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“I’ll take it for now.”

I move back toward the couch and plop down on the opposite side, away from him. He grabs the bottle and holds it out for me to take. I snatch it to refill my glass.

“So…” He twists in my direction. “I have something I want to ask you.”

I take a sip. “Me?”

“It’s kinda personal, so feel free to tell me to piss off.”

I hesitate while I lick the alcohol off my lips. “Okay. Fire away,” I quote him.

His eyes flick toward the bedroom. “How was she…?” He pauses. “You know…”

I wait for him to finish, bobbing my neck forward as the seconds tick by. “How was she… what?”

“Conceived,” he finally says.

“How?” I repeat.

“I mean, I know how stuff works naturally, but not-so-much when it comes from a donor,” he says quickly. “The last time I saw her, she was in a plastic cup.”

“Oh…” I pause, feeling a rush of blood to my cheeks. “You want to know how she went from… the cup to…” I point at my stomach.

“I said it was personal,” he says, raising his hands. “You don’t have to answer. I’m just curious.”

“No, no. It’s fine.” I scratch behind my ear. “It’s a perfectly normal medical procedure. Women do it every day.”

“Was there like… a turkey baster involved at some point or how does that work?”

I laugh awkwardly. “Uh, no. No turkey baster. A needleless syringe, actually.”

He squints, picturing it. “A syringe?”

“Yeah, it’s a little thing.” I hold up my thumb and index finger and extend the distance between them. “Not like little, but… you know, long enough.”

“Okay…” He nods. “So, you’re in a doctor’s office, feet up in the stirrups, and they fill the syringe with… well, me… and then…”

He mimics pushing the needle’s plunger with his thumb.

“That’s one way to do it, yeah,” I say.

He furrows his brow. “But that’s not the way you did it?”

I take another gulp from my drink. “Not exactly. I mean, the steps are the same, but I did it myself. At home. Alone.”

“They let you do that?” he asks.

“Oh, yeah. It’s common. Just have to follow the instructions for thawing it to the letter, which was easy enough. Then, you just fill the syringe, lay down somewhere comfortable…” I raise my glass. “Down about half a bottle of wine…”

He laughs. “I hear that’s how most kids are made, anyway.”

“The actual… insertion was by far the hardest part,” I say, feeling my tongue loosen. “You can’t just squirt and go, you have to do it slowly or else it might spill out and you don’t want that. Shit’s expensive.”

His eyes slip downward for a brief second before he forces them back up. “Makes sense,” he says.

“Then, you just…” I bite down, stopping myself.

He leans forward. “Then, what?”