A Holly Jolly Ever After

by Julie Murphy

I want to be the dad who’s around, ya know? I don’t want to be the kind of dad who’s just there for the big recitals or the important games. I want the little stuff. I want to know their friends and which kids at the lunch table are punk-ass bitches.” Bee made a heart with her hands. “I think I want babies.” Nolan took her hand and began to stand up with a sly grin on his face. “Not, like, right this moment,” she said with a laugh.

“So your pizza,” Lenny said as he typed in the door code. “It’s not that Chicago shit, right? People in LA want their pizza to be gluten-free, taste-free, and with a sprinkle of microgreens and Twitter threads or whatever on top.”

“The location’s good, though.” He shrugged. “If it’s a commercial listing in LA and it’s not structurally compromised and there’s not a rodent problem, the location is prime.”

And sure, Winnie wasn’t ready for me. But I was building a life for us . . . and I would be here, serving up pies, when she was ready.

“Oh my God,” Kallum breathed, his eyes glued to the screen. “And that’s really the baby? Right now? That’s what the baby is doing right now?” The baby was doing nothing but kicking its legs right into my cervix, but Kallum looked like he was watching his firstborn paint the Sistine Chapel inside my uterus. “Look at them kicking!” he said excitedly, pointing. “You can even see their toes! And oh my God, is that their heart? Their tiny, little heart? Doing tiny, little heartbeats?” “Sure is,” the tech said, with the fond air of someone who’d listened to many parents squeal over shit she saw for eight hours a day every day. “Oh, honey,” she said, reaching back to hand Kallum one of the tissues they kept for wiping the ultrasound gel off my stomach. “Here you are.” He took the tissue but still wiped at his eyes with the sleeves of his Royals T-shirt. “Thank you. It’s my first time.”

And it had nothing to do with the baby, or maybe it had everything to do with the baby, but he was so tall and handsome sitting there in the chair, the tissue looking so small in those lumberjack-size hands, which could so easily hold a newborn or the handle of a car seat or assemble a crib, and then he’d look over at me with those shining eyes, his face open in wonder, and I would think about how easily he gave of himself, of his own feelings, his own vulnerability. How easy it was for him to be kind, to give me coats or custom pizzas or lap dances, to bestow those gifts of time or care or playfulness so freely, without ever expecting anything in return.

“It’s more than okay. And my nursery is going to be pizza-themed anyway.”

We have way too many boys in the family right now. Do you know about the triplets, Winnie? Has Kallum told you? They’re like the triplets from Brave, except they’re always in their bear forms. It’s terrifying.”

“Yeah,” Topher said, “you peed so much when you got here. Like so much. I’m worried you’re going to look like the guy at the end of Last Crusade, you know? The old guy who drinks from the fake Holy Grail and then looks like a mummy?” “Sometimes,” said Kallum, who’d gone to get me a bottle of water from the refrigerated case behind the battered counter, “I wonder why you don’t have someone you’re dating. And then you open your mouth.”

“She’s kicking!

mobile for the baby’s crib that had dangling pizza slices. (“It’s custom,” Kallum had told me proudly. “From an Etsy store. It even plays the Slice, Slice, Baby jingle when you turn it on.”)

“It would have been epic,” he pronounced with solemnity. “He would have been a pizza emperor! But it would have meant a lot of time away from you and the bambino, so he couldn’t do it. He told that tank of sharks no thank you, and decided he’d expand whatever way would give him the most time with the baby. And you.” And you.

I’d been so afraid to give him grace because so many people in my life had been grace-eaters—they’d devour any grace I’d given them and still needed more and more, endlessly, eternally. But Kallum devoured nothing. He gave and gave and he tried.

I’d hired a staff of twelve, and they were all on the schedule today. They were good and smart and hardworking and way too young to give a shit about INK, which was for the best. “Okay, team, I’m not very good at inspirational speeches,” I said as I eyed the digital clock on the wall. “But I am great at pizza and so are the rest of you. Our only job today is to make people happy with great food. It’s going to be a little chaotic, so just take it easy. Ask for help when you need it. Don’t let customers bully you, because in this house, the customer isn’t always right.” That got a few dry laughs. “I might be from the Midwest, but I have a no-jerk policy.”

The Pizza Commandments: Don’t like it? Let us fix it. Pineapple? Ranch? Eat your pizza how you want it. No pizza shaming zone. NO JERKS.

