapped her hands together. "Let's talk about candles now."

I'm gonna stop here because I had planned on doing this as a scene with the guys, a scene with a girls, and then a longer christening scene but then I decided to save that for next chapter due to what I have planned.

For the record, I made up the comic series Oliver went on about. I figured his character owns a comic book shop so he must read different comics. I'm not really a big comic book geek so I made a comic book series up (that way I wouldn't have to do too much research looking for real comics).

Can anyone else picture Jane wanting a baby but not knowing what to do with it?