Page 30 of Don't You Want Me, Baby?

‘I did, and what’s more, I don’t regret it. I’ve decided, I’m going to do it.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah! Why not? You know what they say, drunk people always show their true intentions.’

‘When they pee off the side of buildings or arrange booty calls,yeah! Especially after a break-up. Have you spoken to Tyler about this?’

She felt the pang when her friend mentioned his name. That was the one thing that was bothering her the most about this. She’d been getting closer to Tyler but he didn’t want kids. There was no point in trying to force another relationship to fit her plans. At least, this way, they could just get over their weirdness. Go back to being friends again, eventually. She thought of his stricken face, the way he reached for her. The tingle she’d felt when her body wanted to fold itself into his. If only to rid him of that look. Feel his arms around her before things changed yet again. She really did need to book that ECG; her heart flip-flopping was getting a bit much.

‘Amber! Are you still hungover or what? Your eyes have glazed over.’

‘Sorry! Sorry.’ She shook herself out of her inner debate. ‘What were you saying?’

‘I was saying that you need to take a break, before you decide your next big life move. People need a minute to recover from stuff like this, Amb. Cutting their ex’s clothes up or keying their car, maybe. Even getting under another man to get over the one who broke your heart I can roll with. This is extreme. You don’t decide to have a baby the same fortnight and order the… the… juice! I mean, I’ve ordered drunk before. Remember that life-sized cardboard cutout of Clint Eastwood I ordered after that time we drank Pernod?’

‘Yeah.’ Amber laughed at the memory. ‘I also remember your disappointment because you meant to order his son.’

‘Exactly. It was a mistake!’

‘You also kept him. He’s still in your closet. We freaked your neighbours out last Halloween pretending to cut his head off in the window.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Sharon laughed, distracted from her rant. ‘Iwondered why his head was taped together.’ She shook her head like a wet dog. ‘That’s not the point. My point is people don’t just decide to have a baby on a drunken whim.’

‘Shazza, half the people we know were probably the result of a drunken whim. I told you, I want to be a mum. Just because I don’t bang on about it 24/7 doesn’t mean it’s not there. Not everyone plans a baby; it’s not like I went out and found some random penis!’

Bill came to the bar at precisely the wrong moment. ‘I didn’t hear that. Usual, Sharon my lovely.’

‘Sorry Bill.’ Amber blushed.

When he was safely back in his seat, pint in hand, she tried to explain.

‘Listen, yeah, sure. It was a kneejerk reaction to finding out about what Brad was up to, but it’s not something I haven’t thought about before. A lot. I had the site bookmarked on my laptop. I’ve been reading parenting blogs for the past two years. My biological clock was ticking like a bomb long before my birthday. Bradley and I talked about it when we were together. I’m thirty. I have no man.’ She paused, thinking of how good she felt when Tyler was around. ‘After possibly wasting the last year of it, I don’t want to join the dating pool again. I don’t have the time or the heart for it. Besides, it’s 2024. I don’t need a father for my child. I never knew mine, not really.’

‘Yeah,’ Sharon said with a pained look on her face, ‘and your mother went from one bloke to the rest, trying to find someone to share her life with for the rest of hers and left you behind.’ Her face fell. ‘Shit. Sorry. You know I didn’t mean it like that, but?—’

‘But it’s true,’ Amber rebuffed, Sharon’s comment stinging her a lot more than she let on. Thinking of her mother always did that. ‘She did, and my grandparents had the kind of storybook marriage that all the love songs are written about.’

‘And Tyler?’

‘What about Tyler?’ Amber whispered. ‘We haven’t even kissed. Sure, we’ve flirted, but he doesn’t want kids. He hasn’t even said he wants a relationship, and it’s too hard. We’re good friends. I don’t want to lose that. He’s leaving, so in a few months, it will be a moot point anyway. I’ve seen both sides of the coin, Shaz. I choose not to flip it any more.’

‘Flip what?’ Ben asked as he rounded the corner.

‘Nothing.’ Amber glared at Sharon to shut up. ‘Just chatting, you know.’

‘Cool. Tyler said we need to put an order in for those steaks again from the butcher. We’re nearly out. He’s also in a raging mood again, so heads up if you cross his path.’ He filled two glasses with ice and coke before heading off again.

‘If you’re so happy about your little plan, why not tell Ben, eh?’ Sharon folded her arms in a ‘huh?’ move.

‘Don’t fold your arms like that at me!’ Amber laughed. So, Tyler was still mad then. Well, so was she – so they were a pair of snarling bookends. Fine by her. ‘There’s nothing to tell yet, is there? It might not even work.’

‘Or you daren’t tell your best friend you didn’t cancel the order.’ Sharon snorted over her shoulder as she headed down the bar. ‘Because you know he’ll try to talk you out of it. You two need to talk; you make my heart spin.’

Luckily, Sharon was too busy to see her wince. She was right on the money on that one. Tyler was going to pitch an absolute fit when she told him she hadn’t changed her mind. Plus, she didn’t want the two of them joining forces in some kind of baby intervention. She was already stewing over Sharon’s comments about the family she was born into. It was true, she had seen both happy and sad. Her grandparents really had been two souls very much in love, even when death had parted them. Stroking the glass photo frame on the back bar wall, she looked at her smiling grandparents andsighed. ‘I wish you guys were here. You’d be happy for me, right?’ She was still looking at the snap when she heard a smash from the kitchen, and Tyler’s irritated growl reverberate through the place. ‘Time to get out of here,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Try and salvage some of my sanity.’

‘Jasmine, put that down! Jasmine! I swear, this kid!’

Amber watched the mother in the park chuntering to herself as she sped over to a toddler. Presumably Jasmine, who was currently eating dirt with a huge grin on her face. Watching her mother scold her, pulling wipes out of her bag to deal with her mud-smeared face, she waited for the panic to set in.Will my kid eat dirt? Will I be able to deal with it? Will I have the wipes at the ready?

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