Once their pies were ready, I brought them back myself to find Dad absolutely charmed with Bee while he told her embarrassing stories about me and Nolan in the height of puberty. “You gotta shut your old man up,” Nolan said as I placed his favorite, pepperoni and banana peppers, down in front of him. I smirked. “Dad, don’t forget to tell her about the time Nolan got drunk at homecoming and peed in Mom’s birdbath.” Dad slapped his hand to his chest, laughing so hard he was wheezing. “He did what now?” Mom asked in shocked disgust. “In my birdbath?”

“Now, go make some dough!” she said with a wink. “Ma! Look at you with the pun.” She grinned. “Don’t you forget where all that charm and humor comes from. It certainly isn’t your dad.”

“No, I—I need you to shut up. Because I have to just get this out and all I want to do is kiss you.” She took another deep breath as I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I wanted space, but not anymore. You gave me what I asked for and somehow still found a way to be here for me and the baby. You gave me what I needed without any obligation or expectations. You loved me, Kallum. You loved me in the exact way I needed.”

There on one of my own pizzas was i’m sorry spelled out in pepperonis. She was the perfect woman for so many reasons, but damn, she knew how to speak my language.

“I’m Mom or Bubbie Jo,” my mom whispered. “And that bozo back there is Dad or Poppy.” “Or Josephine and Jacob are fine,” I said.

Winnie had a family now. She always would.

“Teddy, you ignorant slut,” Sunny panted as she used the toe of her platformed Mary Jane shoe to kick a diaper box closer to the wall. “This is only the beginning.”

Teddy stared at what had to be tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of diapers. “Don’t worry about it?” “I don’t ask how you’re paying for dinner,” answered Sunny. “Come on, or they’re going to eat all of Bee’s pimento cheese dip without us.” And there was very little Teddy could say to that, because he did really like Bee’s pimento cheese dip.

Ah, unrequited love. The drug that hit the hardest, even in one’s late forties.

“I didn’t think the baby in question usually came to the baby shower,” Teddy remarked as he sat down on a chair behind Addison, and she spun around and glared at him. “Excuse you, this is a sip-and-see.” “What?” “You sip,” said Addison, gesturing at the mocktails and cocktails bar set up against the far window and clearly very irritated at having to explain something so basic. “And then you see. You see the baby. It’s in the name.”

“Would you like to hold her?” Winnie asked. “We sort of see her as your movie goddaughter, you know. Because she wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you and Santa, Baby.” Teddy’s chin hurt because it was quivering so hard below his mustache, and he knew everyone could see how many times he had to swallow before he could speak. “I’d love to hold my movie goddaughter,” he told Winnie gruffly and accepted the blue-swaddled baby burrito into his arms.

made parents remember they were raising their little humans to be the most interesting and curious and kind people they could possibly be. People that they would be happy and grateful to share the world with.

He bought the duke mansion in Christmas Notch.” Now Teddy was interested too. “He bought what now?” “You know, the mansion,” Kallum said as he folded the onesie against his stomach with admirable expertise. “Up in the mountains? Where Bee and Nolan shot the duke movies? He said he wanted a place to hide that had less sunshine than Cali.”

“Aw, man, he’s even downsizing Krysta out of the picture?” Kallum asked. “She’s amazing. She’s like Brienne of Tarth, but maybe without the heart of gold part. Actually, I think her heart might be made of gunmetal and ice.” “Hot,” Sunny and Bee said at the same time.

“Hmm,” mused Addison, and years of messy adult film drama had trained Teddy to recognize that tone of voice. It was a tone of voice that said something incredibly chaotic was about to happen.

Teddy stood and carried Grace into the kitchen, where he deployed his proprietary sway-pat-hum combo.

“My ex-wife used to call me the fuss-buster,” he replied. “But really, it’s all in the baby psychology. A uterus is a noisy and constantly moving place. You just have to make the baby feel like they’re back inside their old home again.”

Steph’s hand came up to twirl at her pearls. Teddy would have said that she looked nervous, except he didn’t know if Steph D’Arezzo had ever been nervous a day in her life.

I want more than sporadic moments when we’re in the same town. I want moments on purpose. I want you on purpose.”

Thank you so much for joining us on this chaotic sleigh ride of a book; thank you to everyone who asked for Pizza Daddy Kallum to get his own book; thank you for coming with us to a little town where everyone gets to have their own happy, horny holiday adventure. We promise no actual pizza daddies were injured in the making of this book.