TOW the peanut butter

                                    

                                          
Rachel stared disgruntled at the colorful picture in the pregnancy book she was reading. 'How to eat for two. Your diet during your pregnancy.' On the picture were tons of fruit and vegetables she was supposed to eat, milk and cheese, eggs and fish. She had never been opposed to eating healthily, on the contrary, but looking at all that healthy food on the picture made her long for a fat-dripping pizza and a big chocolate milk shake.
It were probably these cravings – and the fact that living at Joey's provided her with ample opportunity to eat like that – that had led to her putting on weight again so her OB-GYN was very satisfied. She even felt great, well, at least noticeably better than she had while living at Ross's.
Things seemed to have become easier between her and Joey. They knew how to be around each other again, they kept the tone light and friendly. Neither of them dared to touch the dark subject lingering beyond the shiny surface. Neither of them wanted to risk another incident like the one that had led to her spending two days in the hospital.
She closed the book with a sigh and looked over to Joey, who was fussing around in the kitchen.
"Rach, do you know where that thing is that goes into the top of the blender?"
Shaking her head she replied, "No, haven't seen it."
"Ah, whatever," Joey shrugged, "how important can that be?"
Her eyes went wide, while in her head she already saw the contents of the blender flying around the whole apartment.
"STOP, Joey!"
He looked up at her quizzically. "What?"
"Trust me, it's very important," she said while getting up from the couch and walking over to him to help him look. When she stood next to him and peeked into the blender, she couldn't help being enticed by the smell that emanated from whatever he had in there. "Mhhm, what is that? It smells delicious."
"It's going to be a peanut butter smoothie, but not until I found that ... ah, here it is."
He held up the item in question victoriously and then put in where it belonged.
"Can I have some?" she asked.
Joey chuckled. "Rach, not that I don't want to give you some, but you know you hate peanut butter."
"I... know but right now... peanut butter sounds really good all of a sudden."
Joey's smile widened. "Let's try something."
He took a spoon, took some peanut butter out of the jar and handed the spoon to Rachel. She hesitated a bit before putting it into her mouth, remembering how she always hated the fat, sticky texture of it, but it was like it called out to her. She tasted it carefully but then the rich flavor exploded in her mouth and her eyes almost rolled back into her head with appreciation.
"Mmhhhm... that tastes so great... can I have some more?" she asked eagerly and Joey grinned even more broadly.
"What is so funny?"
"Nothing," he smiled, "only that my daughter is making you eat peanut butter."
While she savored the feeling of another spoonful of peanut butter dissolving in her mouth, a question she had meant to ask him a long time ago popped into her brain again.
"How did you know it was a girl anyway?"
Joey grinned mischievously. "I knew what I made."
She couldn't resist rolling her eyes at that. "Joe..."
"I had a feeling," he admitted, looking down at his hands as if that was something embarrassing. "And I... I sort of wished it would be a girl."
She gaped at him for a while before she found her voice again, "But you said it from the minute you'd known I was pregnant."